Transformations

Malnutrition is an all too common problem we encounter here in Haiti.  Almost all of the kids who come into our care, whether for temporary rehab care or foster care, are malnourished on arrival.  

Preemie, baby C, was 2.8 pounds when she first came into our care.  After about two months in our rehab care program, she was reunited with her family at 6.3 pounds.

After only two weeks in our Mamba program, R gained 1.9 pounds, the signs or malnutrition in her skin had resolved, we were able to address her anemia, and she she was up to a healthy weight.

P was in rough shape when he came to live with us.  He was started on F-100 milk and in less than two months he has gained 7 pounds!

Baby S has had a lot of health struggles.  After more than a month in the hospital fighting tuberculosis, she weighed only 6 pounds when she was five months old.  Now, at eleven months old, she weighs almost 17 pounds.  This kiddo has made such incredible progress!

Baby W was also in very rough shape when he first came to live with us.  He had lost a significant amount of weight while he was hospitalized and was just over 4 pounds when he came into our care.  In only six weeks, he's more than doubled his size and weighs 8.5 pounds now.

It's amazing to watch the transformations in these kids with just a little bit of nutrition and extra TLC.  We love getting to love on them. Our nurses and nannies do such a good job taking care of them. Your support allows us to continue to provide excellent care for these kiddos, as well as to reach out to kids in the community through our formula and mamba programs.

http://childrenofthepromise.org/nutrition-programs/

Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.

Recent Happenings

It's been a busy month. Here's a bit of what's been going on...

Baby S came home from Port Au Prince!

After six weeks in the hospital, including three weeks on the ventilator, we were pretty happy to have our little miracle baby back at COTP!

This boy continues to blow me away with all the new milestones he's achieving

If this wagon full of cuteness doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will

During her visit, I took Jess to my favorite "restaurant" in Cap Haitien :)

Good food and good company

The blue handprints and footprint on the right are from when we first brought B to COTP.  He's grown so much since then!

He sure has a lot of personality

My brother returned with the custom braces his company made for some of our kids with special needs

I loved M's reaction when he got up on his own two feet!

We're excited to see how these braces will help our kiddos to reach their full potential

Happy girl

J and M came to live with us this month

M had her first taste of bacon.  It's safe to say, she likes it!

Taco Tuesday is always a reason to smile :)

I'm blown away by how tough this munchkin is

F's Cinco de Mayo fourth birthday celebration

Baby S has been busy growing just a bit from 2.7 to 4.1 kg this month. Take that tuberculosis!

All smiles

Dressed in her Sunday best

And some video from the Cinco de Mayo birthday celebration, for your viewing pleasure!

Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.

A Year Full of Visitors

Before I moved to Haiti, someone told me it'd have a good idea to have a friend visit during my first year living here.  I think it's safe to say we more than exceeded that expectation!  It has been so much fun to share Children of the Promise and my life in Haiti with my friends back in the States.  Thanks for visiting me, loving on the kids, and keeping me supplied with peanut butter and Doctor Pepper :)

May 

It seemed only fitting that Jess was my first official visitor.  She helped me with a couple projects in the pharmacy, did some fun photography work, and enjoyed reconnecting with this little guy.

 June

Always up for an adventure, Tracy came down to visit last June.  We had a lot of fun hanging out with the kids.

July

After spending a year in the Dominican Republic, Mary came to visit COTP before heading back to Florida.  She got to participate in our 4th of July festivities.

August

Eight adults and four kids from my home church, Vintage Faith Community, came to volunteer in August.  Thanks for blessing the kids, Galen, Erin, Mark T, Mark V, Oleah, Christina, Andy, Jeanie, Olivia, Malachi, Halle, and Kayla!

October

Darcy came to visit for the month of October.  She helped me with a lot of nursing duties, including a few hospital runs and helping me take care of some newly admitted babies.

November

Michele and Lisa had a super busy visit.  They helped me to do well child checks and developmental screenings on all of the kiddos, and physical therapy evals on all of our kids with special needs.  I think I made them work harder than any of my other visitors, but we accomplished so much in a short time.

Donna, I'm sorry we didn't get a picture while you were here!

 December

Mindy and Al helped me take care of these little guys who were both recuperating from surgery at my house.  They also took care of Baby S on her first night at COTP.  Al helped with a lot of projects around the campus and Mindy helped me sort and reorganize all the medical supplies in our depot.

January

My brother, Brendan, was my first family member to come visit.  He casted about fifteen of our kids for AFOs and other braces.  He's coming back to visit next week to deliver the braces and we can't wait for all the kids to have their own custom orthotics.

February

Cara made a day trip to visit and to hang out with her buddy B.  It was so fun to have Cara visit after the big role she played in my move to COTP.

March

Jared and Amanda spent a week hanging out, playing with the kids, and helping with projects around the campus.  They were great babysitters in the Hope House!

\

Libby and Rori helped us celebrate St. Patrick's Day at COTP.  They baked birthday cakes, babysat kiddos, and put lots of smiles on my face.

April

My most recent visitor, Vikki, traveled with me to Port Au Prince to bring Baby S home.  She helped me care for this sweet munchkin in her first few days back at COTP.

And just to round the year out, Jess is returning for another visit tomorrow :)  It's certainly been an eventful year!  Who wants to come visit in 2016?

Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.

Beating the Odds: Baby Sancara's Story

At Children of the Promise our Christ-centered mission is to provide excellent physical, spiritual, emotional, educational and economic care for at-risk children and families in Haiti, empowering the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.  Caring for these kids can often be complicated and messy.  Some kids come with more physical needs and some with more emotional needs.  It’s often hard to know what challenges will present when kids come to live us at COTP.  They come to us from tough situations or broken places, and we humbly do our best to care for and to love on these kids that God has entrusted to us.

Baby Sancara came to live with us in December.  At six-weeks-old she was small and fragile.  She had a hard time drinking from a bottle and wasn’t in great health.  She had a lot of medical issues during her first month with us.  She would seem a little better and then get sick again.  She spent several weeks in the local hospital, but when she came back to COTP it was obvious that she was still very sick.  It was during that time that we learned that Sancara had tuberculosis.  We got her started on medication, supported her nutrition with tube feedings, and had her on oxygen to help her breathing.  But it wasn’t enough.  Sancara was struggling and wasn’t turning the corner.

It was becoming obvious that Sancara wasn’t going to be able to keep breathing the way she was, and that she was soon going to tire out.  With limited resources to support a baby like Sancara in northern Haiti, the decision was made to bring her to Port Au Prince.  After a seven hour drive over the mountains, we got Sancara to Bernard Mevs Hospital.  With the ability to put babies like Sancara on a ventilator (something that isn’t available in Cap Haitien), we hoped this hospital would give Sancara the help she needed to beat her infection. 

As expected, within a few days Sancara’s breathing had deteriorated to the point that she needed to be placed on the ventilator.  She spent the next three weeks on and off the ventilator.  The machine breathed for her when she was unable to.  Her little body was working hard to fight the tuberculosis. There were many times when it seemed like the odds were just not in Sancara’s favor.  Many times when it seemed she wouldn’t be able to fight any longer.  Many times I heard “I don’t know if she’s going to make it through the night” or “we’re doing everything we can, but…”

The odds were certainly not in Sancara’s favor, but despite everything stacked against her she continued to fight. She has now been off the ventilator for over a week and is breathing on her own.  She’s drinking bottles again and hardly using her feeding tube.  She’s shocking everyone who meets her with how much of a fighter she is.  She is one feisty little girl!  If all continues to go well, she could be ready to be discharged as soon as this week.  We’re ecstatic that we’ll soon be able to bring her back to COTP.  We look forward to continuing to care for her and assisting her on her road to recovery.

As we prepare to bring Sancara home, we humbly ask if you would consider supporting the medical expenses that we have in providing care for Sancara.  We need approximately $2500 to cover Sancara’s past month of care.  When compared to the cost of a month long hospitalization in a PICU in the States, $2500 is a minuscule amount.  However, it does present a large expense to us.  If you’d like to donate to help cover Sancara’s medical bills you can do so at http://childrenofthepromise.org/donate/ and you can type “Sancara Medical Fund” in the designation box.  God has provided for Sancara in so many ways.  We are confident that He will provide for this need as well.  If funds above and beyond Sancara’s needs are donated, they will be directed to the medical care of other children at COTP.  

Thank you for considering this request and for partnering with us to serve kids like Sancara.  So many people who haven’t even met this little girl have loved and prayed for her.  We feel pretty blessed to get to love on Sancara and to see God’s plan unfold in her life.



Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

If you know my family, you know that we LOVE Saint Patrick's Day.  So of course I had to bring the celebration to the kids at Children of the Promise.  We had a bit of fun :)  Happy Saint Patrick's Day from Lagossette, Haiti!!

Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.

Cara and B

Before I moved to COTP, I had gone on about a dozen short term trips to Haiti over the course of about five years.  Those trips were to volunteer at a hospital in Port Au Prince, Hospital Bernard Mevs.  I met so many amazing people during that time.  Compassionate, generous, servant hearted individuals with a passion for Haiti and the underserved.  Some of those people are now some of my nearest and dearest friends.  One of those individuals is my friend, Cara.

Cara made her first trip to Haiti in the summer of 2013.  A non-medical volunteer, Cara was willing to help out in whatever way was needed.  Where she ended up being needed was in the pediatric ward. A little boy, B, with some special medical needs had been abandoned.  Cara fell in love with B and spent much of the week loving on this special little guy.  Once B completed his treatment at the hospital, he went to live at an orphanage in northern Haiti.  But that wasn't the end of Cara and B's story.

Cara returned to Haiti the next spring, and that was when we first met.  I heard all about her little buddy B.  She cared for B so much that, she made the trek from Port Au Prince to Cap Haitien, just to be able to visit him for the day at his new home.  When she got back to the hospital she told me more about B and where he now lived, Children of the Promise.

A few more months passed and in the summer of 2014 I was preparing for another trip to Haiti.  I was going to be volunteering at Bernard Mevs again, but wanted to also visit somewhere else after my time at the hospital. I started looking into some different organizations.  That's when Cara suggested that I should check out COTP.  After reading more about them on their webpage, I thought it sounded like a pretty amazing ministry.  So during my next trip to Haiti, I ended up visiting COTP for two days.

I spent less than 48 hours at COTP that weekend.  But by the end of it, I was pretty sure that God was calling me to move there.  I had felt a calling to Haiti for many years, and I had finally found the right organization to partner with.  After a few months of prayer and another visit to Haiti, I announced to my family and friends that I was moving to Haiti.  For the majority of them it came as no surprise. God had been growing my heart for Haiti and for orphan care for many years, and now it was time to follow His call to serve in Haiti full time.

This February, was Cara's first time back to Haiti since I moved here.  It was pretty neat to get to have her visit COTP again, now that I live here.  So, Cara I just wanted to thank you.  Thank you for caring for a little boy when he was all alone in the hospital.  Thank you for loving him and caring about him not just during that week, but even after you returned home.  Because of your love for B, I found my way to my new home in the little village of Lagossette with a ministry called Children of the Promise.  B and I have both been blessed by your friendship.  I look forward to many more visits with you in the future!

Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.