From the Founder

Hospitals of Hope founder Michael Wawrzewski writes about the many changes happening at HOH. You can read about all the latest news that Michael mentions and more in our fall newsletter (PDF).

After thirteen years of ministry, many things are changing around Hospitals of Hope. Personally, we will be adding another member to the Hospitals of Hope family this November as Elizabeth and I are expecting our first child, a little girl. With all our international traveling and Elizabeth’s dental school, we did not think it wise to add to our family before, but now all seems right….ready or not here she comes.

Here in Wichita, we have also implemented many changes. The warehouse, which has always been packed with medical supplies, is now almost completely empty. Bolivia and many African countries have instituted new laws that prohibit the importation of expired medical supplies, which is what we generally receive in donation. With this in mind, over the past five months we redistributed our supplies and equipment to our partnering organizations. Now the space once used to house donated supplies is a production area for Clinic In A Cans. Over the past year, we have built nine container clinics that have been shipped to Haiti and Africa and we continue to build more. We believe this to be a very economical method to replicate our ministry providing a completely contained, cost effective medical clinic to areas of the world in great need.

Elizabeth and I just returned from Bolivia in September after being absent for seven months. I must admit that I am impressed at the growth and organization of the hospital led by Rudy Guzman, our hospital administrator. Leta Reppert is now in charge of the guesthouse and volunteers serving at the hospital and she is doing a great job integrating the volunteers at the hospital. Another great addition and change was converting one corner of the patient waiting area at the hospital into Xelda’s Café. We have created a very warm and inviting environment. As patients wait to be attended at our hospital, volunteers serve free drip coffee, tea and cookies. Patients feel more comfortable sitting at one of the small coffee tables than a hospital waiting area. These patients more readily reveal personal problems, health concerns and family matters to our staff who take the opportunity to listen and pray with them.

We are very excited about all the changes taking place and the new opportunities to minister around the world!

Thank you as always, for your support.

Michael Joseph Wawrzewski III

80 Hours Makes a Difference

80 hours – the number of hours it takes to drive back and forth from Wichita to Las Vegas twice, the number of hours it takes in class credits to be considered a junior in college and also the number of hours our volunteers gave this month to help Hospitals of Hope.

September was a great month for Hospitals of Hope. We had a number of individuals volunteer their time and abilities to help us continue making progress on our warehouse. Several weeks in a row, we had students from Northfield School help us out. A group sorted materials so we could recycle the metal. Another group inventoried medical supplies. We also had a group of students help us clean our newly constructed Clinic In A Can. We were very appreciative of having these students be willing to do this for us. We also had six physician assistant students from Wichita State University volunteer with us last week. They tackled more inventorying medical supplies and entering them into our data base. Some more people wanted to help, but couldn’t make it into our office during the day. These individuals were willing to still help by looking up values of donations from their home.

We also had some volunteers join Hospitals of Hope in Bolivia this month. Shelly Humphries moved to Bolivia earlier in the summer, but had come back to the United States for a couple weeks. She returned to Bolivia this month to continue working in the hospital. Rachel Longton also moved to Bolivia this month to volunteer in the hospital.

Of course we can’t talk about our volunteers without mentioning our dear friend Bob. Bob is a dedicated volunteer who comes in almost everyday. He even came in on Labor Day to make sure our trash got taken to the curb so none of the staff had to come in on our day off to do it. Earlier this week, Bob had an accident while he was tearing down a barn. He is doing alright, but is very sore. Needless to say we will be missing him around here for a while as he recovers. We are praying for him to heal quickly and to not be in too much pain.

We are so grateful for our volunteers and supporters. It’s amazing our volunteers gave over 80 hours to help Hospitals of Hope continue in ministry. Our volunteers and supporters have been such an encouragement to the staff. It is refreshing to see others have a passion and desire to make a difference and help us continue in our mission to heal bodies and souls. Thank you to each and every volunteer who has served with us either this month or previously – we couldn’t help change lives around the world without your support!

The Best Volunteers Ever

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I have to say it again—we have great volunteers.

With only three of us on staff here in Wichita, there’s far more work to do than we can handle on our own. With office tasks to complete, donations to inventory and pack, medical equipment to test and fix, trips to coordinate, events to plan, etc, our work can seem pretty overwhelming. But our volunteers make it manageable.

In the last couple of weeks, volunteers have built a new set of shelves in the warehouse and worked on organizing, packing crates, completing paperwork, and more. Here’s a picture of the new shelves. (As you can tell, they're already getting full!)

So, to all of you who give of your time, energy, and money to make our work possible, thanks. We couldn’t do it without you!

New Inventory System: Volunteers Needed

Hospitals of Hope is in the process of transitioning to a new inventory system, built specifically for us by David McQuoid of Computers in Ministry and Mission Builders International. This system will make us much more efficient, decreasing our response time for requests, improving our record keeping, and freeing up staff time for other work, allowing us to do a better job of accomplishing our mission of showing Christ's love by healing bodies and souls.

We will be making this transition over the course of the next several months. During this time, we will need several volunteers who will commit to coming in on a weekly or bi-weekly basis as we work to enter our current and incoming inventory into the system.

Previous experience is a plus but not required, as training will be provided.

If you are interested in helping us with this transition, please contact Leta by phone at (316) 262-0964 or by email at leta@hospitalsofhope.org.

New volunteer story on the Hospitals of Hope website

I've just posted a new story from one of our volunteers on the Hospitals of Hope website. Minna Chen describes her experience working with Bolivian children:

Victor, Mario, David, Jhoanna, Jheison, Oscar, Beto, Denis, Josue, Cristian, Junior, Fernando, Mailene, Annelise, Fabiola. These fifteen children live in a three-bedroom orphanage surrounded by oxen-plowed lettuce and flower fields in the rural mountain village of Combuyo, Bolivia. I met them as a volunteer with Hospitals of Hope and had the privilege of visiting them to help provide free checkups, tutoring, and most importantly, entertainment.

Go to http://hospitalsofhope.org/testimonies.htm to read the rest of this story and other stories from our volunteers.