Breakaway 2011

Last week, for the second year in a row, Hospitals of Hope hosted a volunteer team from Wheaton College over their spring break. This group – of all girls this year – spent the week shadowing doctors in the Wichita area, scraping rust spots on the exterior of containers being converted into clinics, inventorying medical supplies, and exploring Wichita. The girls also had the chance to volunteer with His Helping Hands and the Lord's Diner.

The Wichita community did a great job helping us to welcome the Wheaton team, and we'd especially like to thank Youth Horizons, for providing the girls with a place to stay, and all of the medical professionals who went out of their way to provide them with a wonderful shadowing experience.

The girls did a great job, and we loved having them. Thanks, ladies, for giving up your spring break for us!

Thanks for Supporting Quality Medical Care in Burundi, Africa!

This update comes from one of our partners with the Friends of Kibimba Hospital, with whom we partnered to send a container of medical supplies to Burundi, Africa in November.

On Monday, January 24 the word came that the container should be in Burundi during that week. So that created a lot of quick planning, but we got it worked out and got a great travel schedule and left on Saturday morning. We arrived Sunday pm in Bujumbura. We stayed in Bujumbura Sunday night and were on our way Monday am after a breakfast visit with Modeste.

The Doctor was going to come up and get the necessary papers on Monday, so the container could be opened, but he didn’t get them until Tuesday. Then three people from Customs came, and the doors were opened. David’s worries that the lack of padlock would leave the container open to be pilfered were unfounded, and it looked exactly like it had when the doors were shut. One more answer to prayer.

The storeroom built for the last container is now being used as a pharmacy stock room. They need that because the government is now sending inspectors every three months to check on their inventory.

I’ll jump ahead and tell you that the baby warmers and incubators were put into use almost as soon as they were unpacked. Marcelina said that the inspectors had been giving them a bad time because they had no baby warmers in the delivery rooms, so that was very timely. There were triplets born the day we arrived. All in good shape, but being kept in an incubator. The x-ray was put into use quickly as well. There is a trained technician (He has 4 years of training in Germany) in Gitega and he came over and showed some how to use it. A pastor from Mutaho with a broken arm was the first patient! Then on Saturday he was there with a class of several students from Gitega that he was teaching how to use it. They will use the x-ray room to store it, I think.

I believe all the B.P. machines were in use by the time we left. Took a while finding all the connections etc. The IV poles were all in use, I’m sure.

The new buildings are so nice. There are three… a 54 bed maternity with 3 nice sized delivery rooms and an operating room.

The Pediatric building has 64 beds, and there is a new building with business offices and 3 doctors offices, and a conference room. There is a restaurant and a covered place for patients caregivers to eat, with tiled tables. They have two plastic water tanks, and are not using the brick tank anymore because it leaks so badly.

Thanks for helping to improve the quality of medical care in Burundi!

Healing in Haiti

The following reflection comes from Rachel Skarbonkiewicz, one of our volunteers who just came back from Haiti:

We had an amazing trip!!! It was extremely rewarding and extremely frustrating all at the same time. Virtually every child we saw had worms – something easily treated and prevented, but without any change in their water it will continue to come back.

On our first mobile clinic day, we had just left Mission of Hope when we came upon a motorcycle accident that had just occurred. How lucky for that man that up came a truck full of nurses and physicians, with plenty of supplies in tow! We hopped out, stabilized the patient, got access and gave fluids and pain meds and then faced the frustration of trying to find an ambulance and someone to stay with the patient and hope he was accepted to the closest hospital.

After more than half an hour we had an ambulance and one MD to ride with the patient, but, unfortunately, they were turned away from the first hospital and had to continue to a second in Port au Prince. Things like that which would, of course, never happen in the States were so frustrating and sad to see. It was almost two hours after the accident before the patient made it to the hospital. His ear was almost all the way ripped off, and he had several deep facial and scalp lacerations, as well as possible fractures. We could only imagine what it would have been like for him had we not pulled up.

My husband Rick worked with the construction crews all week and very much enjoyed watching a community be born. We were both amazed at how well-run everything was and how wonderful our translators were, even teaching us a significant amount of Creole. At the same time there were so many areas that seem so simple to fix but, because of lack of people and time, they just get thrown to the side. The MOH staff were wonderful! We were very well taken care of and very safe and appreciated. I very much look forward to doing this again next year.

Container Clinics Provide Treatment in Haiti

After Daniel’s exploratory trip to Haiti at the end of January, we have a medical team working there, treating patients on the Mission of Hope compound.

During his trip, Daniel was able to see all three of the Clinics in a Can that we sent this past year. The clinic for Mission of Hope had just arrived on site, after being delayed in customs, so he was able to help get it set up.

He also visited the two Clinics in a Can that we sent earlier this year, with help from many in the Wichita community, such as Wesley Medical Center, Hutton Construction, and many others. One of them is in Leogane and sees approximately 60 patients per day. The other, in a smaller town called Fondwa, is currently open 1 day a week, when a medical team comes, and sees about 75 patients every Friday.

Our current volunteer team is working on the Mission of Hope compound and consists of 4 medical professionals and 2 assistants. They arrived last Saturday and will be coming home this Saturday. Please pray for a successful, safe trip for them.

If you’re interested in joining our next volunteer team to Haiti this summer, call the Hospitals of Hope office at 316.262.0964 or email daniel@hospitalsofhope.org. If you’d like to help construct Clinics in a Can, call us or email info@hospitalsofhope.org.

The Weight of the World

It’s easy to let pain crush you. We live in a broken world, and, both on and off the mission field, we see wounds that we can only bandage, not heal.

I’ve been reading Henri Nouwen’s Gracias: A Latin American Journal, which records the time he spent in Latin America in the early 1980s, a time of much violence and political and civil unrest. Part of that time he spent in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where our hospital is located. Although Bolivia is considerably more peaceful now than it was then, some of his reflections speak directly to the experience of ministering there – or pretty much anywhere else – even today.

He writes,

As I let all these pains in the lives of my family and friends enter into my heart, I wonder how I could offer true comfort. How could I ever enter into their pain and offer hope from that place? How could I enter into real solidarity with them? But then I slowly realized that I do not have to be like them or to carry their burdens, but that our Lord, my Lord and their Lord, has carried all human burdens and was crushed by them, so that we could receive his Spirit, the comforter.

This is a realization I’m slowly coming to, and that I’m praying to understand more and more. We cannot stand up under the weight of the world, but we don’t have to. Jesus can carry it.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

While we do – and should – try to meet physical needs, ultimately our goal has to be to bring those needs to Jesus. Only he can heal the wounds we all bear, and only he can strengthen us to offer hope to those around us.

One Year Out from the Quake in Haiti

One year ago today, the earth shook. At 4:53 pm, Haiti experienced a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands and forever changed the lives of those who survived.

In the days that followed, we at Hospitals of Hope thought and prayed about our response. Calls poured into our office from supporters wanting to know how they could help and if we were going to send any disaster relief teams.

We decided that the best way Hospitals of Hope could contribute was by helping to build medical infrastructure, much of which was destroyed by the quake. As we talked to other organizations on the ground in Haiti, they told us, "We have enough doctors. We just don't have anywhere to work."

When we announced what we had decided to do, our supporters and the Wichita community were quick to respond. Volunteers poured into our office to help with construction of two "Clinics in a Can" -- self-contained clinics built in shipping containers. Area businesses donated building materials and medical supplies, and cash donations flowed in. Within weeks, the clinics were finished and ready to ship.

On the day the first clinic opened, it saw nearly 200 patients.

Since then, we have sent a third clinic to Haiti, and we're in the process of building a small hospital, constructed from three shipping containers.

Haiti has a long way to go. Many are still living in camps, cholera has taken thousands of lives, and the birth rate has tripled in the last year, leaving children abandoned by desperate mothers.

But Hospitals of Hope, the organizations we partner with, and countless others remain committed to making a difference in Haiti, one life at a time. Thanks to you, our clinics are offering quality medical care to many Haitians -- a vital step in the process of rebuilding.

The problems in Haiti won't disappear overnight, but we remain committed to our work there. The new hospital is due to ship this spring, and we will be sending a volunteer team this summer. For more information about how you can help, call our office at 316.262.0964 or send us an email at info@hospitalsofhope.org.

Pray for Peace

This Sunday, January 9, Southern Sudan will hold a referendum in which it is expected to vote for secession. The entire country is holding its breath as it waits – not only to see if the South will vote to secede but also to see if the North will respect the election results.

This is a time of great hope. Refugees are returning home to vote; plans are being formulated for building a country and developing an infrastructure.

But this is also a time of great fear. Tensions are high along the border with the North, and international observers are watching closely in an attempt to avoid another civil war. In the North, there’s talk of enforcing stricter Sharia law if the South leaves, which means that non-Muslims living in the North fear for their safety and freedom. Refugees returning to the South are living in schools, crowding in with other families, living in camps. There aren’t enough schools for them, and health care is hard to come by.

Because of this dearth of infrastructure, Hospitals of Hope is working with Covenant Presbyterian Church and the Healing Kadi Foundation in Omaha, Nebraska to construct a Clinic in a Can hospital – a small hospital built out of 3 shipping containers – to ship to Kajo Keji in Southern Sudan. The Healing Kadi Foundation eventually plans to construct a larger hospital, but that will take too long. In the meantime, this pre-built hospital, which will ship to Sudan this Spring, will provide much-needed medical care to the more than 450,000 refugees living in Kajo Keji.

Please pray for peace in Sudan and for the successful development of a new nation. You can keep apprised of developments there on the Satellite Sentinel site or on the BBC. If you want to volunteer to help construct this hospital or are looking for other ways to get involved, contact the Hospitals of Hope office at 316.262.0964 or at info@hospitalsofhope.org.