One week mark

Typing with sore knuckles right now, me and morgan have been out by the well learning how to wash clothes with some of the older canaan girls. Not a task for the faint hearted that is for sure. This past weekend was more than refreshing. It was the perfect couple of days to ease us into the weeks that lie ahead. Saturday we deep cleaned our humble abode followed by a little yoga by our instructor in training, chlesea. She didn't have to ask us twice for us to be her suspects, though yoga in Haiti might as well be called hot yoga! On sunday we got to spend the day on the beach. Most of the time when teams come to stay at Canaan they will spend their last day at the beach, so we gladly accepted the offer to join. It was a great chance to just relax as well as a wonderful reminder of the beauty that IS found in Haiti. God's presence is here. You just have to open up your eyes a little bit, listen to the laughter, listen to the singing, look past the rocky ground and up at the mountains and it is there you see Him.

We hit it full force on monday in the health clinic. The majority of our day was spent taking care of a 4 year old boy, named Nesly, who had third degree burns covering his arm. It apparently happened two days before in a gasoline accident. Because they waited so late to bring him, he was pretty dehydrated and we think they had put toothpaste of all things on the burn. I guess they thought that would help? We got an IV going to get some fluids back in him and began to debride his wound. This little one was such a trooper, he barely even winced and was totally occupied with watching us work. After we got him all bandaged up, elsie decided that the wisest thing to do would be to take him into St. Marc hospital just to prevent any infection and get another opinion of how to best treat him. Luckily, everything the Dr. did at the hospital was what we had been doing. We sent Nesly and his grandmother home with instructions to return to canaan once a day to get a dressing change as well as some antibiotics. And thankfully they did return yesterday and today giving us great opportunity to continue checking up on him and watching to see how his arm is healing. Please be praying for Nesly and that his arm would not become infected and that new skin would begin to form. Also that he would not be in unbearable pain throughout his recovery.

Tuesday was a crazy day in the mamba clinic. This was kind of our crash course in how everything runs on a normal mamba day at Canaan. Bobbi, the lady who runs the clinic, is leaving next week to return home with her husband. She was so patient with us as she trained us and dealt with our million questions as we prepared to take the whole program on for the summer with the help of a few others. The patients that we found in in mountains at Fon Baptiste came to be admitted as well as all of the other patients currently in the program, making a total of 37 patients yesterday. We are so excited to begin to watch these little ones grow and come back to life as well as begin to form relationships with the mothers, encouraging them and supporting them as they take on this huge task.

One week down.

And guess what....it's morgan's birthday tomorrow! Gettin ready to celebrate haitian style baby.

LOVE YOU ALL!

-Jess