Today was a busy but productive and gratifying day! We started the day at Second Mile Haiti ministries. This is a wonderful organization started by two young Americans, one a nurse and the other with a business/engineering background who saw the need for family education with malnourished children. The ministry has several rooms that they house malnourished and underdeveloped children, siblings and their mom (sometimes dad!). The ministry teaches the whole family the importance of proper nutrition, and educates them for several weeks as the child or children are regaining health. They teach the parents a trade such as sewing or jewelry making, and how to plant and raise their own food so that when they leave the organization they have resources to gain jobs, raise and grow their own food, and obtain healthy habits so that children do not fall back into being malnourished once they leave. They asked us to come to their organization to teach them a method of natural family planning because, while they may not have a clinic on hand to provide prescriptions, they want to provide education to women who come to the organization so that they may have the opportunity to prevent pregnancies and have only the amount of children the family can afford. The director stated that this method can help the women to prevent the malnourishment in continuing children of families who simply cannot afford to feed the number of blessings they have and who try to make a little bit of food last a long time. The organization had several nurses and non-licensed clinical workers who provide education to these women who they wanted to receive the training. We trained 6 workers at this clinic who were very eager to learn and help the women they serve.
In the afternoon, we went and taught the health care providers at the hospital of the Sisters of Quatier Morin. This institution had a school, a hospital, a convent for vowed and novice Sisters, and an orphanage. The Sisters have their hands full! The class went very well, teaching 5 MDs, nurses, and social workers SDM so that they can offer a method of family planning to their patients.
Only one more clinic left at which to teach! This fellowship experience has gone by way to fast, with so many blessings flowing from it!
At Second Mile Haiti, listening to the workers teach us what they learned in training
This is what they make chocolate from!! Once you pick the Cacao from the tree and break it open, you pull out the beans from inside and crack them open of find the more chocolate colored beans one would expect to find. This can be a large source of income for Haitians
A child who is in residence at Second Mile Haiti, enjoying our company and the company of Belle, the organizations puppy.
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