October Trip

Well, this month’s travel was uneventful. Duane, Evert and I left Friday the 23rd for Haiti. We arrived at the hospital midafternoon on Saturday and were able to start planning for our week’s projects. Sunday Duane and I went to Renault with the Wrays and Evert visited a local church with one of our Haitian construction team members and our CSL administrator Welser. We spent the afternoon at the Wrays for a very delicious lunch and a round of Golf. Yes, I said Golf…. The Wrays have a putter course laid out on their yard. We are not golfers, however it is a lot of fun. I think Katie was the winner!

We had a very busy week planned. We had two to three hours a day planned for meetings with various people, a few maintenance issues to be dealt with, and several construction projects to prepare for, as we have teams coming in November, December and January.

Last month on Monday morning we had a sewer pipe plug. After several attempts we got it somewhat opened but felt there was something stuck in the pipe near the septic tank. This same issue happened about a year and a half ago, so we decided we should install a clean out near the septic tank. The problem is this tank is underneath a storage building. A hole needed to be made in the floor and the pipe found. We left this for our construction and maintenance guys to do during our absence. They found a pipe 7 feet down (all rock and gravel) and tunneled 11 feet before figuring out it was the wrong pipe. It took a day and a half to find the right pipe and get it opened up to a point where we could install the clean out and un-plug the pipe. Seems it is never easy.

The money situation continues to be a struggle there. The exchange rate has been 120 Gourdes to a US dollar. In the last two months the rate is now 62.5 to 1, causing everything we do to double in cost. The Haitian government also raised their minimum wage, which is causing us to try and figure out how to comply .

We have five construction projects started: a new Dental Clinic, a new Pediatric Ward, remodeling the old Dental Clinic for USAID, door and frame replacement for almost 100 doors, and roof upgrade and equipment room for the Solar system. We have several teams coming to help and our construction team is already hard at work. We moved the dental staff into their new building last week and the others are being worked on. There is a lot to do and we couldn’t even begin without the support we receive, be it monetary, giving up your time (and money) to come to CSL, or your prayers. We are so thankful for the support we receive.

We are thankful that Dr. Bill has returned home from his latest surgery. Please keep him in your prayers while he recovers. He continues to guide us as we work to improve the tools the staff have to work with and the training the staff is receiving to improve the service we supply. We are so happy to see the progress that is being made, with Dr. William completing his Surgical program, adding Dr. Lamy doing Orthopedic Surgery, and the new staff in the Physical Therapy area. There is a huge increase in the number of people being treated at CSL. This creates more opportunities for them to hear the Gospel as well.

Again, this year we would like to promote our Rice and Goat Fund. Dr. Bill started doing this at Christmas time as a way for our staff to have a Christmas gift. Also, we are raising money for our Solar system, and are happy to currently have someone willing to match up to 25,000 dollars. Please consider supporting this project as well. You can send gifts to us at the following address:

CSL

C/O Dan Boerman

2632 28th St. SW

Wyoming, MI 49519

 

In His Service,    Dan, Duane and Evert