I wanted to give a quick update of our weekend with missionary David Farquharson from PAP, who came out to help install our solar electrical system. We spent three very busy and somewhat exhausting days up at the site (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) with David and about 25 workers and had a very productive time. We had iron frames already made for the solar panels and decided that the best position for them (to avoid theft and vandalism) was on the roof of the second floor residence. So, one of the first orders of business was to get the racks up to the roof and then weld them all together. Each rack will hold two solar panels and there are 12 racks that had to get up there. The racks are heav
It is not uncommon in Haiti to have children being raised by grandparents or other relatives. Sometimes their parents are living, but are unable to provide for the child. Sometimes, the parents are no longer living together and one of the grandparents assumes care of the child so the parents can be free to work and make a life for themselves. And, sometimes, the parents have died, leaving the child in the care of extended family members. In most situations, it is only when an extended family member or grandparent is unable to care for the child that they may be put into an orphanage. In our medical clinic in Gatineau, we see many little children who are basically orphans, in situations such
Last Thursday we had the biggest emergency in the history of our clinic in Gatineau. There’s a family that lives near the clinic and the parents have a lot of children, most of them grown. As is typical of many people who live near the clinic, they are very poor. We’ve seen most of the family in the clinic at one time or another with various illnesses. Around 3pm on Thursday afternoon, just as we were winding up another busy clinic day, one of the daughters appeared with her aunt, complaining of severe abdominal pain. She was hunched over and groaning in pain. According to the aunt and her mother, the young woman had had pain for over three weeks, worse in the past couple of days. When I exa