Hi All:

Once again, the week is slipping by and I need to get an update out for all of you who encourage and pray for us, a great blessing that we don’t take for granted. I spoke with Karen last night and she shared that, once again, I had picked a good week to absent myself from the ice, snow and cold, as she didn’t get out with the weather yesterday much and even the cats decided that exploring the great outdoors was not a wise course to embark on. So, very thankful that I get a week to literally sweat in my work while escaping a week of the chills and white stuff of Michigan. Karen and I had the opportunity of spending the Friday before my departure with Ido and Henrietta Kerpel, who now make their home in Alberta, Canada, also a place of chilly winters. We first met them on our initial trip to Haiti in early 2000, as they worked at Double Harvest, heading up the farm projects (teaching the Haitians to rotate crops and how best to get higher yields from their small plots of land, a great project that I liked to watch as I grew up on a farm and have always appreciated that type of work, plus we could have a steady supply of fresh vegetables to enjoy during our time there). Ido came to Haiti over 30 years ago, like so many Dutch individuals, including my own parents, for which I am very grateful, seeking to find a better life for themselves as the Netherlands is a great place, but cramped for space and thus opportunities for advancement at times are limited. Henrietta came from Canada and lived with MEBSH staff in the Cayes area for years and thus had many friends in the area before getting married to Ido and working in Port and later in Croix des Bouquets at Double Harvest with their 3 children. We became close friends when I started working in the medical/surgical department at Double Harvest and remained on great terms even when I transferred to Centre de Sante Lumiere in 2004 and I often would spend an evening with them in transit back to the US when time permitted. So, we had a delightful evening sharing what had happened in our respective lives since our times in Haiti, sharing a meal and exploring thoughts for the future, as Ido is an electrician who is at present working in Ontario on a large solar electrical project and has ideas of how this could possibly work in Cayes to help reduce our dependence on the very unreliable country electricity as well as our generators, which at present run well but fuel is often hard to get because of the protests, as they try to cripple the already tottering economy to voice their dissatisfaction with the lack of help they perceive the government owes them. We enjoyed our time until the late hours, the next day we went to the Vander Veen’s Dutch Store in Grand Rapids, where I think they could have spent longer than they did with lots of interesting things for us Dutch boys and girls to consider.

The same afternoon, I left for Haiti. My flights to Miami went well, thankfully, and I met up with Luke when he arrived there at 5:30 am for our flight together to Haiti. Unfortunately, he came in on the 3rd leg of a flight from Montana through Los Angeles, and his suitcase didn’t catch up with him. We left the ever gracious Jean Eddy behind with enough cash for the bribes needed to get the suitcase (even with the proper papers, often one still has to lubricate the wheels to get them to move at a snail’s pace), and he came later in the day behind us with the prized luggage in tow.

Our trip to the hospital went well and surgery clinic moved quickly with both Luke and I working with four of our Haitian doctors and the ever helpful Beth Newton. On my last Sunday in the US, Jim Heist, a friend from church, asked if I had had occasion to use the external fixation devices he had made for me on his lathe with the help of Dan Boerman preparing the metal so it won’t rust out so fast in the humid climate here, as we reuse our equipment. I told him I hadn’t had the opportunity yet but likely would in the near future. Luke and I were starting breakfast early Monday morning when the guard ran to the door and said there was an emergency case with “cartridges.” My Creole is limited and I hadn’t the sense to figure out that this meant he was shot several times, as it turns out, with a 44 at close range. He was a local bus driver who was robbed at gunpoint as he started his transport for the day’s work. This sort of violence is becoming more of a problem as disgruntled people are stirring up others with their perceived “rights/entitlements” as we near the proposed elections in the next few months. Thus, after Luke, Moise, William and I did the little cleft lip on a baby I had seen a few months before at 2 days of age, we used our most wonderful, impressive, made to order external fixation device to put together the chunks of shattered bone that used to be his tibia. It took a bit of adjustment, as I had to wing it in the OR and then take him to the xray department to check my alignment. We don’t have such luxuries as a C arm to take xrays on the spot, but he looks good and am praying that the bone fragments will heal in the months to come. We did 16 cases on Monday, a good start to the week, then will see how the rest of the week plays out. We have a bunch of cases lined up by our friends from Holy Redeemer Church in Missouri, headed by Joe Rudolph, M.D. and the church adminstrator, Harry Bahr. They ran a clinic last week about 45 minutes up the road and told these patients to come, which we appreciate. It is fun to coordinate our efforts and help each other care for those less fortunate than we. Tuesday and Wednesday have been quite busy with some more difficult cases, but we are thankful that they seem to be making good progress.

William and I spent a while tonight piecing together the face of one and the foot another motorcyclist who had accidents and rather severe cases of road burn embedded with gravel on their exposed areas. Helmets would help cases like this face injury, as the patient had torn his lip loose from the lower aspect of his nose, as well as making mush of his left lower eyelid and eyebrow/forehead. I may need to do some revisions in the future, depending on how it heals. So, will head for my bed (Luke sleeps in a hammock on the back porch, it apparently is like a sealed outfit so he does not become mosquito fodder). I prefer my mosquito net in the house, but we are getting along quite well from my standpoint. Will let him give his own opinion.

Thanks for praying for us and supporting us.

In His Service, Bill and Luke