HungryForLifeInternational

Well, we are now home, most of us snug in our little beds catching up on missed sleep from the marathon journey we had to get home. We had numerous delays ranging from flooding, torrential rain, broken vehicles, lightning storms, cleaning of airplanes, and waiting for other crew to arrive, that it became cause for comic relief. Praise God we made it through it all!

Below is an entry from our final night in Haiti...I have included it because it was such a powerful time in our trip. Be blessed and thank you for keeping in touch with our journey!

June 2
Well, I guess it is only fair that I write the last blog of this journey especially seeing as I wrote the first. Today was a day of highs and lows, as most days have been but today it had an extra poignancy...possibly because it was the last day.

The patients we saw today were follow ups from earlier in the clinic. We saw patients we had treated improve, reviewed results of tests we sent people out for; some we have potential to help and others we had to tell that their conditions were beyond what we could do anything about. It was heart rending to see the reaction of a mother who was told that there was nothing we could do to correct the blindness of her four month old child. On the other hand we hold on to the highs of seeing a small child who had a staph infection on his face clear up with a few days of appropriate medicine.

After we took down our clinic, packed up our supplies and inventoried our meds, the team took one last trip down to the beach to soak up the soothing rays of the sun and relax to the gentle lapping of the Caribbean ocean. It was a great way to end a day.


Tonight, at prayer meeting, the leadership felt the leading of God to bless us in a very unexpected way. We were asked to come to the front, have a seat and the elders closed in with basins, oil, water and towels. Then came the most humbling experience I have ever had. They knelt down in front of us, began to pray and washed our feet as an act of thanks for the sacrifices made by the team to come, and share of our time and skills. It left many of us without words to see thanks expressed in this simple yet powerful way.

Tomorrow we are homeward bound, we need your prayers for safety and favour as we travel.

Thank you in advance!

Sorry that there are no photos today, we have a slow up link tonight.

This morning the team got to sleep in a bit later than usual! After breakfast we headed out to church at the Haiti Arise base. I would like to point out that I have mastered the toasting technique for our moody toaster! Instead of the buns coming out a bit black, I can now make a perfectly toasted bun! Wohoo!


This week at church we had special guests. A choir came from the capital of Haiti,Port au Prince, to sing at the church. There was about thirty people in this choir and they sounded absolutely incredible! Today I sat with two Haitian girls on either side of me. One of the girls had a Cinderella dress on and she decided to take a little nap on my lap. When she woke up she decided to count my fingers. After counting and re-counting several times, She came to the conclusion that we both have 5 fingers! We aren't so different after all!

At about 4:00, we headed out to Julihomme's church in a nearby area called Tapion. Julihomme organizes a church for kids whose parents are not Christian but who want to go to church. This church was a tin roofed area with wooden benches inside that sat on a hill with an amazing view of the local area.


On each of the short benches about 12-15 kids ranging from ages three to about fourteen were jammed side by side. In total about 100 kids were packed in! Some kids came up to the front to sing and recite memory verses. It was incredible to see two or three kids at a time come up and just sing in front of everyone! There was one group of four girls who sang together and they sounded like professionals! It was so cool to see so much talent at such a young age.

At the end of the kids church we brought out some gifts for the kids. We handed out fresh water, cookies and bags filled with toys and clothes that had been contributed by a church in Alberta. The kids thanked us and then headed home with their bags in tow!


For me, this trip has been a great experience. It is my first time in a developing nation and it is interesting to actually see in person what they show on TV or describe in books. I absolutely love the people! When I'm doing blood pressure and weighing patients during clinic times, the two girls I work with are so fun to hang out with. I will definitely miss them at the end of our stay!

The life of the people here is simple but many of the things people do seem like a combined effort. Seeing how tightly knit the people are is very cool when I look around and see some of the difficult situations they face in their day to day lives!

Blog written by: Laura

Hello again from Haiti! It's hard to believe our two weeks is coming to an end! We can only hope that our clinic has helped many people, and instilled a sense of hope in this small community of Grand-Goave.

We survived our seventh day of clinic since we've been in Haiti. Our team is very grateful that we have the next two days off. We have all been working really hard and have seen/experienced many different cases.

Greetings from Haiti! We are enjoying the breezes through the mango trees, as they have become our new retreat from the heat and busyness of our days. The only danger to sitting under a mango tree is that you might actually get hit in the head from a falling mango, Mason is convinced he will be the first in our group to suffer from a mango to the head.

Today we had 127 patients, and it seems that we are seeing the majority of them in the morning, this makes breaking for lunch a welcome interruption to our day. We have had 4.5 days of clinic under our belts and have gotten ourselves into a smooth running routine. This should make the last 3.5 days a walk in the park...