Lately it seems that the kids I see in clinic are getting sicker and sicker. Last week a mother practically carried her frail, 12 year old boy into clinic. His name is Elkins Pierre-Philip and he only weighs 68lbs (in combat boots). His mother said he’d been suffering from occasional fevers, stomach aches, and coughing for 26 days. The thought was that he may have TB. There is a doctor from the Netherlands, Anne-Marie, who lives about and hour and a half from here. She has a program for TB. After much convincing, the mother took him. Unfortunately she would not let him be admitted. To be admitted an adult has to stay with him at all times, and she said she had no one to watch her other children. I am now scared that Elkins may not get better without the proper treatment. Anne-Marie was thinking he may not have TB, but needed to follow up on him. Please keep him and his family in your prayers. Him for healing, and for his mother as she has had hard decisions to make.

Also, today a mother brought in twins, Geno and Gena. They were 19 months old and tiny. Geno was the smallest of the two, weighing in at a whopping 10lbs. Both of their hair was orange, and Geno was cold to the touch. Luckily they were both very active and reactive, and breast feeding. They live 4 hours away from here. Right now the mother and I are working out a way for Geno and Gena to receive the F-75 refeeding formula. Please pray that God gives us a way to do this, and Geno begins to grow to a “normal” size with no complications.

One more…today we were sitting down to eat lunch when a man walked up carrying a little boy. He was the most severe kwash kid I have ever seen. (Kwashiorkor is a type of malnutrition that causes severe edema.) His eyes were almost swollen shut, and even his clothes left a mark on his body due to the swelling. He was working pretty hard to breath. Luckily Curtis knew the father, so he was able to emphazie the importance of him getting to a hospital RIGHT THEN. Unfortunately I do not have oxygen, and other life-saving equipment accessable here. Pray for this child’s life. Pray that his father took heed to our warning.

On a lighter note, we had a great group from Georgia stay with us for a couple of days last week. They did VBS for the kids, and helped replace the roof on our feeding program house that was destroyed in the hurricanes. You can find pictures on the Rogers’ blog. Also…WE HAVE RUNNING WATER!!!!! It seems like every week we hear “the water will be fixed Thursday!” Well, it finally happened, and we can take real showers! I’m trying not to get too attached, but I’m going to enjoy it while we’ve got it!

Matt and I (along with all other American staff) have been in St. Louis for the past 2 weeks. As a mission, we had our first annual staff retreat. Needless to say, it was GREAT! We are all now officially on the same page. Dr. Barney Davis (a psychiatrist who does missionary care) and his wife took the time to come in and meet with each of us. In addition we had some amazing praise and worship, and “learning time” as a family.

During our retreat it started to rain. One day turned to two, until eventually it was ten! It seemed that we were semi “stuck” in St. Louis because we could not cross the river to get back to the bay. We FINALLY made it today (two weeks later). I was especially anxious to get back to do some follow ups on a few patients. Also, Michlete’s son, Micheal Jackson (no they didn’t know), has been sick and I wanted to check on him. I am happy to say he is a HEALTHY little boy today!

I’m kind of jumping around here, just talking about my day, but I’ll continue. When we got home we opened our refigerator and WOW, it was moldy and smelly. There was hardly any food in it when we left, but the propane ran out, and as it sat the walls got moldy! So we spent time cleaning it out, and then finally had to get Michlete to get the pilot light lit. I think we’re back in business. Also, our big dune of water was empty, so Michlete’s daughter, Jeniva, and I went and “fetched” water. This time I took 2 gallon jugs…the 5 gallon bucket is just TOO much! Well, welcome to a day in the life of Becca Jump (pretty exciting, I know)!

Today I had a Mountain Dew… and it was great!

So the city that the mission is in has a city soccer team. Apparently they’re pretty decent this year so when we heard they were playing Cap Haitian (the second biggest city in Haiti) we decided to head down.

It looked like the whole city had shown up, but not all could afford to get in. That or the walled off field couldn’t fit them. People were swarming all around outside and several people were standing on top of their roofs trying to catch a glimpes of the game (Wrigley Field anyone?).

I’m not sure if it was because we worked for the mission or just because we were Americans but the police let us get around the majority of the crowd and stand along the sidelines. We were having no part of the rickety wood grandstands.

Right before the second half got underway there was a big commotion near the visiting team’s goal. According to the Haitian doctor beside me, someone from the crowd had thrown a coin into the goal as some type of magic jinx or something to help St. Louis win. The police rushed over, retrieved the coin, yelled and pushed a little and the tragedy was averted.

St. Louis basically dominated the game, controlling the ball the majority of the second half. After scoring their first goal the place went nuts and a quarter of the people there rushed the field. Again, the police rushed in, yelled and pushed and cleared the field rather quickly. Before the match got underway again though, half of the grandstands along the side of the field simply collapsed. I didn’t see them go down, I just heard a crash and looked over to see them not there anymore. I’m not sure how high off the ground they were, I would guess no more than 15 to 20 feet, but there were about four rows of people on them. We all just stood there looking across the field in awe, wondering how severe it was. The field crew (four guys with a stretcher) were rushing around behind the crowd, but we couldn’t see much. We had to assume it couldn’t be too bad considering no less than ten minutes later the match got back underway. The people standing in front of the stands literally turned their backs to them and watched the soccer game.

In a huge upset, St. Louis ended up winning, sparking another field-rushing. The player that scored one of the goals was hoisted on to his fan’s shoulders and carried off the field as people celebrated and sang. As we walked back to the mission we heard the crowd going through downtown, essentially sparking a spontaneous parade that even wound its way back up in front of the mission. It really was great to see sports really provide an outlet that allowed people to take their minds off everything else and to simply celebrate.

However, upon returning to the mission, we realized it wasn’t that simple. I found Becca rushing around the clinic treating all the people that had been brought in from the bleacher collapse. She said she’d seen several broken bones and one guy whose nose had been all but ripped off, in all, about twenty people. The mission staff, American and Haitian alike, did a great job of patching up cuts and arranging a vehicle for those with broken bones to be transported to the hospital down the road.

It was so disheartening that something as simple as a soccer game could go so wrong. At least they cancelled school the next day to celebrate the win.

I just uploaded a few new pictures to Flickr. Check them out on the right sidebar. This one is of Becca attempting to carry a five-gallon bucket of water from its source to our house. It’s about a 10 minute walk from the source to our house and includes crossing a creek. She was successful and I have to do her laundry.

We’re officially back at the Bay and back in the swing of things.  Becca has been seeing a ton of people every morning, she actually saw 50 this past Friday.  The people here have been looking worse since the hurricanes flooded the gardens and knocked out the clean water supply.  She says she’s already seen four cases of malaria and the amount of malnutrition is obviously up.  So definitely keep the people of the Baie in your prayers.  A big shout out to Emily Andrews and her mother Angie Martin who helped out greatly by gathering boxes upon boxes of medical supplies.  They completely helped restock Becca’s clinic.
Curtis and myself have still been doing some work related to the damage left by the hurricane: screen repair, cleaning off mudcaked doors, building shelves to get everything off the floor, and pest control.  I’ve also been playing a lot of soccer with the kids from town.  They’ve been here almost every afternoon playing so I’ve been getting out there trying not to make too big a fool of myself.  Some pictures of that should be coming soon.
The new batteries we got right before the hurricanes are incredible but we’ve had nearly no sun the past three days to recharge them.  Our internet satellite is back up (obviously) though and running better than the old one ever did.

We ALL safely arrived at the main mission on Thursday night. We were very lucky, and had a nice guy that checked Andre in, and made sure he was “safe and sound” for us. As soon as we got off the plane in Port-au-Prince we talked to the guys who were going to unload the luggage and told them about Andre. About 5 minutes later there came Andre on the conveyer belt! He seemed fine. He didn’t enjoy the little plane flight quite so much…but he slept off all of his anxiety yesterday! Right now we are planning on heading out to the bay either Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for all the prayers, and a BIG thanks to Angie Martin and Emily Andrews! I got all my boxes of medical supplies! THANKS!!!!!!

Well, we’ve done a pretty bad job of updating our blog…but here’s a quick update on our life. Before Thanksgiving, the Castillo family suprised us with plane tickets to be home for the holiday season. We had a great time catching up with friends and family. On Monday we left for Fort Lauderdale…we drive so we can take my baby/dog! Well, we were supposed to fly out this morning. We were at the airport at 6 this morning, where we were told that Andre (our dog) would not be allowed to be carried on with us. He’s the same size, and has the same bag as always…sometimes people like to have control. After a minor breakdown in the airport, followed by a very nice manager from American Airlines, we left…not to Haiti. We got another rental car, and another hotel room. It seemed like we had already had a very long day, but it was only 8:30 in the morning by then! We, drove around Fort Lauderdale for a bit, and finally made it to a Walmart after getting directions from some cops on motorcycles. We got Andre a crate so that he can fly under the plane. Now we’re saying a prayer that we have some unusually chilly weather in Haiti, so that he can fly. They won’t let him under the plane if it’s 85 degrees or above anywhere on the trip. So basically I’m praying for snow! We’ve finally been allowed to check in our hotel…and hope to get some rest so we can start this all over again tomorrow at 6am! Say a little prayer that we get on this flight! I’m a little attached to my dog! God bless!
Becca

When Curtis (Rogers) headed back to the States, one of the last things he said to me was, “Don’t worry about being by yourself here, this place pretty much runs itself.”  That’s pretty much the case, except when the generator goes down and Elveus, a translator that lives here who is vital in the running of the mission, has to go to Port-Au-Prince to help his mother.  That’s what happened the day after most of the remaining Americans headed home. 

The main generator was shutting itself down every hour or two and I noticed that the fan that cools the large alternator had come apart.  We shut it down and pulled out a small back-up generator (courtesy of Travis Whalen) to power freezers and the water pump.  For the second time in a week I was downtown at night looking for gas (we keep plenty of diesel on campus but the small generator runs on gasoline).  The gas station was closed and the guy we usually buy from was out.  So Sermone (sp?) and I jumped on taxis (mopeds) and went to the other end of town and paid $50 Haitian per gallon for a few gallons, it normally runs around $42. 

Curtis and I walk to buy gas for the backup generator just a week before I would be doing it all over again. Curtis thinks he looks fat in this picture, he's right. Photo by Andy Olsen.

We didn’t use much of that gas though because the next day the generator stopped generating.  T-man, long-time friend and neighbor of the mission, gladly let us borrow his generator though so we hauled it over and got it running.  Thankfully it’s still running… about 15 feet from our room… and it’s not environmentally friendly.  I think we’ve both developed smoker’s lungs and Andre is kind of wild-eyed and jittery.

Aside from keeping a generator running, the hardest part was getting people to conserve water and power.  We had 40 pastors on campus for a Bible seminar and one night I walk to the cafeteria area to find the cord for the freezer had gotten a power strip added with at least ten cell-phones, a laptop, a portable dvd player, and a keyboard plugged in.  After I turned the water on after having it turned off for awhile I was told that every faucet in the girl’s bathroom had been left on and I found one on in the men’s room. 

Luckily, Jose is back and he’s helping with all the generator/water responsibilities.  Also, Chuck will be coming in Wednesday to work on the big generator.  Things are looking up.

I (Becca) have been asked for an update regarding the recovery room patients that were staying here after the surgery team left.  For those of you who weren’t involved/live in America, I’ll give a little background.

 

One patient who remained after the team left was a little girl named Lourse.  She had had surgery for an incarcerated hernia, came back with an infection, and was opened back up the day before the team left.  When they opened her back up they found a belly full of worms, which had created holes in her bowels.  After repairing the damage it was hard to tell if little Lourse would recover.  I am happy to report that she is up walking around, eating, using the restroom, and ALWAYS asking for candy and juice!!!!  It is amazing to see how God can heal his children.  If all continues to go smoothly she will go home Tuesday!  (Elizabeth, if you read this, she still asks for you!!!!)

 

Another patient that stayed was a lady who had extra big toes removed on both of her feet.   (That sentence sounded funny, but ya’ll get the drift.)  Her left foot became infected, with a big open wound.  After many, many painful dressing changes, she finally started walking on the foot with a walker.  Her sister began doing the dressing changes with me, and is now caring for her at home!  Her sister still comes to visit Lourse and her family!  She is coming weekly for a check up, but still has months of healing in front of her.

 

The final patient still is here, and needs a lot of prayer.  He is a 65 year old gentleman who had surgery for bilateral hydroceles.  He unfortunately acquired an infection after surgery, and was opened back up to clean it out.  Right now the infection is under control, but he is not eating or drinking very well, and will not keep a NG tube in.  Please keep him in your prayers. 

 

Please pray for me and wisdom to care for these patients.  Thank you again to the surgery team for all the miracles you make possible here in Haiti!  Thanks Elizabeth for caring for these patients!