Good Evening (morning or afternoon, whatever time it is you find yourself reading this)!  Let me just start off by saying this is my first time writing a blog so bare with me and I hope you find it interesting!  This is mine (Casey) and my mom's (Patti) first trip to Haiti and the weeks leading up to our departure we were racked with concerns from safety/sickness to how exactly function in the clinics.  Now three days into our adventure all we can say is "what were we worried about?"  Our group of tweleve were almost instantly like family.  Everyone is here to help each other in anyway needed.  Even our translators have become part of our ABC family.  The NVM staff, the locals everyone greets you with a smile, a wave, and a bonjour!

Patty, doing a dressing on a large abcess we drained.

Today (Wednesday), we were blessed with being able to go to a brand new clinic site that NVM had not yet been to.  The site was a village high up in the mountains called Fon Cheval.   As we drove our tap tap to the village all I could think about was a portion from the passage of scripture that Tim had us read earlier in the week from Psalms 8 "Lord our Lord how majestic is Your name in all the earth..."  No other word(s) could describe what we were seeing...majestic!  It is a lesson for us to know that the Lord is with us everywhere, from the comfort of our homes in the States to the dusty villages in Haiti.  We appreciate your prayers and support and we cannot wait to see you all and tell our stories and show our pictures!

Casey in the village

 Casey for the ABC team






Part 2 for Wednesday, another guest blogger.

Another guest blogger and another first timer. I'm Glenn Hann, a husband, father of 5 beautiful children and a Nurse Practitioner. I know Tim through our employer and was invited to come along for the ride. I had a hard time leaving my family, but now three days in, I have no doubt that it was God's will. My heart had been blessed on multiple levels. I wasn't able to attend church on Sunday, but my interpretor, Rock (a 19 year old Haitian), gave me a great sermon yesterday. He told me that I was sharing hope with the people of Haiti with my work. As sort of an evangelistic person by nature, I didn't understand what he meant. I was doing medical work. I wasn't sharing the gospel directly, though I have learned Bon je ben a ou which means "God bless you". Rock told me the Haitians see it differently. He told me, "They see you, a man who has come many miles to help me, they see your smile and hear your kind words. You make them feel special, you give them hope." He went on and said, "It's not the people who give money, it's the people who come." He closed with, "Jesus never gave anyone any money. He loved them. And because he loved them, they listened to his gospel."


Triplets, A miracle in Haiti.

It's so easy for me in the United States. I have a good job. I could not shop for food for 3 weeks and I'd still have something to eat in my house. My bed is soft, my shower is warm, and my kids kick a soccer ball on grass, not dusty dirt. The ease with which I live presents a challenge. My challenge is to remember to have compassion. It says in the gospel accounts, "Jesus saw them and he had compassion". What will you have when you see them? You might not have the opportunity to see Haitians in Haiti...though if you do, then you should really do it....but you have the opportunity to have compassion on that single mom or dad, or the grandparents raising their grandchild, or the teen whose lost their way. We all fall short....we all need compassion.
I'll close with this little story. Our first day out just before we left a member of the construction crew that is here this week said to me, "Go do a miracle today." I smiled and said something off the cuff that really wasn't that profound in an effort to be funny. Thinking back I wished I said, "The miracle has already been done, I'm just going to go and tell people about it." God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise....I praise Him for also using me.