I'm going to jump ahead to the end to say: IT IS RAINING!! It has been so hot this week and the air has been so still. We are thankful for the mist and the breeze. We spent the day at St. Marc and saw over 100 children for their school physicals. We also had the opportunity to see several follow ups from last week and they are looking great! We feel so blessed that God has provided for our students! We continue to pray for the kids we have seen and for those that we will be seeing in the coming week. Today we had the opportunity to take sutures out of a pre-schooler's eyebrow. He told Nick: "You do me wrong, you are not my friend, I am all finished." over and over again...at the top of his lungs. After Jameson, Nick, Devin, and Pam held him down and took the sutures out he calmed down in Emily's arms. His mama came and told us that she thought the sutures were disolvable. We are so glad that we had the opportunity to take them out, because they were not dissolvable sutures and it is possible that they still would have been there in February when the next team came. After a long day of physicals, half of our team went to Pierre Payan Hospital to take a tour. We saw the Operating Rooms, the Maternity Ward, and the In-Patient Ward. We all found ourselves humbled by what can be done here in Haiti. We were amazed to learn that they have very few post-operative infections. We are so thankful for the missionaries who live in Haiti and the teams that come in and provide for this population. We were reminded today that 50% of Haiti practices Voodoo which was a driving force for us to continue to serve these people and tell every child "Jezi renmen ou" (Jesus Loves You). Today was Maude's (our fabulous cook) birthday! The team celebrated with her by making a card (Thanks Rachel) and baking her a banana bread/cake (Thanks Sabine and Heather). She was so surprised and it made us all smile. We are so appreciative of her and were glad to be able to celebrate with her! Alison and Emily spent the morning wandering the school finding children who still needed their school pictures taken. By the end I would say that they were finding kids with ease! The students love when their cards have their pictures on them. They come up and point to the picture so that you know it is them! Kem decided not to do hemoglobins today because the kids didn't like her yesterday! To make up for the kiddos at Chardene thinking she was evil for poking their fingers, she spent the day doing snap chat filters with the kids. Shari took over the unfortunate job of poking fingers and checking hemoglobins. After Kathy checked their feet, they would scoot over to play with the snap chat filters before getting their vision screened! Kathe spent her day assessing and cleaning ears. She also had the opportunity to hold down our screaming kid with the sutures; that was a team effort. Jeff continued to do height and weight with the kids. They get so excited to come up and give him a high five and stand nice and tall when it's time to get their height. The kids LOVE Papa Jeff. Rene decided not to check feet today ;) She felt her talents would be better used to collect kids from their classes since she knows where they belong and she doesn't need a translator! Joey and Rachel were busy all day! They always finds something to do! Jameson and Nick have been forgetting to initial their charts and so Joey came up with the idea to give them each a different colored pen. Now we just need to remember that Jameson is blue and Nick is purple! When Deb is not crying about not having an iPhone or the ability to "air bomb", she is becoming a pro at flushing ears.
Overall, it has been a great day! We are enjoying the music coming from the kitchen as Kitchen Karaoke is in full swing while we watch the storm brew over the ocean! God truly is a wonderful creator and we can't help but to see the beauty in his work! Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers!
