Traveling back to Haiti

It's Tuesday night and we are all preparing for our trip which begins on Friday. Everyone's bags are packed, weighed, and rearranged as needed. We are anxiously awaiting our meeting at the Miami airport where we will be arriving from near and far. The Atlanta group is small, but mighty - Daphne Gary and me. We have both traveled to Haiti many times. Steve Steinberg is joining us again from New Orleans. He is a master with fitting our patients with glasses. Our Minneapolis crew includes our fearless medical leader, Dr. Dianne Pizey, and two new team members, Susan Tapp and Jean McGuire.

This will be a special trip because we are taking another step in our journey to including more and more Haitians on our team, and eventually putting the Americans out of business. Our other two doctors are Alex LeBrun, who has now been with us several times, and Rudolph Risheme, who has been on our team once before. We have a new addition - Guerry Laguerre, who is an optometrist. He will be able to see patients with eye problems and refer them to the clinic in Leogane or Port au Prince, as needed. Rudolph's wife, Myrline, who is a nurse, will be joining us and assisting in triage. Our dentist Emmanuel Bastien is returning, as is our nurse Evens Joicin. Evens and Myrline will supervise and train our nursing students.

Because we have so few on our team who speak petit petit Kreyol, we will only have three translators. We have requested some of our same translators, but we will have to see who is available to work with us.

We have made arrangements with Notre Dame to purchase salt which is treated with the medicine which prevents filiariasis. We were able to provide this salt to our patients one other time. Since then, it has been unavailable. The salt is a great gift and an opportunity to educate our patients about how to prevent filiriasis. You may know this disease as "elephantitis". The lymph system is attacked causing  huge swelling of the extremeties. There is no effective treatment, so prevention is the answer to stopping this disease.

Every trip to Haiti is a little different and filled with adventure. Please hold the people we serve in your prayers. Please pray for a successful week and safe travels for us. 

Terry Franzen