CARING AND SHARING IN REMOTE MOUNTAIN VILLAGES Greetings from Haiti. We just returned from the mountains with a team of volunteer doctors and nurses from Arizona, California and Florida. Much needed clinics were held in Perla, Cayes La Salle and Joligebert this past week. We distributed vitamins to the children and their caregivers in all of the clinics and provided the medication prescribed by our medical team. We sent fifteen children and adults who were extremely sick and severely injured to a hospital far away in Aux Cayes. We fed the children in the villages of Macochon, Joligebert and Cayes La Salle. Impact for Jesus partnered with us and we distributed water filter systems in the remote village of Macochon where cholera has taken the lives of hundreds of people. The only water source is from a polluted spring where they pan 5 gallon containers and carry them a long distance back to their huts. Our little Alex and his mother who both suffered and died from cholera lived in Macochon. Months before our arrival with these teams, we marked every hut with a number that would match the number marked on a water filter system bucket. These filtration systems will provide 156 homes with clean water for the first time. Praise God! Before distributing the water filter systems, leaders educated the people by sharing how to assemble and properly use and clean it. Other leaders were stationed in a brush arbor and spoke on sanitation. They explained how malnutrition occurs and encouraged the parents to feed the children food that will sustain them throughout the day. We passed out clothes and food packages for the villagers to take home with them. We are very excited about the feeding and medical programs that are being implemented in this forsaken area. For over 35 years, we have been working in these mountain regions where there is no access to clean water and medical care for over 80,000 people. Many of our children at New Life Children's Home have come from this region. Most were severely ill and close to death. Many have died on our journey back to Port-Au-Prince, trying to get them the medical help they needed. We have been praying for years for more permanent changes and today we believe that change is coming.
We were blessed to have John, a Samaritan Air helicopter pilot, airlift me to villages high in the mountains where people are so sick that they can't get down the mountain for help. In Pavion, a village where we landed, several hundred people came running to the helicopter. They were so happy to see us, but a closer look revealed that sickness was everywhere. We had to airlift one little boy whose eye was filled with a massive infection that caused the entire area in and around his eye to bulge. Thank God that we were able to fly this child back to Port-Au-Prince with Dr. Schroering, our medical director. He is still in the hospital in serious condition. We also brought two children back to New Life Children's Home. One is a 10 year old boy named Jedle' with severe asthma. He had to put his hands over the top of his head to try and fill his lungs because he could hardly breathe. His heart was racing beyond comprehension. The other child is an 8 year old girl named Naphtali who was left orphaned after her parents died in the earthquake. Before leaving for the mountains, we received a young boy named Lensy who has cancer in his leg. Dr. Schroering, who is an orthopedic surgeon, was in Haiti to go with the medical team to the mountains. He returned a day early to surgically remove the child's leg up to the thigh. Please pray for Lensy and his recovery. Please keep us in your prayers. God has placed in our hearts solid plans to move forward in bringing sustainable help to many of these suffering villages. We are trusting God to touch the hearts of many people to make this a reality and to save many lives. We need your help! Together we can make a difference. In His Service, Miriam | 
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