part of the family...

It finally clicked. The kids at Canaan finally realized that we aren’t a part of the teams that come and go every week. It’s been neat to see this happen. I can’t describe how cool it was to walk into the “cafeteria” and have 3-year-old, bow-legged, Winchell jump up on my lap without me having to first invite him. How exciting it was to walk by clusters of kids and hear them yell out “Mergan!” and “JesEEca!” before we even tried to get their attention (they have trouble with the “o-r” combination, thus I am Mergan). This transition has made Canaan begin to feel like home. Jess and I have just accepted the fact that we’re sweaty all the time, the Haitian women will always be better at washing clothes no matter how hard we try, and that our fans will die in the middle of the night regardless of how long we charge our batteries. The community here feels similar to home, except with 60 little brothers and sisters. The kids laugh with us, laugh at us, and even have moments when they storm off after losing a round of the “hand game”.

We’ve settled into somewhat of a routine this week. We’ve spent a lot of time learning how to update the files in the computer for the malnutrition clinic. It’s tedious work and took a long time (especially the first time doing it), but we know how rewarding it will be to see the kids in the program begin to gain weight. We’ve been going to the medical clinic every morning to see Neslie (the 4 yr old burn patient) and assess his arm. We first peel the dead skin off (debride it), rinse it in normal saline, put on antibiotic cream, and then put on a new clean dressing. He doesn’t even make a sound, but instead watches every single thing we do. His temperature has gone down every day (praise the LORD) and we started him on oral antibiotics instead of IV. Our goal is to continue to keep the wound clean and free of infection until an American doctor comes on Monday. Please pray for Neslie this weekend. Pray that the skin on his arm would continue to grow and heal and that the doctor will know how to best treat Neslie’s arm next week. Neslie is such a cool kid- beyond brave. It’s gonna be a long healing process, but I get so excited when I think about him being able to be a normal little boy again- without gauze and bulky bandages on his arm.

It’s been a really good couple of days. We’ve received a lot of encouragement from a group of girls and their moms from a church in Arkansas. We have worshipped together, worked in the medical clinic together, and even done yoga together on the roof of a building (Ms. Kelli, one of the moms, is a yoga instructor back in AR). They have been a very sweet group, and made me feel SO at home on my 21st birthday. The combination of banana birthday cake, green icing, 60 kids singing to me at breakfast, a package from my family (that mom sneakily hid in my duffle bag- thanks mama ☺), and many sweet emails from friends made for the best 21st birthday ever. Thank you Jessica and Chelsea for making my birthday an absolute blast. Thank you to all you guys back in the states- I really felt so celebrated. What a huge blessing June 10th was!

Okay, I think that’s the spark notes of this week. It’s movie night (we’re watching Yours, Mine, and Ours?) and I’ve gotta turn off this computer because the kids keep nudging me because I’m not paying attention!

-Morg

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