Saturday, July 31, 2010
   
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HAITI UPDATE: Friday 22nd

haiti4The team in Haiti continue working at full speed and are now receiving patients from other hospitals.

Two of the team - Sheila Leech and Dr Leonardo, returned home to Ecuador yesterday, the rest will remain for another week. HCJB Global is planning to send a follow-up team in a few weeks to help rebuilding.

The team has received a big donation of tetanus vaccines from the US and these are on their way to Haiti right now! Very few people have had the tetanus jab so there is a real risk of this dreadful disease with all these injuries.

They had another strong after shock today and Martin Harrison was sent to examine a big crack on one of the buildings but all was ok. He has been fixing auotclaves today, these are used to sterilize surgical equipment. And he continues to give BBC interviews though we are expecting this to trail off some now we have passed the one week mark!

There is joy amid such suffering, Nelson said, recounting how family physician Marcos Nelson's patient, a young girl, began to sing even as the physician cleaned her wound. Anesthetized from pain but still conscious, the girl had a wound that revealed something serious enough for her to be placed first on the list for the next morning. "Then we all heard her start singing," Steve Nelson related, "first in sort of a low voice and later stronger ... and it seemed happier! It was in Creole, so of course none of the Spanish and English speakers could know what she was saying ... but a translator brightened up nearby and said she is singing, ‘I am saved, I am saved, I am saved!'"

The team have shared that 40 people have now come to Christ for the first time in the hospital, lots and lots have rededicated their lives to Christ, hundreds have been prayed for and hardly anyone has declined the offer of spiritual comfort. Praise God.