Mission Trip Report - 26 January thru 3 February 2017







Overall Missions Goal: Serve God’s beloved poor.

   ​Club Foot Surgery Patient
    ​One of the first patients we sent to the CCH clinic in Jamel was a little girl that we have been tracking with clubfoot since she was a little baby. The surgery took place two weeks before our trip.
  1. During this trip she returned to our clinic and our doctors got to see the patient.
  2. The patient had a cast on her foot, so she was not up and walking yet, but you could tell that she and her mother were very happy to have been cared for.
  3. We praise God for the work He has done and sing of His holy name.
   Future Surgery Teams and Upcoming Clinic in Nearby Cities
  1. ​With the wonderful connections God has given to use with other teams coming to cities (2-3 hours away) we have found we are capable of accomplishing much. However in order to do so we must plan way ahead and do much coordination.
  2. One of the big things we were working on during this mission was to create lists of patients that were to go to these upcoming clinics. As patients came to our clinic, we would talk to them about going for surgery in later February or March at one of these clinics.
  3. We also went through our 350 page referral binder and found other patients that fit the upcoming clinics. We organized all these lists and provided them to Father, the nurse, and the Health Care Workers.
  4. They were very happy to have the help with this and committed to doing everything they could to support our patients during these upcoming clinics.
   Medical clinic/pharmacy
  1. God blessed us this trip with 4 providers, 2 pharmacists, and 3 nurses.
  2. The team was absolutely wonderful. 
  3. Clinic Results/Numbers totals were about 1146 patients that went through our 4 days of clinic. 
   Dental clinic and extractions     
  1. For this trip we had all 5 members of the Haitian dental team.
  2. We also had our Haitian dentist leader…Dr. Peterson as usual.
  3. Fran Grebel from St. Louis also joined us on the trip as our much needed hygienist. 
  4. The total numbers are as follows for this trip:           
​            Total Patients about 275
            Repairs 37
            Extractions 208
            Cleanings 110
     
       ​5. ​Last Trip
   
           ​ Total Patients about 400
            Repairs 39
            Extractions 353
            Cleanings 82
       6. We believe the dental numbers were down due to the fact that this trip the Haitian dental team brought two of their team members that were not done with
           ​dental school yet.
       7. One was able to do cleanings and some dental procedures.
       8. The other was utilized by the team to clean instruments and prepare patient trays. This member of the team was extremely good at what she did and she did not
            ​let the dentist rest. As soon as one patient was done she was giving them the try for the next patient.
       9. This trip the Haitian dental team asked us to bring them a new dental unit and to deduct its cost from their payment and we did this, see the pictures above.

​​   New Eye Clinic
  1. For years now, Father and the people have been begging us to bring an eye doctor on our trips.
  2. We have tried to find an eye doctor in the USA to go with us, but we have not been able to make it happen just yet. This trip, we were able to hire a Haitian eye doctor to come with us.
  3. Dr. Eddy brought all his own equipment. We simply supplied him with some eye medications and some free eyeglasses, which were donated by the Lion’s Club.
  4. Dr. Eddy was the hardest working guy we have seen. He saw patients without stopping from morning until night. He worked later each night than anyone else in the clinic. He was very organized and efficient.
  5. We are so excited to have made this connection.
  6. We would still like a USA doctor to go with us, but we would like the USA doctor to work with Dr. Eddy because he is able to break through so many language barriers and able to deal with the culture so well.
  7. We thank God for the wonderful people He has made and connected to us.
   Nurse/Health Care Worker Needs ​​
  1. Our nurse, Germain, has been asking for a megaphone for several years now. She would like to use it when she does mobile clinics and trainings. We provided her with one during this trip.
  2. She has also asked for more secure doors on the permanent clinic. We were able to do this while the fabricators were in Gandou doing the church doors.
  3. The healthcare workers have requested cell phones to help when they are organizing patients and taking them down the mountain. We had Father purchase these for Rigaud and Oscal.
    Water Station
  1. In the past we have had patients wait all day in the sun without anything to eat or drink.
  2. On the past trip Susan finally said we need to provide these people with some water.
  3. This trip Ed helped us to purify some water and provide it to the people waiting in the patient waiting area to drink. 
  4. Everyone felt this all worked extremely well.
   Generator Needs/Maintenance Crew
  1. One of the greatest things to see come together on a trip like this, is the way that God brings the right people to support the team just perfectly as issue come up. This trip is a shining example of this.
  2. We had 3 members of our team coming from Wyoming, who we had never met and did not know at all except from the short phone conversations we had to prepare them for packing for the trip. It turns out we could not have put a better engineering/maintenance team together if we would have had all the money in the world to do it. This team was able to fix anything and they worked constantly fixing everything in their path. We praise God for sending the perfect team. 
  3. Last summer, we sent a 6000-watt generator to Gandou on a sea container (donated used) Since receiving it, Father has used it almost exclusively. The team serviced it while we were there, but did not have an oil filter. Overall, it was running well. One day the start quit working, but our excellent maintenance crew got it back up and running.
  4. This diesel generator is too big to move down to our dental clinic and we did not have wires with a heavy enough gage to run all the way to the clinic. So during our mission trips, we completely depend on the functionality of a small, gas 3500-watt generator we sent down several years ago. This generator powers all the dental and medical equipment that we use, including the lighting in the clinics. 
  5. This generator is completely on its last leg. We have said this for a couple of trips now, but it is really the case now. Our miniatous crew says we must replace it before the next trip.
  6. During this trip we looked into purchasing a generator in Port-au-Prince and found a store that sells a Truper brand generator. It would be a little larger than our current one in hopes of running two air compressors at one time in the dental clinic.
  7. We are expecting that this generator would only be used by our dental clinic and not by the rectory between or trips, which means it should last for years.
  8. Our plan is to purchase a generator next time in Port-au-Prince and we plan to stick to this brand and that way as one generator gets replaced it will become parts for future generators.

Mission Focus Area #3 – Team Members Experience Haiti and Especially Our Sister Parish
   
​   Port-au-Prince and Travel to Gandou and Rental Trucks          
  1. This trip was especially challenging to get our supplies into our check bags. We simply did not have enough check bags to fit everything we needed. In the end we crammed it all in and were able to just barely make it work.
  2. However when we got to the Cincinnati airport on the first morning, they told us that we could not check any extra bags and we had 2 extra to check.
  3. We thought we were in huge trouble, but through the grace of God, we somehow took 50lbs of medicine from one bag and put it all in the team’s carry-on bags. The second extra bag was an air compressor for the 2nd dental unit and it was something we could live without this trip, so we sent it back home with Maureen’s husband, who just happened to drop her off at the perfect time that we needed him. It was like God was taking care of even the most impossible things. 
  4. Everything else went smoothly. We were able to get into Haiti early and we were able to start working on getting ready for the next day.
  5. We found the brakes on one of our trucks were bad so we took it back and praise God we were able to exchange it for a new one.
  6. We were able to arrange for wood to be purchased, cut, and delivered for the bunk bed project. 
  7. The next morning we were ready to leave Port-au-Prince early.
  8. We were able to make good time and made it to Gandou before dark and without any rain. This was probably the most important day for the road to stay dry so we could travel. I believe it turned out to be the only day of the trip that there was no rain. Again we praise God!
     Travel back to Port-au-Prince
  1. On the way back from Gandou we ran into a couple issues with the rental trucks. First, one of the trucks had a fuel line break off a heat exchanger and start leaking return fuel. We were able bypass the heat exchanger and make the truck work again.
  2. However, while working on this, we discovered that this same truck also had the front transmission bracket cross member broken. We had Father Whittington lead us in prayer to ask that the transmission would not fall out and we continued on. 
  3. Through the Grace of God, this truck made it back to Port-au-Prince.
  4. Another truck had a clutch go out just a few hundred feet from the Parish Center in Jacmel. We were able to pull it into the Parish Center and Father borrowed a truck from a friend. Again we were back on our way to Port-au-Prince.
  5. God is abundant with His miracles on these mission trips!
    Exposure to Haiti
  1. On Sunday, most of the group got to go out into the countryside to visit different families.
  2. We feel these Sunday visits are so important for the people of the USA to see because it gives a much better perspective on the real life challenges and real life sufferings of these people. 

If you would like to donate to any of the projects above, tax deductible donations can be made by check to St. Anthony Haiti Ministry and sent to St. Anthony Church, PO Box 3 Morris, IN 47033 or to St. Louis Haiti Ministry and sent to St. Louis Church, 13 St. Louis Place Batesville, IN 47006. If the donation is for a specific project, please include a note indicating this.