Mustard Seed Missions

Photos of Feb 2013 Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:03:00 +0000

We've just uploaded a photo album of our February trip to our Facebook page. Head over there and check it out. "Like" us while you're there! :)

Reminder...you can donate to MSM for free, just by using our website to get to Amazon.com. Use the search box on the left and proceed like normal at Amazon. Amazon will donate up to 4% of the cost of your purchase to MSM! It doesn't cost you anything! You can't beat that! Come back again and again!

Long wait for Berthony

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 01:07:00 +0000

Months ago we wrote about Berthony, a 30 year old man with staghorn calcified kidneys. Dr. Mark has talked to a surgeon in western Massachusetts who is willing to do the necessary surgery and a local hospital is agreeing to donate services. But we have had one stumbling block after another with trying to get his birth certificate. The earthquake complicated things when records were lost but it seems that his true last name is different than what he's been using his whole life. Amoce has made several trips to Port Au Prince to try to get it straightened out. Today he and Berthony traveled on the bus with the team and spent more time in PAP. Hoping that he will have a passport soon. Hoping that the money we spent today will produce results.

How to pour a concrete roof

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:18:00 +0000

Across the street from our house they are "pouring" and a new second floor roof. The process is fascinating. Take a good look at the photo.

A handmade tall ladder with platforms every eight feet or so. On each platform there is one man and they are all facing each other. The men on the the ground are mixing cement from raw materials that were dumped in the road during the past two days.

After it's mixed, a couple shovel fulls are scooped into metal pails about the size of a spaghetti pot. Then each pail is passed up the ladder from one man to the next. At the top it's dumped into a wheelbarrow.

The empty pails are threaded on a rope and slid down a zip line to the ground. They have at least nine pails in motion the whole time.

When the wheelbarrow is full it's rolled along a board to the spot on the roof where they need the cement. This roof is at least 18 feet wide hand 40 feet long.

The men have been doing this continuously for at least the last 4 hours without a break! Each man on the ladder has been bending and lifting over his shoulder for that long!!

Zone Seche

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 02:32:00 +0000

Six hours of riding in the bus today for a trip out past Port A Piment. We traveled over roads broken up by Hurricane Sandy last October, over two riverbed separate and around washed out bridges to set up clinic in a medium sized church. Our first patient was an elderly woman with two very badly infected legs from her knee to her ankles. The next was a 3 year old with a vaginal infection from being washed in dirty water. Others were a 49 yo woman who looked 9 months pregnant but actually had a huge tumor growing. A 25 yo with typhoid. A man with diabetic sugar level of 430.

Smooth Clinic at Torbeck

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:06:00 +0000

The team was awake by 6 am, made coffee and began unpacking. By 9 am we had finished sorting, packed for the day and were on the road before 10:00.

Set up went smoothly and the new plywood PVC tables worked great. We can break them down, put them in the bus and we're ready for clinic!

The team jelled quickly and we had a good routine going within the hour. We were expecting to see 80 people but saw 99. Some faces were familiar. Father (Pere) Gerard is really good at preparing for us. The Catholic Church we worked in is open and airy.

We saw the typical kind of problems: scabies in children, high blood pressure, head aches, joint pain, hernias. Other more unusual cases were a 17 year old with sickle cell anemia, a 6 year old with rickets, and another 6 year old who was vomiting worms. Her older sister brought her in because she was always sickly... Of course, the worms are stealing all the nutrition!

Obed, Marc Samy Saint Eugene, and Jasmin were translators along with Amoce. We have a great team.
8-)

JFK to PauP

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:16:00 +0000

Departure from Massachusetts was on time. We made it to JFK with only a little delay after one member of the team left his/her wallet behind at a rest stop and we had to go back to retrieve it. Thankfully it was still there!

Getting through customs was stalled when a team member made an "x" on the wrong side of the immigration form.

The ride to Les Cayes on Sent Etwal was long and... exciting when we had a blowout in the dark.

Finally got to the house about 7:45 pm.

Early Morning Departure

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:01:00 +0000

At 3am our team will be on the way to Haiti. Our plane leaves JFK shortly after 930 a.m.. Everyone is really excited! It's a long ride there and there will be lots of sleepy people.

Amoce and Jean, the bus driver, will meet us at Port a Prince airport and then we will have a long ride to Les Cayes... about 5 hours.

The weather looks great for travelling, especially this time of year!

Three More Houses Approved - Rain on the Roof

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:27:00 +0000

We have just approved a budget to replace the roofs on three more houses in Platon. This will be the 14th, 15th and 16th houses. It's hard to believe that families are actually living in these houses right now, but they are.

Mustard Seed's purpose is guided by the need for clean water up in Platon. At our medical clinics it is clear that health could be improved with access to clean water.

Each of these houses has an approximately 5000 gallon concrete cistern. When the roofs are repaired and water collection gutters installed, then people from the local community will share the water that is collected. Each homeowner signs a pledge to share the water in the cisterns.

There are many houses up in the mountains that look like these. Hurricane Sandy damaged some of them very badly...roofs that were already in terrible disrepair.

The Haitian families have little hope of being able to afford to repair these themselves. MSMs cost to repair these -- for materials and transporation only, is approximately $1000 each. The average Haitian income is less than $2 per day, and that goes for food.

Once the materials are trucked to the foot of the mountain, the local men (and some women) carry the metal sheets and wooden rafters on their backs up the steep mountain. Local people all contribute to the building effort.

Kita Nago

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:18:00 +0000

Last night we had the unique privilege of seeing Kita Nago outside of Petit Goave. It was just by chance that we saw this parade coming toward us and were able to see it and videotape it.
Kita nago is a saying that mothers say to their children. It's meant to express how difficult it is to do something ; basically means you can't go from here to there - you can't go from this end of Haiti to the other end of Haiti.
It's something that's not easy or is impossible so the concept behind this Kita Nago initiative is that people of Haiti can work together and do something that is considered impossible. We saw the parade coming toward us and saw and heard all the really great music. The parade left from the south west corner of Haiti at Les Irois and is going up to the northeast corner of Haiti at Ounaminthe over 430 miles. There is a cedar pole that weighs 1200 pounds being carried by hand with people marching ahead of it and behind it all the way up to Ouanaminthe. Once it gets there the cedar pole would become the center of a new park symbolizing Haitian unity.www.kitanago.ht.
You can see the video on our Facebook page.

Goudougoudou

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 02:58:00 +0000

Goudougoudou is the commonly used name for the earthquake. It happened 3 years ago on this date. One author likens it to naming hurricanes. Another says it's from the noise the earthquake made. Another says the people may be ascribing it to a voodoo god and this is its new name.

We landed in port au prince today and it was very quiet around the city. Amoce said it was because most people were at church or at commemoration ceremonies. The drive through the city was very easy.

Some things have changed. The airport terminal has been rebuilt and we are no longer bussed to an old hanger building to go through Customs. The renovated building opened in November and is beautiful, air conditioned and clean. Service as great.

Other things haven't changed. There are still people living in low dusty tent cities. Except when it rains and then they are living in mud. Some of the funds from NGOs or foreign governments have dried up or been discontinued.

We saw large missionary teams on the plane again ...you can tell by their matching t-shirts. Less apparent were contractors, NGOs and journalists.

Life has returned to a new normal in Haiti.

Our 'normal' was having Robert and Amoce pick us up in Robert's blue bus. That kind of normal feels good. As I write this we're having brake problems as we go down a mountain on the way to Cayes. Unfortunately that's kind of normal too. Life in Haiti is always a different kindof normal than we are used to.

Remembering

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:45:00 +0000

On Saturday it will have been 3 years since the earthquake. I landed there 3 years ago on January 12th. This Saturday Paul and I will land there again. There's been news of trouble in the streets but this time its political not a natural disaster.

We are heading to AUC to teach 2 classes. Paul will teach soil microbiology and I'll be teaching Introduction to College. My class will be large. All of the prep students over 80 students. It should be fun. We both like to teach.

MSM Scholarship Winners for Spring 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 15:05:00 +0000

At Mustard Seed Missions we were pleased to receive more applications than ever before. It is our practice to award four $100 scholarships each semester. For the Spring 2013 semester two applicants had a tied score*, so we are awarding five $100 scholarships. In addition, there were many other students who received good scores; therefore, we decided to award $50 and $25 scholarships to individuals who achieved above a certain score.

CONGRATULATIONS TO EACH STUDENT LISTED!!

The individuals are listed in alphabetical order:

$100 Scholarship

· Desruisseaux Bedel (Civil Engineering)

· Larochelle Anne Tamara (Agriculture and Environmental Sciences)

· Pierre Louis Randy Carlie (Agriculture and Environmental Sciences)

· Simelus Dieubon (Agriculture and Environmental Sciences)

· Tanis Pierre Venel (Civil Engineering)

$50 Scholarship

· Dumo Westbertin (Agriculture and Environmental Sciences)

· Forzene Pierre Jonathan (Civil Engineering)

· Guerrier Peterson (Civil Engineering)

· Maisonneuve Yves Michel (Civil Engineering)

· Pierre Marc Henry (Civil Engineering)

$25 Scholarship

· Beauzile Sancha (Agriculture and Environmental Sciences)

· Jean Claude Wisly (Civil Engineering)

· Paurus Michel (Civil Engineering)

· St Martin Yves Bernard (Civil Engineering)

The scholarship funds will be deposited into each student's tuition account to be used for Spring 2013 tuition costs.

*Applications are scored based on the Instructor's Evaluation, Community Involvement, Christian Ethics, and the Ability to Communicate Clearly in English. Each area receives a numeric score and is judged by two members of the Board of Directors of Mustard Seed Missions.

MSM Scholarships to Be Announced New Year's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Each semester we offer four $100 scholarships to students at the American University of the Caribbean. We received 19 applications for Mustard Seed Scholarships for the Spring 2013 semester at AUC. We will be announcing the winners here on our website on New Year's Day! We are committed to helping students in Haiti achieve a university education and walk across the stage at graduation!

Concerned About the Rain on the Roof Project

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 23:19:00 +0000

Seven community members from Platon, including three women, hiked down the mountain and crossed the river to talk to Amoce today. It's been almost a month since Hurricane Sandy hit Haiti. They came to ask us to fix the roofs on more houses, especially since the hurricane caused so much damage. MSM is currently planning to fix three houses -- it's all that we have a budget for right now. They asked us if we could do five. Paul and I know several of the people who came -- Erlus Paul, the mason (he's the serious looking one on the far right), and Yanie's father, Mr. Dominique with a Boston Red Sox cap in the front (given to him by Dr. Mark). The man in the striped shirt, Blaise, cannot live in his house now because he lost his roof in the hurricane; he goes to the school, sleeps there, and then has to leave before the students come. In the picture they all look very stern, but that's just their picture-posing; it's hard to get Haitians to smile for photos.

While we don't have the donations to replace more metal roofs at this time, we may try to buy large tarps and hand out as many as we can for the time being so that people at least have a dry roof over their heads. Each house costs approximately $750 to replace the roof and the PVC gutters. This cost often includes new rafters (tree poles) and the transportation cost of Robert using his pickup truck to drive the materials through the river and to the bottom of the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain, the local people pick up the materials and hike with them up to the work site. This labor is all provided for free by the community members because everyone in the community benefits.

(History: There are 93 houses which we identified as needing new roofs. Seventy of those have large water-collecting cisterns attached to the rusty roofs. The cisterns collect water from the roofs for the whole community, but for the most part they are empty because the roofs are so rusted. MSM has fixed 13 of those roofs so far, and we want to fix as many as we can, knowing that we probably cannot fix them all.)

Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:20:00 +0000

The following texts from our team heading to Port au Prince by bus this morning.

Water on the road by the big lake. We're going around. Lots of debris, down trees and wires, landslides. In one place, several of those concrete poles and toppled over with their wires. But, so far so good. G

Jean: The lake has covered the road- had to turn around to get the detour... .. The flooding is terrible. Made detour around lake- rivers ARE raging!

11:46. Arrived at airport.

Aborted Clinic Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:08:00 +0000

Another medical trip where the rainis making things very difficult. Monday up in Platon was cancelled so we made late plans to go to Ducis today. One of the AUC graduates helped arrange it but because it rained so heavily last night, and because it's market day in Ducis no one was waiting. We decided to pack it in and return tomorrow after Egbert has a chance to do more publicizing. It will still be iffy because Tropical Storm Sandy may become a hurricane and the rain may be even heavier. But we'll try it anyway!

We headed home, bought some wonderful mangoes and are hanging out on the porch reading and watching the rain fall and fall and fall.

Tropical Storm Sandy - Heavy Rain All Monday Night

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:57:00 +0000

We had heavy rain all night long and some wind as well. We're all glad that we didn't go up to Platon because there would be no crossing the river after that kind of heavy rain. Late last night Amoce arranged for us to go to Ducis this morning to do a clinic there, but we have serious doubts about how many people will show up!

Flexibility...a "Must"

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:34:00 +0000

With the approaching tropical weather system (now TS Sandy) we had to make some quick decisions last night. Pastor Saurel from Platon phoned and said it was heavy rain and we should not come. This morning Robert said the river was already high, so it seems like a good decision.

Instead of Platon, we went back to the Catholic church in Torbeck. When we arrived there was a 4 year old boy laying on the floor. Mark attended to him and diagnosed him with Tay-Sachs a congenital developmental disorder. The little boy is blind, mentally disabled and not able to walk or sit. At this point in his life he can't even crawl. Mark spoke to the young parents to tell them there was nothing we could do, but that they were doing a good job caring for him. They had been to several hospitals and doctors looking for help.

We set up two doctor stations today and one eyeglass station. Jan worked the glasses station and was busy from the moment we started clinic. 47 people got eyeglasses. Some of the teenage kids just wanted them so they could be cool, but the older people really seemed to be able to benefit.

We has a heavy very windy rain squall during the afternoon. It's quiet tonight, but no stars are visible.

We aren't sure yet about tomorrow's plans. Amoce is out working on that now. The weather can really cause problems!!

Sunday Day of Rest...Brooding Weather

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:57:00 +0000

We went to Port Salut this afternoon. ..our day off before we continue clinics again tomorrow.

Unfortunately there is a tropical cyclone brewing so the day was cloudy but it was still nice to be on a beach. Our Haitian team members brought a game board and played "Rum"; turns out it is like Sorry or Parcheesi.

Tonight we had pretty much decided that the weather is too iffy to attempt an overnight on Monday followed by a river crossing on Tuesday. Our decision was confirmed when Pastor Saurel phoned to say it was already raining heavily in Platon and it wasn't a good idea to try to get up the mountain.

Now we are in punt mode as we try to make plans for the next two days. If the rain comes it will probably mess up Wednesday's plans also.

Scabies, Pneumonia, Baby Powder,Decubitus Ulcer

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:03:00 +0000

The picture posted here is a young toddler with infected sores from scratching at the scabies on his body. We see a fair amount of this in young children. Scabies is a mite, similar to lice and hard to get rid of, especially when people go back and sleep in the same bedding and have no hot water to wash things in.

We saw a second case of very bad pneumonia in a middle-aged woman. It took some strong antibiotics and epinephrin to get her able to walk out of the clinic with help.

Yesterday we had a case of a kid eating soap, today it was an 11 year old girl eating baby powder. We had to google 'baby powder' to figure out what minerals were in it (aluminum, magnesium, and iron) so that we could counsel the mom and try to give the girl some replacement minerals.

Late in the afternoon a truck drove up with a wheelchair in the back. A 37 year old hemiplegic man was in the truck with decubitus ulcers in both of his buttocks from sitting in the chair, but not having any ability to feel pain. Mark said one of the ulcers had eaten away all the way through to his hip bone Mark gave him some antibiotics, dressed the wounds as well as he could and then we sent him to the local hospital. The man had been run over by a truck and left paraplegic (some time ago). His prognosis is not good.

It was a long day in Torbeck. We saw 145 people. Tomorrow is a day of rest.

The Iceman Cometh

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 12:24:00 +0000

Each team member has a daily chore. Robert, our bus driver, stops on the way to our house each day and buys a block of ice. Ken's job is to pack the sodas and Toro in ice. First he has to chop the ice, though. It's a very important job ... In the middle of a hot and tiring clinic there's nothing like a cold coke or Toro. Ken and Sharin have become Toro coverts... They went over to the "dark side".

First Day - Torbeck

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 23:35:00 +0000

Today was our break-in day...the day where we do a short day and figure out how the team works together as well as what we forgot to pack along. We didn't do too bad. Forgot one mat that we lay people on if we do IVs but other than that we were ready!

We worked in Torbeck at a Catholic church. Father Gerard was the pastor. He was a good manager; I think we'll probably go back there again. He asked us to return and thanked us very graciously.

We saw over 90 patients ant broke in Sharin and Ken. One of the people we saw was this 27 year old woman with a goiter. We referred her to Brenda Stafford where she'll have surgery for it. There was also a 32 year old woman who was septic with pneumonia. Mark gave her IVs and some strong antibiotics. She walked out about 4 hours later but she's still quite sick. Our translators were Obed and Chatelyn Calixte. It was Chatelyn's first time translating. He worked really well with Jean. Sharon and Greyson made a good team with Obed.

Paul and Ken manned the pharmacy. Ken's background in pharmacy came in really useful as we needed to think about equivalent meds.

A good first day!

Ready...Set...

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 18:24:00 +0000

The medical team is all ready to leave. 2:45 a.m. will come pretty early but everyone is excited!

Working in Threes

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Tue, 29 May 2012 01:52:00 +0000

These three photos represent the three different areas of focus that we've been working on for the last year. Jan is very involved as the Academic Dean at AUC where she spent the month of January and March. Our medical team arrived in March as well. We spent two days up in Platon and will spend 3 days up there in October. Our other focus is the Rain on the Roof project which is rehabilitating rusted roofs in the Platon area so the currently existing cisterns can collect water for the community.

News on MSM website

noreply@blogger.com (Mustard Seed) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:45:00 +0000

Josh has made it possible to post by email directly to the website so all postings can be read there. Www.mustardseedmissions.org

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