Christmas Newsletter

Duane and I made it safely home from Haiti on Friday, December 17. We had really felt the need to make a trip there before Christmas. Besides the situation in Haiti, we have had other obligations and dealings with Covid that have prevented us from going earlier. Because of the holidays, American Airlines has direct flights to Miami, making for an easy one-day travel to the hospital. We had several goals to accomplish this trip: a review of the treatments given after the earthquake, the Rice and Goat program, employee’s damaged homes, and an administration program.

We are very happy with our response to the earthquake. Every one of our staff have worked very hard doing their jobs and/or helping to fill in where needed. Considering everything we have endured this year with the passing of Dr. Bill, Miss Corrine, and Welser, along with the unrest in Haiti and the assassination of their president, and then the earthquake in August, they have done an awesome job. The fact that Samaritan’s Purse was comfortable working with us speaks volumes. The staff deserve a huge thank you!

Last week we still had 4 patients recovering in the in-patient area, and we think these are the last of the earthquake victims that we will see. We have done almost 300 hundred major surgeries and have treated hundreds of others. The list is long and incomplete as we sometimes didn’t even get the names of those we treated during the first few days. We were overwhelmed being the only hospital fully operating in Southern Haiti after the earthquake, and still have some catching up to do. Praise God for your generous donations, enough to cover all the bills!

Last week the Rice and Goats funds were distributed. Each of the staff received a nice Christmas present – a chicken, money for a bag of rice, and enough money to buy a goat or two, depending on their level of income. Dr. Bill always gifted more to the lower paid staff, and we did the same this year. A total of 131 staff received proceeds through this fund. Because of the unrest and instability of the area, we gave mostly money rather than risk problems trying to make distributions. Thank you for blessing our staff with your donations!

We have 9 staff members whose homes were damaged from the earthquake. Five were destroyed, and the others suffered minor to major damage. We have struggled with how best to help with some of the damage. How do we get involved and not be held responsible for sound repairs or injuries related to the repairs? We have decided the wisest course is to provide each homeowner with $2,000 up front and let them be responsible for hiring contactors for the repairs. We have been blessed with a couple of donations totaling $20,000 designated for this. The homeowners have been instructed to turn in before and after photos and all receipts once their $2,000 is used up to receive more money from the building fund. We have a remaining balance of $4,000. If you would like to support us in repairing these homes, please put a note on your donation designating to this effort.

Welser left a big hole when he died in October. He was a special person who we loved and trusted. We are blessed to have a few like him, but he had a lot of responsibilities. We went into this trip asking God to show us the direction He wanted us to take to fill Welser’s position. We had identified 3 possible options, each having their pros and cons. We tried to go into the process with an open mind; however, I will admit that I had ranked our options by what I viewed as the best to worst. We talked with several of the staff to hear what they had to say and received some input from our board member at the hospital. We got the same answer after every interview and phone call. And though it wasn’t what I had viewed as the best option, it was clear that this was the path the Lord wanted us to take. By the end of the week, we had very clear answers of how to proceed, which we will do under the watchful eye of Dr. Moise. We promoted our accountant Manekins to administrator, our secretary Shansley to accountant, and hired as our new secretary an interpreter that we have frequently used. Please pray for us as we work through this process.

Cleaning Ladies

We are planning a mid-January trip to start the installation of the solar system. Please pray that this will go well.

Thank you for your continued support. We hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a blessed New Year!

Dan with Duane