21. While we were in Gandou we reviewed the applications with Father Voltaire who also gave us input on the students. Together the choice was made on which students
          ​should be chosen.
   22. After the 4 new students were chosen a message was sent to them that they were chosen and later in the week they all showed up. We were able to talk to them and take
         ​their pictures.
   23. We were impressed by all the students and it seems they are all great kids.
   24. We are excited to see just what they can do.
   25. One of the University Students is a current teacher in Gandou. Therefore Father is loosing a teacher, but she will come back as a much more capable teacher in the end.
   26. Until this point we have worked totally through the priests in our sister parish to manage the University Program.
   27. However we knew that our translator San Louis has managed the University Program for the sister parish of St. Thomas Aquinas from West Lafayette, Indiana for years.
   28. We contacted them and asked how he does with this work and we got good reports from them on how the whole program was working.
   29. He charges $80 per student per semester to manage them, but he is then responsible for providing all the receipts and grade reports of the students. He is also an easy way
         ​for them to communicate with us.
   30. Because some of the University Students will be in school in Jacmel and San Louis lives in Jacmel it might offer good opportunities for them to stay closely connected.
   31. Furthermore since this is San Louis specialty we expect he can do a great job with it.
   32. We had a discussion with Father and San Louis through another translator to ensure everything was clearly discussed and Father agreed that it would be good to have San
          ​Louis take on the University Project.
   33. This means that the University funds that we send will now go directly to San Louis and he will provide receipts for all his payments.
   34. This was discussed with Father Whittington in the USA and he approved and we are moving forward with this approach.
   35. By the time this report was written San Louis had already provided exact costs for each student by semester and we have a plan to move forward long before the school
         ​year is starting.
   36. Everything seems to be going very well.

General Relationship Information
Next Trip
   1. We discussed Jan27-Feb4. These dates were previously confirmed as good by Father.
   2. The one thing we need to do yet is decide if the dates for the winter chosen by the surgery team that goes to Lavallee impact our dates. If we decide that we don’t need any
        ​trip overlap with them then these will be our dates. If we decide we want some overlap of our two teams trips then we will need to consider delaying our trip about 1 week.
   3. We want to get this decided very soon.
​
Father Voltaire and Translator Trip to the USA
   1. The decision has been made to bring Father Voltaire to the USA on August 31-September8.
   2. We have decided to bring Dr. Andre Hudson-Nexcene to the USA with him to act as a translator and this will also offer us much opportunity to talk to him about
        ​improvements in our health care in Gandou.
   3. There is many things we will need help on for this trip. If anyone can help please let us know.
​
Nurse’s Visa
   1. Our nurse asked for our help to write a letter of invitation to see if she could get her visa.
   2. She had asked for this the last two times and we did not do it. We talked to her about the need to get really good communication from her before we would consider doing
       ​this.
   3. Bonnie talked to her again on this trip about this visa letter.
   4. Bonnie agreed to writing the letter and a letter was typed into Father’s computer and given to her while we were there.
​
Exercising Visa on Little Girl that Previously Came to the USA for Heart Surgery
   1. A couple years ago a little girl named Roselore from Gandou came to the USA for Heart Surgery.
   2. Her care was donated by a hospital in Michigan and she stayed with a host family in Michigan.
   3. Father is keeping her passport and Visa for her.
   4. Her visa is good for 5 years and it is prized possession of any Haitian person and Visas are very hard to get.
   5. Father said she has not asked, but he did not want her to lose her visa so he was wondering if it would be possible for her to travel back to the USA to exercise her visa so
       ​that she might be able to renew it when it comes time to do so.
   6. Having a visa can be an opportunity in the future for this little girl.
   7. We told father at that time that we would talk to her host family in Michigan to see if she could bring her over.
   8. We contacted them and they seemed to have some interest.
   9. Father asked about this again, but if the group from Michigan had not contacted father then we had no news to provide. We would need someone else to take this one simply
       ​because we have too many other pressing needs in Haiti. If someone has interest please let us know.
​
Seminarian from Gandou Project
   1. Father had previously reported he has two young men in the area that are going to seminary and they need help.
   2. Their names are Louiguere Frank and Woldem Ambroise. Louiguere’s family is not able to help him any and Woldem’s parents are deceased.
   3. Father reported they need help with clothes, books, fees, and living expenses in general.
   4. Father reported that $100 a month would be good. Anything would help.
   5. We were not able to find anyone to help with this project from last trip to this trip but we are still looking.
​
​Internet in Gandou
   1. We tried to use the internet while in Gandou and it did not work.
   2. After trying several things we found the service had been disconnected.
   3. Father reported that he has to have someone pay it for him since he don’t have a credit card.
   4. He reported that this person must have failed to do this.
   5. By the time this report was written Father had emailed us and told us that the internet was back working.
​
Sea Contain Shippment
   1. For the first time we used the Parish Twinning Program sea container for shipping some items from the USA to Haiti.
   2. We felt like it would be impossible to get the items to Haiti and released before our trip, but we though it would be great if this did happen.
   3. Praised be God because just before our trip we found out the sea container items were released and available for our sister parish priest to come and pickup.
   4. During our trip we were able to use our rental trucks to bring everything to Gandou.
   5. We had sent the following:
        A. 2 Dental chairs
        B. 1 Medical bed
        C. 6 Medical bed matrasses
        D. 1 Exam Table
        E. 2 Coleman Cots
        F. Boots for all the mid-wives and health workers (except Germain who still needs a very small size boot).
        G. Several totes of shoes to be used as one of our first micro-loan projects.
        H. A sewing machine to be used as one of our first micro-loan projects.
        I. Printer/Scanner/Copier for Father to use for school and church work.
        J. Some dental supplies
        K. Some bandage supplies
        L. Scrubs for the health workers
       M. 2 sheets of ply wood we hope to use to make bunk bends from in the future.
   6. We thank God for all his help to get these items to Gandou. The life of the people of our sister parish will be much better for it.
​
Micro Loans
   1. We started discussions with Father to gather his thoughts on what it would take to start a micro-loan project.
   2. Father said the people are familiar with this because Father sees a person from a micro loan bank called Fonkose in Gandou from time to time.
   3. He comes to Gandou to meet with people and explain how their program works.
   4. Father said it would be great if we could still do a micro-loan project and charge less interest than Fonkose does.
   5. We asked Father what kind of things the people might want to take loans on and he said he would need to do a survey on this.
   6. He said mostly people just grow things so likely the loans would be to support that.
   7. We asked about starting a micro-loan project for seeds, and Father told us that some of the seeds are provided by the Church/Caritos. However right now the last two bean
       ​crops in Haiti have failed so beans are very expensive right now so it would be helpful to have microloan for bean seeds now.
   8. The success of the people would totally be dependent on the weather.
   9. We did find out that there are some laws that govern micro-loans in Haiti and we would need to watch to make sure we are within those laws.
 10. Father said any project like this needs to start with discussion with the community.
 11. Father said the next baby step would be to select a small group of people that we want to work with then have lots of meetings and training.
 12. Father said there must be a contract.
 13. We asked about using the shoes and the sewing machine that we sent on the sea container as a trail micro-loan and father agreed with this.
 14. Father said we would need to pick some people to run the project and he would oversee it.
 15. We suggested our University Student Gerard who majored in math education. Father said he would be a good choice but we would need a second person.
 16. We discussed the potential of using the interest to pay the overseeing people, but likely this would not be enough by itself.
 17. Cindy McCullough from this trip is very interested in this project and we might be able to get her to agree to take the lead on it.
 18. She said she would contact the parish twinning program micro-loan contact and see what she had to say.
 19. The next planting timeframe is January/February so would need the project figured out before then.
 20. They plant 3 times per year, July, January, March.
​
Help from Food for the Poor
   1. We have made a great connection with Food for the Poor and we were interested to know what help Father gets from them to see if we could grow the help from this
       ​organization.
   2. Father reported that every 2 months he gets 6 or 7 big bags of rice from them.
   3. Last year in December after the roads were damaged by heavy rains he went to them and asked to borrow hand held tools for fixing the roads and they loaned them to him.
   4. Father reported that he really likes working with them.
   5. We asked if Food for the Poor does other things and if Father would like us to try to get them to start providing these things to Gandou.
   6. Father said yes we should try to see if they could provide the following:
       A. More food
       B. A refrigerator
       C. Benches for the school
       D. School supplies like bags, notebooks, folders, file cabinets, and desks.

Mission Focus Area #2 – Health Care for our Sister Parish
Clinic/Health Care Workers/Nurse
Malnourished Children Program
   1. On our last trip Bonnie worked closely with our Nurse, Germain on a program to give special attention and care to the very malnourish kids that we see coming into the
       ​clinic.
   2. When we got to Gandou and some of the kids that were on this program came to clinic we were impressed with the care that Germain had given them.
   3. Nearly every child on the program was gaining weight and looking much more healthy.
   4. Although we still struggle to get the amount of communication with Germain that we would like, we can tell that she is doing good work.
​
Referral Patients and Room in Jacmel to Stay
   1. We spent significant time with the nurse and health workers talking through the referral patients.
   2. At the start of our trip Father still had about $1,000 of the $3,000 of referral money that we had sent.
   3. By the end of this trip however we had spend all of this an more dealing with our surgery cases and the emergency cases we sent to the city.
   4. Here are the results for the referral patients completed since the last trip.
       A. Oscal-5 referral patients accomplished.
       B. Ricgo-2 referral patients complete.
       C. Xavier-1 referral patients complete.
       D. Wilbert-2.5 referral patients complete.
   5. All the details of which patients were cared for and all the details of what was done, total costs, and receipts were written down in the referral binder.
   6. These numbers are down considerably from what was done last time.
   7. We talked to the health workers about this and they reported that in Jacmel where they typically take the patients there is only one Anesthesiologist and between last trip and
        ​this trip she had a baby. She went away to have her baby and she is not back yet. Therefor it had nothing to do with them that little was done on the referral program but
        ​more to do with the lack of the anesthesiologist.
   8. Our side of the referral program is working fine, but they have no control of things like the lack of an anesthesiologist.
   9. However there is a major issue with the referral program. Each trip we add more than 70 new referrals and less than 20 are completed. We are now well over 300 patients
       ​waiting in the referral database in dire need of care. Please pray that God shows us the way to help more people.
 10. We talked about the rooms we rented in Jacmel for the health workers to stay at when they take patients down the mountain.
 11. They have not yet used them. Father had to get keys made for each of the health workers and there are three keys…one for the gate, one for the front door, and one for
        ​another door.
 12. Getting three keys made for the 4 health workers and nurse will cost $15 and I told Father to just take it out of the referral fund.
 13. Father warned them that if any of them abused this house that they would be fired. They all seemed to completely understand.
 14. Father said we had to clean the house first and San Louis said he would get that done.
 15. Father said we had to get something to sleep on there before they could use it and we send hospital bed matresses down for it.
 16. We also gave them the cots and told Oscal to use them for the Jacmel house.
 17. Father said we needed to setup a way to for them to have drinking water so we need to get some Culligan for them, but we don’t need to wait on this.
 18. They also need some way to cook. Need to figure out something for them to heat things.
 19. The room also has electric that San Louis but under his name. There is a charge each month for simply having it connected and a charge for how much electric they use.
 20. The health workers asked if it would be possible in the future to have a TV at this house. We need to see if there is some way we can figure out how to do this.
 21. In the end Father said they would start using it.
 22. We told them this was a trial to see how well this worked. If it don’t work well we will stop renting these rooms.
 23. The health care workers said many words of thanks for the Jacmel house. They talked about how many times they took patients down to the Hospital in Jacmel and begged
        ​the security guard to allow them to sleep on the bench outside the hospital.
​
Referral Patient Transportation and the Motorcycle
   1. One of main challenges of the health workers in getting the referral patient work done has been transportation.
   2. We previously sent money to purchase a new Honda motorcycle for the health workers to use.
   3. So far only Wilbert is using it. Sounds like he is now a good driver, and has taken it as far as Benet.
   4. He is the only one that has gone through any training on it.
   5. Father asked for more money to send more of the health workers to training on the motorcycle. They said it was important to learn on a smaller motorcycle in Gandou before
       ​moving to a bigger one.
   6. We sent $250 and there was still $77 left.
   7. We talked about this at length.
   8. I instead that Wilbert puts one of the other health workers on the motorcycle and rides them to somewhere they can find a flat field then rides them around that field until get
       ​the feel for it, instructing them as he drives, then let them slowing try it.
   9. They seemed to think this was a good idea and they were moving ahead with it.
 10. While we were there Wilbert told me that the front tube on the motorcycle went flat on his last trip. Sounds like he somehow removed it and tied off the leak and it was
        ​holding air while we were down there. I gave $10 to Michele when he was going to Jacmel and he brought a new tube back. We then gave it to Wilbert.
 11. They asked for a helmet and air pump for the motorcycle.
​
Lavalle Surgery Team and Surgeries for This Trip
   1. We can’t praise God enough for connecting us with such a wonderful mission team to goes to the city of Lavalle Haiti which is about 2 hours from our sister parish in
       ​Gandou.
   2. Our connection was made with them several months before our trip and we worked with them to sort through our referral patients to find good candidates for the specialties
       ​and equipment they had.
   3. We had a goal of getting 20 surgeries done and we got very close to this amount.
   4. It took a huge amount of management to get all these patients located, transported to Lavallee for presurgery work, getting their surgery scheduled, feeding them,
       ​transporting them back to Gandou, finding them housing close to the rectory the night before the surgery so we could transport them early the next morning, ensuring they
       ​fasted as required for the surgery, transporting them back for surgery, ensuring post operation work was done, and then finally getting them transported back to Gandou.
   5. We can’t thank Bonnie Kreckler and Stephanie Gunselman for leading this part of the mission. These patients could not have been helped without their loving care.
   6. Bonnie and Stephanie talked about how great the help of the health care work Oscal was for this work. Oscal clearly impressed them in this work.
   7. At the end of our mission Stephanie Gunselman and Fran Grebel stayed 4 extra days with the team in Lavallee. This extra time was great for helping to build our
       ​relationship with them and better understand their capabilities.
   8. Both the Lavallee team and our team are very excited about this relationship and the great things it could lead us to in the future.
   9. The Lavallee team also inspired us to look more into what additional care options we can add in Gandou. Based on the great things the Lavallee team has done it appears
        ​that if we simply ask God for help He will provide what we need to help these people.