Yvrose’s U.S. Visit and Back to Haiti

Yvrose helping pack food at Meals for Haiti in Joplin, MO

We were privileged to get to speak at several different churches with Yvrose’ story touching hearts.  The Meals for Haiti day we participated in was a great success with 1100 volunteers from the Joplin area packaging up over 282,000 Meals for Haiti, some of which JUST MERCY will receive!

A couple of days before Bill and Yvrose returned to Haiti on April 21, Bill and I both got sick.  He went ahead and returned to Haiti but struggled the first week.  He is well now.  I am late with this update because I have been ill for two weeks but I am finally improving.

Bill’s first week back was busy.  Jim Hulstedt joined Bill and Yvrose in Miami and flew into Haiti to work with them for a few weeks.  Manolo and Juany, the Spanish couple, are still at our home and continued while we were gone to help Yvrose’ family and to cook a weekly meal at the village next door.

Bill spent one day in PAP trying to get some movement on having the truck returned to no avail.  He and Jim along with some Haitian helpers dug out the ground and had a pad poured behind Yvrose’ two “homes” for her outdoor kitchen.  The cooking situation will be so much better now.

Singing at the village

The meals at the village have continued to be a blessing to all.  Bill wrote: “We’ve had some wonderful times of worship over at the village this past week. It’s so good to share our lives with others. Many children are very malnourished and I wish we could feed them more often!  But it costs us between 75 and 100 dollars each time to feed the village( about 200 people).”

People started calling Yvrose this week from Mauser, a mountain region above Fonds-Parisien, saying cholera had broken out again and asking for help.  There is no clinic and no way to get down off the mountain, a six hour walk, when you are sick.  Bill and Yvrose felt like they had to do something.

This morning they started up the mountain trail with Monolo and Juany, our Haitian daughter NoNo, and Sonel, carrying three stretchers (to leave for people to bring sick people down to the clinic), ORS (oral rehydration salts), and Clorox to treat the drinking water after educating the people.  Bill said they reached the trail head and were glad to find someone there with a pack mule for hire as the stretchers and supplies were very heavy.

They reached a community late in the afternoon where one lady had died and everyone who helped dispose of her body got sick.  Most people do not have access to clean water or bleach to disinfect anything.  Bill is hoping to educate and help alleviate and prevent the continuing spread of cholera in this one locations.  He has arranged for more supplies to be brought up tomorrow.

Please pray for the team as they are in the mountains tonight that the Lord will keep them safe and that they will be able to help the situation there.