Haiti Day 3

The filth is overwhelming. The stagnant water, algae and garbage filled, surrounds the children. They live in it, play in it, and sleep in it. I wonder how they make it from day to day. From the picture above with the team at today's project, you can see what I'm talking about. I've been here 4 times in the past 15 months and it hasn't changed but the children have. With our aggressive cholera education and prevention program, we saw only a handful of children who had had cholera and did well, and saw no active cases. Our quick response and initiative paid off.

And what a difference food makes. A few calories, a little protein, carbohydrates and unsaturated fats, gives a child an opportunity to grow and live. That's what we've been seeing. Well fed children. A testimony to the MoM program of feeding children in the projects at least once a week if not more. I expected no less since we were aggressive last year in pushing nutrition as a priority.

That is not to say that we didn't see any children who were malnourished. We did. Not many though. The picture above is of a 4 year old boy who we identified today with our rapid nutritional assessment program and started him on the nutritional rescue program. Medika Mamba and of course vitamins.

We came, saw, treated, prayed, and loved. We ran 3 parallel tracts as planned: cholera education, nutritional assessment and rescue and physical exams. We had pharmacy running too as well as a streamlined registration process. All for the children. We are blessed to be where we and to do what we do. I hope that the children whom we saw today, will one day do the same for others. Our God has asked that of us. To be servants to others. He's asked that of me and I'm happy to be doing so. Today, tomorrow and always.

In all things give thanks,
David
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry