Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A few Haiti updates

Hi all,

Thanks to all who have volunteered to help with the data entry!  We still have a bunch more, so if you're interested please let me know.


I'm attaching a couple of photos that were sent by Sister Fidelis.  This is her guest house which is well underway.  They are hoping to finish sometime in the late winter or early spring at this point.  It will be a two story building on her property up in the mountain village of Ferye.  This is really exciting!!! One of the photos shows the view from the guest house veranda.  Very pretty spot.

Also, Sister Fidelis and her community in Pestel recently celebrated 10 years of her commitment to and life in Haiti!!!   Congratulations Sister Fidelis!   We all rejoice with you and we would not even know about Pestel, Haiti if it were not for your persistent concern and care for Nelson, the boy who received a heart valve replacement.  

We simply do not know how God might wish to use even our smallest faithful responses.  


Yesterday I met with my Chair to explore with him something I'd like to do:   I want to recruit some of our family medicine faculty to work with an organization, Heart to Heart International, in Haiti.   It's a fantastic, well-organized group that provides ongoing care in Leogane, Haiti....the city at the epicenter of the earthquake.  I met with them in September and was very impressed.  The purpose of recruiting them to Haiti is many-fold, including care for the underserved, increase interest among faculty in helping Haitians, and....in preparation in order to bring the Global Health Scholars Program to Haiti.   I would like to do this in 2012, if possible.  The scholars (about 3-4) would likely spend 2 weeks with faculty in Leogane in the clinical setting, organized by Heart to Heart International.  Then they would spend another 10 days or so with me in Pestel in the community health setting.  In that way they would get a really robust experience, while contributing over time to the people of Pestel.

My Chair enthusiastically supports the idea.  He definitely thinks it's a good idea.  It's one thing to get the green light...but it's quite another to get enthusiastic support with the green light.

:)

Ben

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