HCH Post-Earthquake

Dear Friends & Family,

This is Shae updating for Melinda. She returned into Haiti yesterday late and we went immediately to the American Embassy and resubmitted the files. We are presently waiting for the call back from that. There has been a hold put on travel documents for the adopted children and this is pending the Prime Minister's approval for each child. For Canadian parents, the CIC came on Tuesday and took pictures, and reviewed the files. We were told to wait for them to contact us and were given no indication of when. Melinda was in contact with the official in Canada and there is nothing that HCH can do at this time. We are setting up an outdoor clinic today to access the children as many are not feeling well; but there is no serious illnesses. We were given one large tent by the UN and I was able to bring in several smaller ones. We have no internet at HCH so we will update everyone as we are able. Thanks so much!!!

The Outing!

On January 1, 2010, Pastor Massena wanted to take our boys from the orphanage, along with Michael for an outing. Pastor took 8 boys on this little adventure, ranging from ages 3 to 8. Left to right starting with the back row are Pastor Massena, Chris Nelson, James, Lony, Eddy, Robinson, Michael, Cliffly, and Golson. Below is a picture of them, all ready to go!

The first place they went to was the town square. Below is a picture of them all lined up!

Here they are, enjoying the playground at the square!

They got treats, cheese twists and tampico, and headed out to the river!

The two pictures below show you just how much fun the boys had playing in the water!! Swimming was an unexpected thing, so that explains why they were all in their under clothes!

The boys had a GREAT day and the Pastor seemed to have just as much fun as the boys did!

***ANOTHER NOTE***

Grandma Pat's oldest son, Timothy, and his wife, Rachel, had a baby boy on Christmas day! The little one followed his sister Julie, who is 12 years of age! His name is Timothy Robert! A picture will follow later.

Wedding Day!

On November 27th we had a very exciting day! Melinda was a happy bride! Here are some pictures of the wedding day. There will be more pictures to follow!

Amanda at the wedding!

Melinda and her friend Sharon!

Melinda's son, Thomas, came for the wedding!

A Baby At The Gate!

These 3 pictures have a story behind them! This little baby girl was found outside of our gate at 8:30 at night when a neighbor boy called some of our boys and said, "There's a baby outside your gate!" Amanda came calling me and I thought she was playing a joke on me and it wasn't really true, but I went out and looked behind the gate, underneath the writing on our wall, there was a tiny baby wrapped in a torn blanket with a jacket wrapped around her. There were ants crawling on her and at first I thought she was dead, but I saw her feet move. I gently picked her up and brushed the ants off her head, and took her inside for Melinda to consult. Before we did anything, we took her to the police station to make a declaration that she was in our orphanage. It took about 2 hours to do that. After that we brought her home, fed her, cleaned her up, and put her to bed. She had an infection in her embilical cord from it being cut and not tied and it was a wonder she didn't bleed to death. We still do not know whose baby she is so she has been declared orphaned. I named her Hannah. She is doing fine. The first picture is the cardboard outside the gate that she was found on.

This is me taking a look at her before we cleaned her up.
This is Hannah once she had been examined by Melinda and was given a bath and food!

Another set of twins!!

Well this morning, we had another set of twins arrive! We have twin boys here already and today, we got cute little twin girls! They arrived shortly after 9:00. Baby A weighed in at 1.4kg and Baby B was just a little bigger, with a weight of 1.75kg. They are drinking about an ounce every 2-3 hours. The mother of the babies died on Saturday from childbirth. We are not sure yet if we are keeping them or just helping the family out. It seems like every time Melinda leaves to go to Port Au Prince on business, another baby arrives! I told Melissa, a volunteer who is here helping us, that I hoped a baby would come during her stay here. Well, we have had 4 babies arrive since she came, which has been just over a month now!

Power

Dear Friends and Family,

We just wanted to let you know that we do not have any power and haven't for a few days. We only have it for a few minutes while it's directly connected to the generator; but we can't run it like this for very long. We are letting you know this so you will understand why we haven't responded to any emails. Please pass this information along to everyone.

Pat

A Day of Life as a Volunteer @ HCH

Many folks have asked what it is like living here in Haiti and working at HCH. As a volunteer here at HCH I feel that I have a pretty good idea of what day to day life is like in our home. I arrived in at 10:30 am on yesterday. We got some lunch and then went grocery shopping. During our pretty relaxed shopping we got a call that one of the local pastors who had been sent home to die; needed an iv. Our relaxed shopping turned into a very quick run through the store to ensure we had dinner for our family, volunteers, and 41 orphan children. We then took our 1 1/2 hour journey up the mountain, dodging reckless drivers, and driving acrossed questionable bridges. I was simply thankful that we didn't have to go acrossed in the boats as I did last time. We arrived home to grab medical supplies and then on to the pastor's house. Melinda got the iv in and tried to make him as comfortable as possible amidst the scorching temp with only a fan blowing on him. We visited for a few minutes and then left.

Once arriving home we had lunch and then I slept as I was exhausted from only a few hours sleep the night before. Upon waking; I helped hold a baby down while getting an iv as she was quite dehydrated. I then made my rounds loving and playing with the kids. Our houseboy then came in with a cut running down his leg. Pat then had to send for and administer a tetanus shot to him. Shortly after that one of our two year olds was brought up with labored breathing. I administered a breathing treatment to help his breathing. We then finally sit down to have our dinner and yes by now it is 10:30 at night.

Is it busy; yes it is so busy. Just when you think you might have a break; somebody comes in whether it be one of our children or somebody from the community needing medical care or just attention. It is rewarding; but very busy all at the same time.