Mission Trip - January, 2013
Overall Missions Goal: Serve God’s beloved poor.
Mission Focuses:
1. Continue to build sister parish relationship and understand current status of ongoing projects.
2. Provide health care for the people of our sister parish in the following ways:
a. Run medical clinic/pharmacy and provide the best possible medical care to the greatest number possible.
b. Run dental clinic and provide cleanings and extractions, and restorations.
c. Create ID cards for patients for best possible patient tracking.
d. Go to the school and do quick health assessment on every child (nearly 250).
e. Meet with the mid-wives, assess their knowledge, understand their struggles, answer their questions, review key points with them, and provide them with a tool kit of
supplies to aid them in their work.
f. Run the best eye clinic we have ever provided and further train the health workers in their knowledge on the eye.
g. Clean up our blood pressure program list and approach through the help of the local health care workers to ensure compliance.
h. Obtain updates on the status of all 280 blood pressure program patients.
i. Provide home visits to 4 patients that simply were not able to get out of their home to visit our clinic.
j. Work for the third time side by side with the Haitian nurse which was hired to work in our sister parish.
k. Continue with our referral program and referral patient tracking which provides the support for the people in our sister parish to get health care in the cities of Jacmel or
Port-au-Prince when we are not in Haiti.
l. Transport emergency cases from Gandou to Port-au-Prince using our truck.
m. Involve the 3 students we are sponsoring to go to university in our clinic work and allowing them to run the ID card table.
3. Provide opportunity for our team to experience Haiti and especially our sister parish.
Focus Area #1 - Sister Parish Relationship/Status of Ongoing Projects
Earthquake Rebuilding/Construction projects
Church
1. Construction of the new church is in progress.
2. It is located in the same place as the previous church.
3. Seems a little larger than the old church.
4. Currently working on the foundation.
5. Looks like they are doing a good job. Lots of rebar.
6. There was between 3-10 guys working on it each day.
7. Father introduced me to the person leading the project. It is Father Nexcene’s older brother. That is great….I think we can trust him!
8. Father said the new church will have a small basement room where they will do daily mass.
9. I asked if there were any damages from the two hurricanes and Father said there was none.
10. However he said since the hurricane broke the road it greatly slowed progress on the church because no material were able to get there. Now they can get there again.
Recently they brought 100 bags for cement and 4 tons of steel.
11. Father is asking us to continue to support this project.
12. Father has been talking to the bishop about the project. The bishop would like to meet with us and encourage us to financially support the project more.
13. Father and the bishop are thinking that there is not going to be any help from PROCHE.
14. Father talked about how the people of the community were helping with the church by carrying sorting stones for the construction.
15. Father told us he was planning to have metal truss made for the Church rather than wood because they are so much stronger, this will protect the church roof from
hurricanes. Father said this will cost quite a bit, but it seems like the correct decision.
16. Father said if we taught him how to send pictures again he would start emailing pictures of the progress.
Earthquake Damaged Home Rebuilding Project – This is the third home we are building.
1. Construction has not yet started.
2. Father is working with this family to work out the details, construction can start as soon as they get the details worked out.
3. Father is suggesting a meeting with the family to work out the details.
4. Father still wants us to kick off a home building fund raiser project for all the other people with earthquake damaged or destroyed homes because many of the poorest people
still need homes (3 years after the earthquake).
5. The recent hurricanes did damage on many homes as well.
6. I had young mothers with large families coming up to me telling me that the hurricane broke their house, washed away their garden (which is most of the food they have to
eat), and killed their livestock (which is their other source of food). Even what little they have has been taken away from them.
7. Estimate to build a very simple 2-room home is between $3,500 and $4,000.
8. Father specifically asked that we try to seek out money to help rebuild one of our health workers (Xavier’s) home.
New Clinic Construction
1. We still need to work on fund raising for this.
2. Nothing has been started on the construction due to the lack of funding.
3. Father is ready to start anytime we can come up with the money.
4. Father reported that more land has become available connected to the place we previously purchased. It is on the right side of the road as you come into Gandou.
5. Father says the new ground is flat and he work on getting a final price for us.
6. Several people saw the new clinic that was constructed about 15minutes walk from the rectory near the market area. This clinic is about done a looks great. There are several
rooms and inside the rooms look great.
7. Father is now calling it a government clinic run out of Benet.
8. They told us they were going to finish it then look for a staff to run it. Father said there are lots of problems with the owners of the ground it was built on.
9. We are watching this closely to see if it changes anything for us.
Roof on School in Gandou
1. We have been in discussion with Father Nexcene for some time about repairing the roof some of the school classrooms that were condemned after the earthquake.
2. The rooms have been condemned because they have a 20 foot by 20 foot 8 inch thick cement roof on them that is cracked and likely to fall on the children, however one of
the rooms is still being used for the kindergarden class and every school day there are about 85 kids that spend their day under this condemned cement ceiling.
3. Please pray that this cement ceiling does not fall on these children!
4. The organization in Canada has sent father $10,000 to repair the roof.
5. Father has not yet started because of the hurricanes. They will be taking off the current roof and replacing with steel sheet roof.
6. Father said he was going to buy the materials to fix this by end of February.
7. There was an engineer coming on Tuesday to figure out how to take the current roof down.
8. Father expects to be done no longer than 3 weeks after he starts.
9. Wants to get this done before the spring rains start coming.
General School Situation in Gandou
1. Father had previously asked us for help so that he could start a 7th grade in Gandou.
2. We told him that this was something we did not currently have money for.
3. However he figured out a way to start one because there was a 7th grade this trip.
4. Father asked us for help on this project in the future.
5. We took pictures of the sponsored students.
6. There was about 7 that were absent that we did not get.
7. Father promised to email us pictures of those 7.
8. We took 12 new school sponsorships with us on this trip. This means we are now sponsoring 122 students.
High School/LaVallee House (House we are renting in a nearby city that has a high school so the 14 kids from Gandou can go to high school.)
1. This is working very well. Father said it was even better than last year.
2. Father had organized that the students write a letter to their sponsors. Together they wrote one letter.
3. I reminded father that we want one letter from each directly to their sponsor.
University Kids Project(Sending Kids done with High School to University)
1. Once again all three university kids took time away from their University work and came with us to Gandou to run the medical clinic.
2. We spent significant time with them and we continue to be impressed by them.
3. Fran kept saying they were all took skinny.
4. Two did much work with the patient registration and after they finished their they helped with ID cards.
5. The third did ID cards the whole time.
6. They are very capable to run the ID card station by themselves. This is great because it allows our people to get out and do other things.
7. We have grade reports from two of the students. The third is still working on getting his.
8. Father reported they had all done well in school and the two report cards showed this to be true.
9. For the nursing student, some of her paperwork did not come in time and so she has to wait until October to sign up for nursing school.
10. She is having surgery for a Goiter now.
11. She is also taking a class in French to get more background in it now.
12. No charges for her until she starts in October.
13. Told father that I need her to fill out our application for the University Student Program.
14. Fran talked to the students a little about their lives.
15. They said sharing the one laptop is very difficult because they all need it and they have to travel and good distance to get to each other to use it.
16. They could really use two more.
17. They also talked about how far they live from school (live with family in Port-au-Prince). This is difficult.
18. Fran was talking about asking them to create a list of things they need and things they want. Not sure if she got this list from them. Father asked to see the list before they
give it to us.
19. Father prefers gifts given to the students go through him first.
20. Each of the students wrote a little for their sponsors.
USA College Kid to Spend Extra Time in Gandou at the End of Our Summer Trip
1. Robbie Patterson contacted us and would like to spend several weeks in Gandou after our summer trip.
2. Father is fine with this and says he can stay in the rectory in the rooms downstairs.
3. Father will supply his food and water.
4. He can use father’s computer to send emails.
5. Father just asked that if he makes Haitian friends he should not bring them in the rectory.
Old Rectory Construction and Earthquake Damage Repair
1. Father has been asking for help to repair the old rectory for some time.
2. We sent $1500 down earlier for him to do some work on it.
3. Father has taken that money and started a major repair on it to make it bigger and to add a bathroom upstairs for us to use when we are there.
4. Father is adding pillars to the walls to strengthen.
5. Father would like us to support this project more.
6. We were impressed with all he is doing with this.
7. Father later emailed and said he needed $5,058 to finish this project.
Hurricane Damage Repair
1. Father reported that the hurricane damage they received from the two hurricanes in the fall was horrible. He said in some spots of the road it left holes that were 8 feet deep.
2. He worked on the road for 3 months straight to fix it.
3. The money we sent was used for food to feed the people working on the road.
4. Sometimes he paid the people and sometimes he just feed them.
5. The people carried lots of rocks to fill in the road.
6. Some of the money we sent went to just help the people that were really hit hard by the hurricane.
7. Many people lost all of their food in their garden….which is most of their food.
8. Many people also lost their livestock because of all of the rain and wind and mud slides.
9. Many people had extensive damage to their homes.
10. What little these people had was taken from them…truly these people are suffering….and this was suffering on top of suffering.
11. Father said many people have been reduced to begging. Some have left their families to go into the city to try to find some work…typically they end up in the slums….living
a horrible life.
12. Father said the situation is so bad with the damage to the fields that there is not enough bean seed to plant the next crop. Without help to go and find seed in other markets
the people will really be suffering for years. Father asked for $2500 to help purchase seed for the area farmers.
Clinic/Health Care Workers/Nurse/Midwives
1. After mass on Sunday we took some time to sit down with the health care workers to talk through the blood pressure program and the referral program.
2. The told us there are many in the blood pressure program that simply don’t come back and simply live too far away for them to go there each month.
3. Asked if there would be enough patients if we just chose the patients that were closer to Gandou and they said yes.
4. We decided to drop out all the patients that live far away and only cover the patients that are currently active and any new patients that the health workers told us lived close
enough. We decided we would change our blood pressure program process so that we checked with the health workers before enrolling any new patients.
5. They went through the current list of people in the blood pressure program and they told us who was not active.
6. We also went through every patient in the referral program.
7. Many had died.
8. One little boy they reported died because his house simply fell on him….not during the earthquake or the hurricane…just fell on him…these people need help!
9. Many referral patients were reported as living too far away and they can’t find them.
10. They reported that some refused care.
11. We decided to take out all these patients. This greatly reduced the number in the referral program.
12. Father reported how happy he was with the nurse…he said she is always ready to help with emergencies. He said she is taking on things on her own, for example she ran a
mobile clinic while we were not there.
13. Father also reported that she is helpful with baby deliveries.
14. I don’t think we could be happier with the status of the nurse.
15. Both the health care workers showed us the patients they had completed the referral work on and the receipts they had to demonstrate the costs associated with the referrals
that they were working on.
16. Both health workers showed us that they had completed several referral surgeries.
17. One of the biggest things that happened since the last trip was that there was some mission group that came to Lavalay and held a clinic. Father and the health workers
gathered up a bunch of our referral patients and took them there.
18. They were all cared for and it finished out their referral work and it was free of charge.
19. There were many that were completed. Great job guys!
20. Father was able to gather nearly all the local midwives for a meeting with several members of our medical team.
21. Dr. Mary McCough had a planned training session with them that went very well. She said they seemed to understand, take the training very well and be very capable
people.
22. Everyone was very happy with the training.
23. She also had a nice supply kit to give each one of them. Truly this was something that will help many people and babies.
Economic Growth in Gandou
1. Father is asking for projects for economic growth and we would love to start some projects. We talked to the school teachers and showed them some simple ear rings and
stuff and said they should try to make some and we would try to sell them for them. They seemed to understand.
2. We also asked them to keep having the kids make cards….like thank you cards and Christmas cards.
3. Father would like us to bring someone with us on a trip that spends their whole time working on economic growth stuff in Gandou.
Next Trip
1. The next trip dates are July 9-17.
2. These days are good for Father Nexcene.
3. Father is going with other priests for a special event to Brazil this will be August 12-22. After his trip to Brazil he needs to go back to Gandou for some amount of time.
Then he would be available to come to the USA.
4. Father wants his parents to come to the USA. He would like us to write the Visa letter of invite for his parents. They want to visit friends in New York. Father wants this
letter by July. He said we can bring it with us on the next trip.
Mass Stipends
1. We had only a few mass stipends this time.
2. Need to run an ad in the bulletin or something to try to get more before the next trip.
Extremely Poor Mothers/Families Fund
1. Many of the people that we entered into the extremely poor families fund showed up again this trip. Each one showed me receipts for where they had received from Father
their little stipend.
2. This program seems to be working very well.
3. Father reminded us that there are so many that are so poor.
4. He said he could pick out many more if we wanted.
5. He asked if this is something we would be able to keep up….I told him I was not sure.
6. I asked if the people we picked for the fund were really poor and he said yes…and he wanted to continue with each of them.
Homemade Albs for Mass
1. We have someone in the USA that is making albs and mass linens for Gandou.
2. She is working on them, but they were not ready for this trip.
3. We let father know that progress is being made, but they are not done yet.
4. Father is to email us the sizes of the linens that he needs.
Father Nexcene’s Priorities
1. Father talked about one of his top priorities to be support of the start of the 7th grade in the school at Gandou. Previously there was not a 7th grade and Father reported that
there were not teachers in the area capable of teaching at a 7th grade level. Father asked us to fund a 7th grade teacher and said it would be like $7,000 per year. We told him
we did not have the money for that. Father then found a way to start a 7th grade class without us and when we were there it was going with 14 students. It appeared to me
that he simply moved one of his most capable teachers to this class and did not hire the outside teacher he was wanting to hire. Father is still asking for help on this and still
asking for the same amount of money so I think he still wants to hire this outside teacher.
2. Father next reported that he wanted our help to support the construction on the Church. We need many many thousand dollars yet and we have no idea where to get it.
3. Father reported that he really wanted us to help to replace the roof on the third class room that was damaged by the earthquake. The other two are being replaced by the
$10,000 donation we were able to get from Canada. We need another $5,000 to replace the last class room. We don’t have any funds for this.
4. Father asked for help for the formation of the teachers. He said they need this formation twice a year. Once during school and once before school starts. There is one
formation that needs to happen now. He said it is $1500 per session or $3000 per year.
5. Father has had on his high priority list for a long time to fix the old part of the rectory because he is very fearful of the earthquake damages and he is very worried that it is
going to fall on people and kill them. We sent a small amount after the last trip to get him started and he did. He is going great with the work. Father is now reporting the
amount to finish the work is $5,058. They really need this and it would be a huge help to our teams when we go.
6. Father is still asking for someone to come to talk about development in Gandou….how do they improve all that they do….farming, economic growth, public health,
infrastructure. We need to work on who this would be and hold they would help.
7. We clearly still have a great need to move ahead with the motorcycle project. We need to raise these funds. The motorcycle is greatly needed for transporting patients and
health care workers back and forth from Gandou to the Jacmel Hospital (3hrs drive away).
8. There are so many other projects that Father has asked for money for so many times in the past, but we have not been able to fund. These include teaching people about the
Church, teaching the farmers, Catechist training, youth retreat, construction project for the clinic, and rebuilding earthquake damaged homes.
Mission Focus Area #2 – Health Care for our Sister Parish
Medical clinic/pharmacy
1. Clinic Results/Numbers
A. Totals were 1195 Patients that went through our 4 days of clinic. This includes the school kids.
2. We made sure that anyone who wanted to go to clinic got to go to clinic, those who seemed the poorest or the most needy were put at the front of the line.
3. Most every patient that came into the clinic had an ID card either from a previous trip or from our ID card station that was producing ID cards this trip. The ID card station
was easily able to keep up and keep us supplied with patients. There were several patients that reported that they left their ID card at their house.
4. We used lights most every night to finish.
5. Several patients came back to thank us for medical care they had received in the past. I took pictures and gathered the names of these patients. It was so rewarding to have
them coming back so happy and thanking us.
6. We continue to be more and more impressed with the nurse we have in Gandou. She really seems to be working hard. She is not afraid in her spare time to take a trash bag
and pick up the trash laying around the clinic from all the patients. She really seems to understand the medicine and equipment and be ready to use them. We could not be
happier with her at this point. We really need to keep finding a way to fund her small salary.
7. As I noted in the health worker/nurse section we spend much time with them during this trip cleaning up the patient database and blood pressure program list. They
suggested many patients be taken out of the referral and blood pressure binders because they live too far away to reach them and they never come back to get care. The
database currently has more patients in it than we can help so the suggestion was to focus on the ones that live closer and that we can actually help. We need to pray for more
funds, supporters, and workers so that we can start caring for all the patients that come to our clinic.
8. We had so many patients that needed an ECHO done….we typically have one on the summer trip, but this trip we will not have it. We need to figure out how we are going to
deal with these patients.
9. There is a little girl named Roselor that we have been working with for several years. She has a PDA heart condition and is in dire need of coming to the USA for heart
surgery. We have been working with an organization called “Everyone’s Child International” to bring her to the USA for surgery. They have scheduled her to come to the
USA in July. I talked to the mother and she is ok with this.
10. For years we have seen a local patient in the Gandou area that had a huge lump on the side of her face. We have previously put her in the referral database to have her
checked in one of the cities. No one in Haiti has ever been able to take her case and help her. This trip we decided to take her back with us to Port-au-Prince to the radio lab
and have a scan done on her. We did this and quickly had a diagnosis. She has an Ameloblastoma. This is something that can be easily fixed in the USA. This patient is a
young mother of several children. She is in her twenties. We need to find a way to bring her to the USA for help.
Dental clinic and extractions
1. For this trip we had a wonderful dentist from Cincinnati that joined us as well as a super hygienist from St. Louis that joined us. We also hired the Haitian dentist (Dr.
Peterson) as we normally do to act as a translator and dentist.
2. The dentist from Cincinnati purchase on his own a portable dental unit and small air compressor to run it.
3. He brought both of these things with him on this trip and left them in Gandou for the dentist to use next time.
4. We had sent a larger generator on the sea container earlier in the year and Father Nexcene had it there ready for us to use.
5. All this equipment worked perfect.
6. The team helped a total of about 275 patients in the 4 clinic days.
7. There were about 6 fillings that were completed.
8. There were about 14 patients per day that received a cleaning.
9. Most of the patients requested multiple extractions.
10. The team worked in the new school building with the condemned ceiling.
11. The dental team often two health care workers helping him.
12. There was no lack of patients. There was a huge crowd waiting at the dental clinic all day.
13. One last day the team worked way later than they planned and saw over 100 patients on that day.
14. As always many of the patients had hugely infected, rotten, broken, and loose teeth that were in great need of help.
15. Besides the huge amount of pain that these teeth cause, one of the big concerns is the infection going to the brain and killing the person. Truly the dental clinic could easily
be considered as the most important work we do. Truly lives are being saved by helping them to get these rotten teeth out and the infection stopped.
ID Cards
1. Harry McCullough led the effort this trip on the ID card system.
2. Harry was supported by a translator and the Haitian University sponsor students.
3. The team did a great job and about ½ way through the trip Harry had the ID cards being nearly completely run by the University students.
4. They were not perfect but they could do it. Once and a while we would find someone that was in the system before but for some reason received a new ID card and number
this time.
5. Still really could us a “How To” document to train new people how to do this.
6. If we formalized the process it would be good for us Americans that go and the Haitians that support us.
7. Might always want to translate that to Kreole.
8. The ID card team has a very difficult job to do when they are there….keeping peace in the crowd, keeping things organized, keeping the equipment going, getting names
spelled correctly, sorting out who is who, keeping pictures connect with names, keep up the patient flow so the clinic is never lacking patients, and doing this for 10hours a
day….wow great job for all that helped with this!
Mission Focuses:
1. Continue to build sister parish relationship and understand current status of ongoing projects.
2. Provide health care for the people of our sister parish in the following ways:
a. Run medical clinic/pharmacy and provide the best possible medical care to the greatest number possible.
b. Run dental clinic and provide cleanings and extractions, and restorations.
c. Create ID cards for patients for best possible patient tracking.
d. Go to the school and do quick health assessment on every child (nearly 250).
e. Meet with the mid-wives, assess their knowledge, understand their struggles, answer their questions, review key points with them, and provide them with a tool kit of
supplies to aid them in their work.
f. Run the best eye clinic we have ever provided and further train the health workers in their knowledge on the eye.
g. Clean up our blood pressure program list and approach through the help of the local health care workers to ensure compliance.
h. Obtain updates on the status of all 280 blood pressure program patients.
i. Provide home visits to 4 patients that simply were not able to get out of their home to visit our clinic.
j. Work for the third time side by side with the Haitian nurse which was hired to work in our sister parish.
k. Continue with our referral program and referral patient tracking which provides the support for the people in our sister parish to get health care in the cities of Jacmel or
Port-au-Prince when we are not in Haiti.
l. Transport emergency cases from Gandou to Port-au-Prince using our truck.
m. Involve the 3 students we are sponsoring to go to university in our clinic work and allowing them to run the ID card table.
3. Provide opportunity for our team to experience Haiti and especially our sister parish.
Focus Area #1 - Sister Parish Relationship/Status of Ongoing Projects
Earthquake Rebuilding/Construction projects
Church
1. Construction of the new church is in progress.
2. It is located in the same place as the previous church.
3. Seems a little larger than the old church.
4. Currently working on the foundation.
5. Looks like they are doing a good job. Lots of rebar.
6. There was between 3-10 guys working on it each day.
7. Father introduced me to the person leading the project. It is Father Nexcene’s older brother. That is great….I think we can trust him!
8. Father said the new church will have a small basement room where they will do daily mass.
9. I asked if there were any damages from the two hurricanes and Father said there was none.
10. However he said since the hurricane broke the road it greatly slowed progress on the church because no material were able to get there. Now they can get there again.
Recently they brought 100 bags for cement and 4 tons of steel.
11. Father is asking us to continue to support this project.
12. Father has been talking to the bishop about the project. The bishop would like to meet with us and encourage us to financially support the project more.
13. Father and the bishop are thinking that there is not going to be any help from PROCHE.
14. Father talked about how the people of the community were helping with the church by carrying sorting stones for the construction.
15. Father told us he was planning to have metal truss made for the Church rather than wood because they are so much stronger, this will protect the church roof from
hurricanes. Father said this will cost quite a bit, but it seems like the correct decision.
16. Father said if we taught him how to send pictures again he would start emailing pictures of the progress.
Earthquake Damaged Home Rebuilding Project – This is the third home we are building.
1. Construction has not yet started.
2. Father is working with this family to work out the details, construction can start as soon as they get the details worked out.
3. Father is suggesting a meeting with the family to work out the details.
4. Father still wants us to kick off a home building fund raiser project for all the other people with earthquake damaged or destroyed homes because many of the poorest people
still need homes (3 years after the earthquake).
5. The recent hurricanes did damage on many homes as well.
6. I had young mothers with large families coming up to me telling me that the hurricane broke their house, washed away their garden (which is most of the food they have to
eat), and killed their livestock (which is their other source of food). Even what little they have has been taken away from them.
7. Estimate to build a very simple 2-room home is between $3,500 and $4,000.
8. Father specifically asked that we try to seek out money to help rebuild one of our health workers (Xavier’s) home.
New Clinic Construction
1. We still need to work on fund raising for this.
2. Nothing has been started on the construction due to the lack of funding.
3. Father is ready to start anytime we can come up with the money.
4. Father reported that more land has become available connected to the place we previously purchased. It is on the right side of the road as you come into Gandou.
5. Father says the new ground is flat and he work on getting a final price for us.
6. Several people saw the new clinic that was constructed about 15minutes walk from the rectory near the market area. This clinic is about done a looks great. There are several
rooms and inside the rooms look great.
7. Father is now calling it a government clinic run out of Benet.
8. They told us they were going to finish it then look for a staff to run it. Father said there are lots of problems with the owners of the ground it was built on.
9. We are watching this closely to see if it changes anything for us.
Roof on School in Gandou
1. We have been in discussion with Father Nexcene for some time about repairing the roof some of the school classrooms that were condemned after the earthquake.
2. The rooms have been condemned because they have a 20 foot by 20 foot 8 inch thick cement roof on them that is cracked and likely to fall on the children, however one of
the rooms is still being used for the kindergarden class and every school day there are about 85 kids that spend their day under this condemned cement ceiling.
3. Please pray that this cement ceiling does not fall on these children!
4. The organization in Canada has sent father $10,000 to repair the roof.
5. Father has not yet started because of the hurricanes. They will be taking off the current roof and replacing with steel sheet roof.
6. Father said he was going to buy the materials to fix this by end of February.
7. There was an engineer coming on Tuesday to figure out how to take the current roof down.
8. Father expects to be done no longer than 3 weeks after he starts.
9. Wants to get this done before the spring rains start coming.
General School Situation in Gandou
1. Father had previously asked us for help so that he could start a 7th grade in Gandou.
2. We told him that this was something we did not currently have money for.
3. However he figured out a way to start one because there was a 7th grade this trip.
4. Father asked us for help on this project in the future.
5. We took pictures of the sponsored students.
6. There was about 7 that were absent that we did not get.
7. Father promised to email us pictures of those 7.
8. We took 12 new school sponsorships with us on this trip. This means we are now sponsoring 122 students.
High School/LaVallee House (House we are renting in a nearby city that has a high school so the 14 kids from Gandou can go to high school.)
1. This is working very well. Father said it was even better than last year.
2. Father had organized that the students write a letter to their sponsors. Together they wrote one letter.
3. I reminded father that we want one letter from each directly to their sponsor.
University Kids Project(Sending Kids done with High School to University)
1. Once again all three university kids took time away from their University work and came with us to Gandou to run the medical clinic.
2. We spent significant time with them and we continue to be impressed by them.
3. Fran kept saying they were all took skinny.
4. Two did much work with the patient registration and after they finished their they helped with ID cards.
5. The third did ID cards the whole time.
6. They are very capable to run the ID card station by themselves. This is great because it allows our people to get out and do other things.
7. We have grade reports from two of the students. The third is still working on getting his.
8. Father reported they had all done well in school and the two report cards showed this to be true.
9. For the nursing student, some of her paperwork did not come in time and so she has to wait until October to sign up for nursing school.
10. She is having surgery for a Goiter now.
11. She is also taking a class in French to get more background in it now.
12. No charges for her until she starts in October.
13. Told father that I need her to fill out our application for the University Student Program.
14. Fran talked to the students a little about their lives.
15. They said sharing the one laptop is very difficult because they all need it and they have to travel and good distance to get to each other to use it.
16. They could really use two more.
17. They also talked about how far they live from school (live with family in Port-au-Prince). This is difficult.
18. Fran was talking about asking them to create a list of things they need and things they want. Not sure if she got this list from them. Father asked to see the list before they
give it to us.
19. Father prefers gifts given to the students go through him first.
20. Each of the students wrote a little for their sponsors.
USA College Kid to Spend Extra Time in Gandou at the End of Our Summer Trip
1. Robbie Patterson contacted us and would like to spend several weeks in Gandou after our summer trip.
2. Father is fine with this and says he can stay in the rectory in the rooms downstairs.
3. Father will supply his food and water.
4. He can use father’s computer to send emails.
5. Father just asked that if he makes Haitian friends he should not bring them in the rectory.
Old Rectory Construction and Earthquake Damage Repair
1. Father has been asking for help to repair the old rectory for some time.
2. We sent $1500 down earlier for him to do some work on it.
3. Father has taken that money and started a major repair on it to make it bigger and to add a bathroom upstairs for us to use when we are there.
4. Father is adding pillars to the walls to strengthen.
5. Father would like us to support this project more.
6. We were impressed with all he is doing with this.
7. Father later emailed and said he needed $5,058 to finish this project.
Hurricane Damage Repair
1. Father reported that the hurricane damage they received from the two hurricanes in the fall was horrible. He said in some spots of the road it left holes that were 8 feet deep.
2. He worked on the road for 3 months straight to fix it.
3. The money we sent was used for food to feed the people working on the road.
4. Sometimes he paid the people and sometimes he just feed them.
5. The people carried lots of rocks to fill in the road.
6. Some of the money we sent went to just help the people that were really hit hard by the hurricane.
7. Many people lost all of their food in their garden….which is most of their food.
8. Many people also lost their livestock because of all of the rain and wind and mud slides.
9. Many people had extensive damage to their homes.
10. What little these people had was taken from them…truly these people are suffering….and this was suffering on top of suffering.
11. Father said many people have been reduced to begging. Some have left their families to go into the city to try to find some work…typically they end up in the slums….living
a horrible life.
12. Father said the situation is so bad with the damage to the fields that there is not enough bean seed to plant the next crop. Without help to go and find seed in other markets
the people will really be suffering for years. Father asked for $2500 to help purchase seed for the area farmers.
Clinic/Health Care Workers/Nurse/Midwives
1. After mass on Sunday we took some time to sit down with the health care workers to talk through the blood pressure program and the referral program.
2. The told us there are many in the blood pressure program that simply don’t come back and simply live too far away for them to go there each month.
3. Asked if there would be enough patients if we just chose the patients that were closer to Gandou and they said yes.
4. We decided to drop out all the patients that live far away and only cover the patients that are currently active and any new patients that the health workers told us lived close
enough. We decided we would change our blood pressure program process so that we checked with the health workers before enrolling any new patients.
5. They went through the current list of people in the blood pressure program and they told us who was not active.
6. We also went through every patient in the referral program.
7. Many had died.
8. One little boy they reported died because his house simply fell on him….not during the earthquake or the hurricane…just fell on him…these people need help!
9. Many referral patients were reported as living too far away and they can’t find them.
10. They reported that some refused care.
11. We decided to take out all these patients. This greatly reduced the number in the referral program.
12. Father reported how happy he was with the nurse…he said she is always ready to help with emergencies. He said she is taking on things on her own, for example she ran a
mobile clinic while we were not there.
13. Father also reported that she is helpful with baby deliveries.
14. I don’t think we could be happier with the status of the nurse.
15. Both the health care workers showed us the patients they had completed the referral work on and the receipts they had to demonstrate the costs associated with the referrals
that they were working on.
16. Both health workers showed us that they had completed several referral surgeries.
17. One of the biggest things that happened since the last trip was that there was some mission group that came to Lavalay and held a clinic. Father and the health workers
gathered up a bunch of our referral patients and took them there.
18. They were all cared for and it finished out their referral work and it was free of charge.
19. There were many that were completed. Great job guys!
20. Father was able to gather nearly all the local midwives for a meeting with several members of our medical team.
21. Dr. Mary McCough had a planned training session with them that went very well. She said they seemed to understand, take the training very well and be very capable
people.
22. Everyone was very happy with the training.
23. She also had a nice supply kit to give each one of them. Truly this was something that will help many people and babies.
Economic Growth in Gandou
1. Father is asking for projects for economic growth and we would love to start some projects. We talked to the school teachers and showed them some simple ear rings and
stuff and said they should try to make some and we would try to sell them for them. They seemed to understand.
2. We also asked them to keep having the kids make cards….like thank you cards and Christmas cards.
3. Father would like us to bring someone with us on a trip that spends their whole time working on economic growth stuff in Gandou.
Next Trip
1. The next trip dates are July 9-17.
2. These days are good for Father Nexcene.
3. Father is going with other priests for a special event to Brazil this will be August 12-22. After his trip to Brazil he needs to go back to Gandou for some amount of time.
Then he would be available to come to the USA.
4. Father wants his parents to come to the USA. He would like us to write the Visa letter of invite for his parents. They want to visit friends in New York. Father wants this
letter by July. He said we can bring it with us on the next trip.
Mass Stipends
1. We had only a few mass stipends this time.
2. Need to run an ad in the bulletin or something to try to get more before the next trip.
Extremely Poor Mothers/Families Fund
1. Many of the people that we entered into the extremely poor families fund showed up again this trip. Each one showed me receipts for where they had received from Father
their little stipend.
2. This program seems to be working very well.
3. Father reminded us that there are so many that are so poor.
4. He said he could pick out many more if we wanted.
5. He asked if this is something we would be able to keep up….I told him I was not sure.
6. I asked if the people we picked for the fund were really poor and he said yes…and he wanted to continue with each of them.
Homemade Albs for Mass
1. We have someone in the USA that is making albs and mass linens for Gandou.
2. She is working on them, but they were not ready for this trip.
3. We let father know that progress is being made, but they are not done yet.
4. Father is to email us the sizes of the linens that he needs.
Father Nexcene’s Priorities
1. Father talked about one of his top priorities to be support of the start of the 7th grade in the school at Gandou. Previously there was not a 7th grade and Father reported that
there were not teachers in the area capable of teaching at a 7th grade level. Father asked us to fund a 7th grade teacher and said it would be like $7,000 per year. We told him
we did not have the money for that. Father then found a way to start a 7th grade class without us and when we were there it was going with 14 students. It appeared to me
that he simply moved one of his most capable teachers to this class and did not hire the outside teacher he was wanting to hire. Father is still asking for help on this and still
asking for the same amount of money so I think he still wants to hire this outside teacher.
2. Father next reported that he wanted our help to support the construction on the Church. We need many many thousand dollars yet and we have no idea where to get it.
3. Father reported that he really wanted us to help to replace the roof on the third class room that was damaged by the earthquake. The other two are being replaced by the
$10,000 donation we were able to get from Canada. We need another $5,000 to replace the last class room. We don’t have any funds for this.
4. Father asked for help for the formation of the teachers. He said they need this formation twice a year. Once during school and once before school starts. There is one
formation that needs to happen now. He said it is $1500 per session or $3000 per year.
5. Father has had on his high priority list for a long time to fix the old part of the rectory because he is very fearful of the earthquake damages and he is very worried that it is
going to fall on people and kill them. We sent a small amount after the last trip to get him started and he did. He is going great with the work. Father is now reporting the
amount to finish the work is $5,058. They really need this and it would be a huge help to our teams when we go.
6. Father is still asking for someone to come to talk about development in Gandou….how do they improve all that they do….farming, economic growth, public health,
infrastructure. We need to work on who this would be and hold they would help.
7. We clearly still have a great need to move ahead with the motorcycle project. We need to raise these funds. The motorcycle is greatly needed for transporting patients and
health care workers back and forth from Gandou to the Jacmel Hospital (3hrs drive away).
8. There are so many other projects that Father has asked for money for so many times in the past, but we have not been able to fund. These include teaching people about the
Church, teaching the farmers, Catechist training, youth retreat, construction project for the clinic, and rebuilding earthquake damaged homes.
Mission Focus Area #2 – Health Care for our Sister Parish
Medical clinic/pharmacy
1. Clinic Results/Numbers
A. Totals were 1195 Patients that went through our 4 days of clinic. This includes the school kids.
2. We made sure that anyone who wanted to go to clinic got to go to clinic, those who seemed the poorest or the most needy were put at the front of the line.
3. Most every patient that came into the clinic had an ID card either from a previous trip or from our ID card station that was producing ID cards this trip. The ID card station
was easily able to keep up and keep us supplied with patients. There were several patients that reported that they left their ID card at their house.
4. We used lights most every night to finish.
5. Several patients came back to thank us for medical care they had received in the past. I took pictures and gathered the names of these patients. It was so rewarding to have
them coming back so happy and thanking us.
6. We continue to be more and more impressed with the nurse we have in Gandou. She really seems to be working hard. She is not afraid in her spare time to take a trash bag
and pick up the trash laying around the clinic from all the patients. She really seems to understand the medicine and equipment and be ready to use them. We could not be
happier with her at this point. We really need to keep finding a way to fund her small salary.
7. As I noted in the health worker/nurse section we spend much time with them during this trip cleaning up the patient database and blood pressure program list. They
suggested many patients be taken out of the referral and blood pressure binders because they live too far away to reach them and they never come back to get care. The
database currently has more patients in it than we can help so the suggestion was to focus on the ones that live closer and that we can actually help. We need to pray for more
funds, supporters, and workers so that we can start caring for all the patients that come to our clinic.
8. We had so many patients that needed an ECHO done….we typically have one on the summer trip, but this trip we will not have it. We need to figure out how we are going to
deal with these patients.
9. There is a little girl named Roselor that we have been working with for several years. She has a PDA heart condition and is in dire need of coming to the USA for heart
surgery. We have been working with an organization called “Everyone’s Child International” to bring her to the USA for surgery. They have scheduled her to come to the
USA in July. I talked to the mother and she is ok with this.
10. For years we have seen a local patient in the Gandou area that had a huge lump on the side of her face. We have previously put her in the referral database to have her
checked in one of the cities. No one in Haiti has ever been able to take her case and help her. This trip we decided to take her back with us to Port-au-Prince to the radio lab
and have a scan done on her. We did this and quickly had a diagnosis. She has an Ameloblastoma. This is something that can be easily fixed in the USA. This patient is a
young mother of several children. She is in her twenties. We need to find a way to bring her to the USA for help.
Dental clinic and extractions
1. For this trip we had a wonderful dentist from Cincinnati that joined us as well as a super hygienist from St. Louis that joined us. We also hired the Haitian dentist (Dr.
Peterson) as we normally do to act as a translator and dentist.
2. The dentist from Cincinnati purchase on his own a portable dental unit and small air compressor to run it.
3. He brought both of these things with him on this trip and left them in Gandou for the dentist to use next time.
4. We had sent a larger generator on the sea container earlier in the year and Father Nexcene had it there ready for us to use.
5. All this equipment worked perfect.
6. The team helped a total of about 275 patients in the 4 clinic days.
7. There were about 6 fillings that were completed.
8. There were about 14 patients per day that received a cleaning.
9. Most of the patients requested multiple extractions.
10. The team worked in the new school building with the condemned ceiling.
11. The dental team often two health care workers helping him.
12. There was no lack of patients. There was a huge crowd waiting at the dental clinic all day.
13. One last day the team worked way later than they planned and saw over 100 patients on that day.
14. As always many of the patients had hugely infected, rotten, broken, and loose teeth that were in great need of help.
15. Besides the huge amount of pain that these teeth cause, one of the big concerns is the infection going to the brain and killing the person. Truly the dental clinic could easily
be considered as the most important work we do. Truly lives are being saved by helping them to get these rotten teeth out and the infection stopped.
ID Cards
1. Harry McCullough led the effort this trip on the ID card system.
2. Harry was supported by a translator and the Haitian University sponsor students.
3. The team did a great job and about ½ way through the trip Harry had the ID cards being nearly completely run by the University students.
4. They were not perfect but they could do it. Once and a while we would find someone that was in the system before but for some reason received a new ID card and number
this time.
5. Still really could us a “How To” document to train new people how to do this.
6. If we formalized the process it would be good for us Americans that go and the Haitians that support us.
7. Might always want to translate that to Kreole.
8. The ID card team has a very difficult job to do when they are there….keeping peace in the crowd, keeping things organized, keeping the equipment going, getting names
spelled correctly, sorting out who is who, keeping pictures connect with names, keep up the patient flow so the clinic is never lacking patients, and doing this for 10hours a
day….wow great job for all that helped with this!
