We Can't Lose Helping Widows & Orphans in Colombia

More exciting news about some physical activities I and others will be participating in:

"We Can’t Lose!   Helping Widows & Orphans in Colombia"

August 28, 2011 will kick off

“MISSION POSSIBLE”

Campaign across Canada

Everyone can participate.

Make a resolution today with a purpose.

Change your life

and the lives of mothers and

children in Colombia.

Check out my next blog posting coming soon.

ARTHUR LIAM DUERKSEN (the 4th)

Elaine and I are the proud grandparents of our first grandchild:

Arthur Liam Duerksen (the 4th)

Born June 7th, 2011 at 12:47pm weighing 7lbs 7oz.

YOU'RE INVITED TO AN EVENT - JUNE 27TH - THE UNTOLD STORIES OF COLOMBIA: PIERCING THE DARKNESS

Jeannine Brabon, OMS missionary in Colombia and 11 of the Colombians involved in prison ministry with Jeannine at the Bellavista Prison in Medellin are coming to the Toronto area in late June for a Prison Fellowship conference. This conference happens once every four years. Their stories and experiences are incredible to hear.


You and your friends, family and neighbours are invited to an event with our Colombian friends.  Come hear gripping testimonies of transformation from those who were imprisoned in Colombia's Bellavista Jail, Medellin, Colombia:

Place: Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, 9280 Airport Road, Mount Hope ON. It will be a private function held in the main hangar http://www.warplane.com/

Date: Monday, June 27. Doors open at 5:45 p.m., dinner at 7:00 p.m. (the museum closes to the general public at 5:00 p.m. – for this private function, you have the opportunity to look around the museum before dinner and you will be having dinner in the same location as the planes are kept – main hangar)

Ticket Cost: $30 pp (including your museum tour, meal and a short program).

To purchase tickets or for more information, contact: Art 905-577-1936 (aduerksen@mfmcanada.ca) or Cathy Zavitz, 905-522-5494 (czavitz@mfmcanada.ca).

High Above Haiti, There is Hope (cont'd)

While Dr. Rodney Baptiste was in Ontario, there were many opportunities for him to share his vision and plan.  Approximately $25,000.00 has been raised to date towards seeing his vision and plan become a reality.  Here's a picture of one of the vehicles that's in the process of being transformed.

Unimog army vehicle to be transformed

High Above Haiti, There is Hope

Dr. Rodney Baptiste
(Picture by John Rennison, Hamilton Spectator)

High Above Haiti, There is Hope.

(Article first appeared in the Spectator May 10th, 2011,

written by Susan Clairmont, photograph by John Rennison)

Drive until the road ends. Then walk up the mountain for six hours.
There, high above Haiti in the village of Roque, there are babies needing to be born. Broken bones needing to be set. Cholera needing to be cured.


This is the world of Dr. Rodney Baptiste. A family physician for all of four years. Once a month, he leaves his home in Cap Haitien, on the island’s northern edge, and goes to some of the most remote villages in the nation.


Once, he treated 400 patients in one day. By himself.


Another time, villagers woke him at 2 a.m. A pregnant woman, just 17, was suffering from eclampsia, a potentially deadly disorder. She needed a hospital. But it was a day’s walk down the mountain. Up the mountain, two hours away, was the next nearest village. There, a man with a “tap-tap” – a truck - lived. In the end, the distance was too great. “The baby died. The young woman died”, the doctor says quietly, in English.


Dr. Rodney, as he likes to be called, is here in Hamilton for two weeks. It is the 35-year- old’s first time off the island that comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where he attended medical school. He has travelled here at the behest of the many Hamilton friends he has made, people who have been to his home to build schools or deliver medical care. They are great believers in the work he does and have found a way to help him help more Haitians.


They want to provide him with mobile clinics to take to the mountain villages.


A Hamilton-based non-profit organization called Empower Global is working with Dr. Rodney to open a stationary health-care clinic in Cap-Haitien in September, to start a health-care education program and to purchase off-road ex-military vehicles capable of driving up steep hills, through water and over rugged terrain.


One of these vehicles has already been purchased, but has been operating in the capital city of Port-au-Prince since the earthquake. Two more vehicles are hoped for to venture weekly into the rural areas around Cap-Haitien. About $40,000.00 has already been raised to buy, stock and operate the vehicles, but another $90,000.00 is needed, says Cal Schultz, director of Haiti operations for Empower Global. One off-road clinic – equipped with beds, oxygen, water, narcotics will serve 5,800 Haitians a year.


Haitian medical experts and visiting Canadian physicians and nurses will work alongside Dr. Rodney.


To help raise funds for his program, Dr. Rodney is spreading the word in Ontario, including at a sold-out event last Friday night that was attended by many members of the Hamilton and Halton medical communities. A Hamilton nurse who knows Dr. Rodney from her volunteer work in Haiti, planned to take him on a tour of St. Joseph’s Hospital. Another nurse, who specializes in disaster medicine, has arranged for him to ride with a Barrie paramedic team. He is also visiting some medical clinics and speaking at two elementary schools in Hamilton.


To anyone who will listen, Dr. Rodney will talk of the need for basic health care in Hamilton. “So many people die for nothing”, he says.


Cap-Haitien wasn’t affected much by last year’s earthquake. But those who were left homeless in the south of the country – in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel – have flooded the undamaged northern community. The people in the city and in the mountains need treatment for malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, malnutrition, tuberculosis. They need to be educated that the spread of AIDS can be lessened if precautions are taken. They need treatment for the cholera that erupted in Haiti after the earthquake when water became contaminated. Treatment that is as simple as hydration.


“They don’t have good water”, says Dr. Rodney. “Cholera makes me very sad because so many people died in Haiti. It is sad when you see people die for basic things”.


Already, the doctor has helped villagers in the mountains plant vegetable gardens. Now they have food. Now they can have medicine that must be taken with food.


Dr. Rodney shrugs when asked why he became a doctor. “When I look at the need of my people, I remember why God made me become a doctor”.


To donate to Dr. Rodney’s mobile clinics , call Empower Global at 905-334-9595.


Susan Clairmont’s commentary appears regularly in The Spectator. sclairmont@thespec.com 905-526-3539.

Back Up and Running

In December, I experienced a health challenge which delayed my postings.  As promised, a Colombia update:

PROJECT #1 - SEMINARY GYM

The Seminary Gym project was worked on in January by a group of Canadians and new Colombian friends:



Canadian and Colombia "work" team

Seminary Gym "before"




Working on project



Finished Gym project - looks so much better!!

PROJECT #1 - OLAYA CHURCH

Five men from Ontario travelled to Colombia in March, 2011 to work on reconstruction of this church:

Olaya Church

"Team Burns" (#5 - Cliff - taking picture)

 Space is premium!

Augustine with new coworker friends

 Keith hard at work

HAITI - SHORT UPDATE

MISSION EVANGELIQUE DU NORD D'HAITI TRADE SCHOOL

Friday, April 15th was the Grand Opening Celebrations of the new Trade School in Plaine du Nord.  The second floor of this building will be the trade school:

RACE SOLIDARITE

The Third Annual Race Solidarite was held in Cap Haitien, Haiti on Saturday, April 16th.

 A team from this area was there to help with the race.  

I hope to have some more pictures to share with you from both of these events in the  next couple of weeks.

I plan on travelling again soon - back to Haiti, Colombia, Malawi and Bangladesh.  All of these countries have ongoing projects which will be in my next posting.

Haiti trip - November, 2010

I've just returned from Haiti and the situation is as serious as I am sure you've all been hearing about on the news.  Between the cholera outbreak and the Haiti elections, the destitution of the average Haitian has, if it were possible, escalated even further.

Discouragement and quitting are not options!  Enjoy a few pictures.  I am so grateful to be one of the many volunteers of the "Joy and Hope of Haiti" group.

Moments like this are what it's all about.

Jim and Joan's 30th plus trip and Brian's (centre) first time to Haiti



The Trade School 80% completed

Road2Hope (November 6 & 7, 2010)

What an amazing weekend! Great weather, 4,500 participants, many event sponsors and a few hundred volunteers - net funds raised are split between City Kidz, a Hamilton children's ministry and the Joy and Hope of Haiti continuing school construction efforts in the north of Haiti. Here are some pictures:

Art and Cathy Zavitz at Joy & Hope of Haiti table
   

Selling popcorn and candy floss

Kids 1km race

On Sunday, I ran my first 1/2 marathon in 1 hour, 57 minutes and 29 seconds:

A Remembrance Day “I’ll Always Remember”.

Yesterday, I had the privilege to share a few words and then say grace for some of Canada’s heroes.  What an honour!  This was the eighth annual dinner put on at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Hamilton.  All of the food and beverages were donated.  All of the services including food preparation, serving and clean up were done by volunteers.  You’ll notice  in one of the pictures the men and women are wearing white shirts and red bow ties (all volunteers).  Also a high school from Hamilton had their youth volunteering.  What an experience for them to meet, greet and serve our heroes.  Before asking God’s blessing on the food, this is part of what I shared from an author unknown.  

"It's the soldier, not the reporter, who gives you the freedom of the press.  It's the soldier, not the poet, who gives you the freedom of speech.  It's the soldier, not the campus organizer, who allows you to demonstrate.  It's the soldier who salutes the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag".  He closed with "Lord hold our troops in Your loving hands.  Protect them as they protect us.  Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need".