Dear family & friends,

Weekends are such a nice change of pace here in Fond Parisien. After a week filled with physical therapy treatments, hospital transportation coordination, patient follow-ups and planning for transition of patient care after our departure in October, it is nice to do some different & even relaxing things on Saturday & Sunday.

This morning we began the day with flaxseed pancakes, facilitated by some pre-mixed ingredients that our friend Lisa put together for us back in July. They were yummy & fed about 7 of us! Other plans for the day include replacing a wheelchair wheel (with one that we eventually extracted with a monkey wrench from a worn-out chair) for a patient with some sort of undiagnosed degenerative neurological disorder who has essentially become a paraplegic in her 40’s. We also are currently preparing a batch of “Manna Pack” (rice & vegetable protein) for a patient who has recently had a partial hip replacement (probably needs a full hip replacement) & finds herself without the mobility typically required to cook such a meal – starting a charcoal fire on the ground outside her tent in order to boil water in a large pot. In addition to personal tasks like laundry by hand & thoroughly scrubbing & cleaning up our living quarters at Love A Child, we plan to disassemble 2 large tents that we used this past week for a group of 9 that came from Springfield, Missouri (with an organziation called Extend Global). Until a storm dumped a very large amount of water on us midway through the week, the team was fairly comfortable in this tropical heat. Love A Child graciously offerred usage of an additional room for their last 2-3 nights after their cots & clothes were wetted. The storm wetted possessions as well as most of our bodies, as the E.G. team was conducting a “Vacation Bible School” activity at Camp Hope when the storm began. The rest of us were roused to batton down their flailing rain flaps on the tents as well as bailing water from around the porch area of our guesthouse building where the water level had risen rapidly to within about 1/4 of an inch of overflowing into rooms. It was a team-bonding experience! ;-)

All of that to say that life in Fond Parisien is rarely dull, although not entirely pleasant. It is still an emotional struggle to continually meet new people that describe desperate situations like a 17 year old boy that approached Josh as he was playing with children at Camp Hope. The orphaned lad described in clear Spanish how his mother was killed by the earthquake & he had no idea how he could pay school bills to complete his education. He wanted urgently to get to an aunt’s home in Florida, even though she had communicated to him not to come as she is unable to provide for him. He believes his physical presence would surely compel her to provide a greater standard of life than his squatting in an IDP camp here in Haiti. He is not an official camp resident, therefore not on the Love A Child list for assistance. Although we do have some ideas about how he can be assisted, his is an example of the type of need that we continue to face even after months of getting to know the hundreds of people around us.

While we do delight in the joy that we hear in the voices as our many friends exclaim our names in greeting each time that we enter the camp, it comes with a considerable degree of sadness also, as we consider how great their needs truly are & how relatively miniscule the assistance that we can provide really is. What these people need is a functioning society that provides infrastructure for transportation, adequate levels of education, access to primary healthcare, economic opportunity and protection from violent aggression. We do try not to lose sight of the fact that a smile is priceless and love immeasurably dear, but our hearts ache for these many people for whom we care deeply.

As hopefully you all are aware already, we are DEEPLY grateful for your supporting our extraordinary endeavor to empathize and assist these beautiful people. Our hope is that we are making at least some small difference in the lives of others, but we are certain that this experience is making a HUGE and PERMANENT difference for the better in our own lives.

Thank you SO MUCH!

Betsy & Josh