Overflow: Bill, Meg and Kristen's Visit

My 2nd week back in Haiti I was blessed to have 3 first time visitors to NWHCM and the Miriam Center. Bill who is the founder of Fountains Of Hope a non-profit organization that produces water filtration systems and installs them in 3rd world countries like Haiti. He has been to Haiti 28x as well as to many other countries as well. He graciously planned a 3 day trip to our mission so that Meg (an Occupational Therapy professor from Indiana State University) and Kristen (A speech Therapist) could come spend a few days with me at the Miriam Center. He also installed one of his water filtration systems at the mission so that now all the water going to the main travel kitchen and boys/girls bathrooms has filtered water. Thank you so much Bill and Fountains of Hope!!!

So many of you may remember me talking about Meg over the past few months. We got connected through one of her students who found my blog and began reading it. This student approached Meg about wanting to go to Haiti with the school. Meg contacted me via email back in March requesting my assistance in writing a grant to get the funding to come to Haiti on a vision trip to see if it would be possible to bring students. Long story short over the next few months I got to spend a lot of time with Meg in Nashville at the National OT convention, in NYC at a class we took on how to make Adaptive Equipment out of Cardboard, and then in Indiana when I spent 2 days with her. It was so wonderful to be able to show Meg my passion of OT in Haiti.

A big thank you to the Rotary Club of Indiana as well as the students at Indiana State University for helping get some new therapy equipment into Haiti. They brought in 2 new standers that are super adjustable in every area including being able to tilt them back in space and have trays that attach for the ability to facilitate play during standing. We have already had 4 children who have never been able to stand before STAND because of these new standers. We use them on a daily basis now!!! They also got 2 adapted positioning chairs in. One has already been customized to fit Emma and she uses it everyday! A big Thank you to Bill who spent an entire day trying to put these different pieces of adaptive equipment together with only 1 picture of each…literally took him ALL day. So glad he is an engineer and has an engineer mindset!! ;-)

While I was stateside I made PECS with the Kreyol written on them but was unable to print them secondary to not having the program. Kristen was gracious enough to print the PECS and Meg helped her laminate and cut them all. Kristen was able to spend 1 morning making a PEC communication book for the therapy room as well as 1 for Mary Julie. Mary Julie helped pick the pictures she wanted in her book and helped Kristen make the book. Mary-Julie goes home to PAP on vacation 1-2x a year with her family. She says the hardest part is communicating her need and wants. My hope is that with this book she will be able to do so more easily.

Saturday morning before they left was super busy. Kristen was working on finishing off PECS while I showed Meg how to make PVC pipe toy hangers (which has been on my list of things to do for 2 years). They turned out good! I was also make 1 for Meg to take to PAP with her to New Life Children’s Home where they were going to be spending a few days. I also sent them with a binder of the english and Creole therapy handouts I have made that they could use for educating in PAP as well as some therapy supplies like vibrating therapy brush, therapy brushes, theraband, chewy tubes, etc. I am thankful that God has blessed us so that we can bless others with the supplies we have.

We did a spontaneous home visits Saturday morning which turned into 4…lol. So Moseline mom had gotten back from going to market for me like she does every Saturday morning. She asked for me to come visit her home. I asked if my friends Meg and Kristen could come and she said OF COURSE! I was excited for Kristen and Meg to get out of the mission walls and to see the culture a little more. It was personally wonderful for me to visit Moseline’s home because while I was stateside FJS outreach blessing fund was used to help fix her roof and finish their walls. It was wonderful to see in person what a big difference something so small had on their family. Upon arriving all the neighbors brought their chairs to make sure we could all sit down. I was playing with Moseline on my lap and Her mom pulled out the photo album I gave her 2 years ago and all the photos I have ever given her of Moseline and her family. She went picture by picture showing Meg and Kristen each one and naming each person in the pictures. I saw in that moment how much the outreach families treasure the pictures I have given them over the years.

I got to meet Moseline’s grandfather and older sister from PAP for the first time. Meg and Moseline’s older sister had a sing off which was fun. I prayed for the first time in all Creole (well I tried at least). It was overall just a wonderful hour of fellowship. As we were leaving one of the deaf guys that works at the Miriam Center was walking by. He asked me to come see where he lived and then proceeded to show me where all our deaf staff live as well as where Fedner & his wife live and where Fedner’s sewing shop is at. I had a great conversation with Fedner’s wife in sign language. I was very rusty and have forgotten a lot but I know it meant a lot to her that I was trying.

I am working on convincing Kristen to come back for the summer next year and do Speech Therapy with the kids :-) And working on Meg to bring students for a service learning trip ;-)