Chikungunya

Many of you have already heard about Chikungunya, 'bone breaking fever,' a mosquito-borne illness like Dengue that's showed up in several Caribbean islands, including Haiti. It's not lethal, but causes a lot of joint pain and fever - which is serious in itself for people here, because a week in bed means a week out of work or school. There's no vaccine so the best (and only) prevention is avoiding mosquito bites.

For us in the guest house, with our screened windows and mosquito repellant, that's easy. But our biggest concern is the children, especially during the rainy season (now), when mosquitos breed and run amok. We'll be moving fast to do some training with the public health team, but we're short on the tangibles - netting and fumigation supplies and such. If any of you have expertise in that area, or access to anti-mosquito supplies, we'd be appreciative if you drop us a line.

Thanks for your support and concern.

Good News for Cyber-Shoppers

Just in time for everyone's Christmas shopping: (I may live in Haiti but I know the stores are already playing "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer", no?)

Our fundraiser organization Free the Kids is now featured on "Amazon Smile," a version of Amazon.com that donates a percentage of every purchase to a charity of your choice. You can sign in, designate 'Free the Kids - Greensboro, NC' and have access to all the standard features of Amazon with the added benefit of funding us with every item bought - just go to smile.amazon.com

There's also "Goodsearch" aka "Dailygood", (goodsearch.com) a Yahoo-like search engine that donates for every search. The site has a host of other uses as well, all of which can benefit us with the selection of Free the Kids.

Please consider incorporating these into your holiday routine - it really adds up.

Prayers Needed - Evenson

You may remember Evenson - several months ago he was severely injured in a bad motorcycle accident with significant head trauma. He was sent to a Port-au-Prince hospital for two months, where they operated on his head and leg. Since then he'd returned, come back to school and generally made a good recovery.

But this morning he presented at the clinic with weakness, a bad headache, and some very troubling neurological symptoms. What's worse, earlier in the day he had fainted and last night he'd hit his head. With his symptoms and history, Dr. Jerry, our visiting pediatrician from Alaska, tells us the only responsible course of action would be to have Evenson get a CT Scan - as these could be signs of a blood clot in the brain.

Unfortunately, the only CT scanner is in Port-au-Prince. We're sending Evenson there, several hours away, for the procedure. It's an expensive process, and we're spending money we don't have, but we have to do this for the health of our kid.

Please join us in prayer, that he be alright. If you're feeling generous, please remember us - in your prayers, tell a friend, forward a photo, make a donation - it all helps.

Thank you and God bless.

Greetings

Dear Friends and all,

I'll admit in the past several months I haven't been on top of updating the old blog. I know many of you have come to trust it as a constant source of news, and I'm sorry to have left you in the dark. There's still plenty going on, little miracles every day, and I've decided to renew my focus on sharing it all with you. I hope you enjoy the new blog site – it's got a fresh look, some new features, support for multiple contributors, and we'll only be adding more from here. So please, subscribe, like, follow; however you'd like to get updates – and remember, “Espwa means HOPE.”

But now I need to ask you to do something for me: keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We're in the thick of a financial crisis; with donations falling short we've implemented some very painful cuts and will need to do more if things keep up in this vein. It's a difficult situation, and if we ever needed help we need it now. So please think about making a donation, and tell a friend about us; tell your friend to tell a friend, better yet, and even consider holding a fundraiser. Could you do that for us, please?

Thank you. You have been a pillar of support, and without your contributions none of this would be possible. I don't ever forget that. May God bless you abundantly.

Fr. Marc

P.S.  Don't be shy about commenting.