John Seaman Haiti Report

My apologies that the news feeds from Haiti may not have made it to you all. Communications were very difficult while there, and I think my forwarding mechanism to get info to you may have failed.

That being said, we really appreciate your prayers and support during the time in Haiti. Thanks to your gifts and prayers our 2 teams to Haiti were able to transport, use and distribute over ½ ton of medicines and other medical supplies. We saw hundreds of patients in 2 different locations: Carrefour, to the West of Port-au-Prince and at the Nehemiah Vision Site on the Northeast side of Port-au-Prince. The first team was involved in a mobile clinic based at the Nehemiah site and delivered first aid / medical care to people in outlying areas that had not yet received help. Our second team worked at an orphanage that was in the center of an IDP camp of approximately 17,000 people in Carrefour. 2 of our team members, Melissa and Jordan, were able to do a needs assessment of the camp and then connect with other aid agencies and the US military to help obtain food for those in camp while the rest of us were busy seeing patients. The second team then moved to the Nehemiah site where we continued with clinics and also helped organized a large shipment of medical supplies and equipment that will be used to establish a hospital at a nearby site where an IDP camp for 50-100,000 people is being built.

Your prayer made it possible for us to continue under very difficult conditions, maintain unity as a team, stay healthy (no one got sick except one team member who needed a boil drained that started before the trip and then passed a kidney stone as we were getting ready to depart on a 15 hour bus ride to start home. Again, God intervened and his stone passed very quickly!), and bring hope to individuals, teams and organizations.

As we prayed over the land, we felt that this terrible tragedy is also a tremendous opportunity for Haiti to break out of the cycle of poverty, despair, and spiritual darkness. Pray that aid organizations and the Haitian people/churches can break out of the “donor/receiver aid cycle” and that the Haitians can take responsibility for their future as they begin the task of rebuilding. The Haitians have a unique contribution to make to the rest of the world – this is their time to take hold of their future. Please pray for the gift of hope to be given to them.

At the present time, we do not have plans to send further teams to Haiti. Things are transitioning from the acute phase to recovery and re-building. There is still critical need for food and shelter. Many people will be moved out of Port-au-Prince to IDP camps as part of the plans for rebuilding. We encourage you to support organizations with ongoing presence in Haiti such as Roger and Margaret Clark of Elim Fellowship, Nehemiah Vision Ministries and Grace Children’s Hospital and Orphanage in Carrefour. Medical teams from International Medical Relief will continue for some months to come.

Thanks again to all of you who helped make our teams successful.
John and Karen

Drs. Ness - Roca Blanca

 

Our Internet connection has been very spotty this year, and as we speak I am sitting in an Internet cafe in a nearby  town. By preparing everything ahead of time, I was able to be fairly efficient in posting our latest blog. The site again is www.nessblog.com/roca. We hope you enjoy it and invite your comments and questions, either on the blog site, or to our e-mail address.

As mentioned the next week will be dental teaching for the students, while we will be doing clinic and trying to take in the classes when we can.  We think of all of you often, and thank you for your prayers and support.

Que Dios te Bendiga!  Mary Kay and Dave Ness

Dr. Paul Cross - Haiti

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be traveling to Haiti tomorrow morning with a medical team (3 surgeons, 2 anesthesiologists, and 1 nurse). This was pretty last minute, and the details are still coming in. We will be flying into the Dominican Republic and then to Leogane (epicenter of the quake) by prop plane. There are very few medical supplies and fewer anesthesia supplies. This is not a Christian  
mission team, so please pray that God's love would apparent in me, and my team will see that. Other prayer requests:

1. Salvation for the team/others I'm working with, the Haitian people I treat
2. Safe travel and return flight (no return plans have been set, tenative for Saturday the 6th)
3. Health (lots of disease, mosquitos, HIV/AIDS)
4. Medical wisdom and safe anesthetics
5. Jayana and the kids
6. Anything else you're led to pray for!

Jeff Leathersich - Update

Tuesday evening after returning form the IDP camp, I heard from our hospital/clinic team that they had seen a baby that was profoundly dehydrated and malnourished to the point that his skin was sloughing off. They had spent hours resuscitating him and when our team had to leave they hoped he would survive the night, that evening we attempted to make contact with a pediatric hospital or the USS Comfort but all of our efforts failed as we could not get through to anybody. It had occurred to me that a dear friend of mine had just arrived in the country with Helimission, an international organization that flies helicopters to rescue people; they fly in food and do med-a-vacs in developing countries. I sent him an e-mail, and within a few hours we heard back that they would fly out first thing in the morning to pick up our baby. The team arrived shortly before the helicopter only to discover that the baby had died during the night. The helicopter had flown in for no reason… so they thought. You see every day when the staff (our team) arrives there are about 50 people there in the waiting room. As the staff walked through the waiting area they quickly identified a very ill 2-month old baby girl. The baby was taken in immediately and it was determined that she was so dehydrated that she was on the verge of death and you know where this is going… there was a helicopter waiting for her. Our base leader here accompanied the baby on the helicopter to the University Of Miami Mobile Hospital at the Port-Au-Prince airport where a trauma team converged on her and stabilized her. He said that there where 20 photographers and news agencies there filming the whole thing. So if you were watching the world news on Wednesday evening and saw a baby being rushed into the UM mobile emergency room from Haiti is was probably our little girl.

I was at an IDP camp today with my friend Nate who is also a PA at Unity Hospital when the word arrived that the baby had died… it was like a knife going through my heart when I heard it… I never even saw the baby, I just spent a few hours searching the web and trying to make phone calls on his behalf. But I think it was just the weight of one more thing, surrounded by thousands of hurting people with needs too great to meet.

Thursday, Helimisson will do two more med-a-vacs for us, the first is a lady I saw yesterday who arm was completely broken above and below the elbow. When I first saw her she walked into our bus carrying her baby in the other arm with other flopping in two places. The second is a one year old boy who has a very loud hear murmur and is in heart failure who is decompensating. He has never been seen by a doctor.   Thanks to Ben and the Helimission crew whose US administrative office is located in Lima NY.

Today, I feel like we were better prepared emotionally for what we saw at the IDP camp. I think knowing what to expect helped… don’t get me wrong I was fighting back the tears about 4 times watching children, adults and elders limp into our bus… wondering if anything was really making a difference as you were sending them back out into the fabricated houses with little or no food and were the filth is just beginning as there are no latrines. We saw a lot of sick kids with pneumonia and today that makes me feel better when you know you are making a difference in their lives with a shot of antibiotics and some to go… at least this time.

The tears for me is not from seeing them in physical pain, it is not from the gapping wounds crawling with flies, or one more kid with diarrhea and we only can give each one 2 days worth of oral dehydration because it is all we have. It is about the profound emotional trauma that these people have experienced, as I said in a prior e-mail it is watching them scream and break down sobbing when we do something that should only hurt a little, knowing they are really screaming because of the trauma of the past two weeks. It is about meeting the parents who loss 5 kids, the wives who have not seen their husbands since the quake and kids who show up at the mobile clinic alone… because they are.

There is in Haiti what I call a “Great Disconnect”, it is the gap between the hundred of millions of dollars of aid that has been brought to Haiti that I hear is sitting at the airport and big distribution center and the people who need it. We have gone to two IDP camps this week and we were the first to show up with any aid or support at either one. From both of these camps you can see the US Embassy so it is hard to imagine what is happening at camps that are further out. I say further out as have left the center of the city which was the epicenter of the quake, it is in ruins and will take years to rebuild it.

It is also the disconnect between large aid agencies and the front line worker like us who are doing a good portion of the work, we don’t even have a way to contact them….

It still amazes me that two PAs (myself and Nate) from Rochester NY, a family med doc from Warsaw (Dan Zerbee) , a former missionary nurse from Brazil (Ken, who starts work next week at my hospital) and my 17 year old son (Tim)  were able to connect with a team of 7 nurses from Indiana and make a difference, albeit a drop in the bucket in people's lives. With our best efforts some have and will continue to die but many will live. So even though it is painful in so many ways, we are all glad we are here and all hope to return in the months to come.

Jeff Leathersich - Update

Days before we departed to Haiti I saw a national news report of a medical team that flew down just after the earthquake, while they originally intended to stay longer they were melting down emotionally after 5 days. One of them was sobbing while being interviewed she said they could not take it anymore, the need was too great, the devastation was too widespread and the supplies were too few. I did not judge them for leaving but said to myself that they must not have been prepared physically or emotionally. Having traveled to Africa, Indian, Brazil, Fiji, Mexico and Belize on medical and other forms of humanitarian missionary efforts... having designed and directed a International Community Health Program for five years training people to do health care in developing nations, I was certain that I would be prepared... I was wrong.

Today I spent the day at a camp for IDPs or Internally Displaced People. It was without a doubt the most challenging and difficult day of my professional life. One of our team members said it was like a war zone and I have to agree, we had hundreds of people run to the our bus as it pulled into the camp. We were the first medical team to show up to this community of 700. We saw so many gapping wounds that have not been treated and broken bones and other injuries that I loss count. Some flesh wounds infected... some just rotting away. My first patient was a lady who had literally been scalped in the collapse of a building and her right arm she had fractured all the bones in her arm so her upper and lower arm were both flopping. It had a make-shift splint on it. Her scalp wound was healing so I left it alone and splinted her arm. Fortunately we have an orthopedic surgeon coming next week.

The next patient of note was a 3 month old baby that was minimally responsive to painful stimuli, we tried to convince the family that she needed to go to a hospital but they did not want to take her, we offered to find one and take her but they still refused… don’t ask me to explain it they just would not do it after long conversations and I don’t understand it. We knew what the consequence of their decision was but I don’t know if they did even though we tried to explain it or maybe they did… but their decision reflected the degree of hopelessness these people have.

The last patient I will tell you about today was a 9 year old boy who came to our bus without a parent, his mother died in the quake and while his father was found at my request and came, he did not want to stay with his son. The boy was burning up with fever; he was severely dehydrated and vomiting. I tried to orally re-hydrate him but he just could not keep liquids down and they ended up mostly on me very early in the day. He collapsed sobbing when he threw up, it was not hard to tell that he was not just crying about being sick... this sobbing was more than that... it was about the fresh and unprocessed death of his loved ones, the trauma of all he had seen and the hopelessness. While these survivors are alive, it seems like they are crying as they know their life as they knew it just died a terrible death. We gave him 3 liters of IV fluids, antibiotics and Tylenol and benadryl which is all we had to calm his stomach, he looked better when he left, I hope it was turning point for him. Without his mother and having met his father I doubt anyone would have been by his side forcing him to drink.

So what made this day so difficult? The numbers of sick people is overwhelming, you just can’t get ahead, when the people from the next town or camp you are at hear we are there and they walk 10-20 miles to find us. Our supplies while well stocked for adults we are short on medicines for kids as the is the country and the apparently the relief effort suppliers we are working with, by noon we had to apologize and say that we just don’t have pediatric pain medicine. Caring for people who are ALL in such emotional pain is draining. They are hopeless and it is an understandable hopelessness they have and you look around and say, yes, this is a hopeless situation, it is overwhelming. At the end of our day, we have to leave to home by dark, the crowd that is still waiting erupts some in anger others in anguish. I don’t know if I have been able to put it into words for you, this is just the worse thing I have ever experienced in my life, and tomorrow is another day.

Jeff Leathersich - Update

It is 4:30 in the morning here in Haiti and we leave soon for our days work. Our team of 12, 5 from Rochester and 7 from Indiana are splitting up today. I will take 4 of us to a refugee camp that has been set up but yet has medical care. The others will go to our clinic/hospital were we saw between 250-300 patients yesterday.

Antibiotics and wound care are most of what will do at the refugee camp. If we find people too sick for the camp, like they need IV fluids or IV antibiotics for a while, we will take them back to our hospital unless they need surgery well will take them to a surgical hospital. We have 2 surgeons arriving at our hospital next week. When we start doing overnight care we will need to leave a nurse and a provider there.

At one point yesterday I said to myself most of these people have stomach ulcers and they have developed their symptoms in the last 7-10 days I wondered why, then it clicked that it was a stress response. Another very common secondary complaint was “I can’t catch my breath at times”. Yet they had no wheezing on exam… again it took about 20 of them saying that before I realized it was anxiety. There is no one here who has not been affected by this disaster, everyone lost family and friends. Sadly, because the numbers are so profound and bodies crushed many beyond recognition many will have closure.

The most impacting thing when seeing the patients who were trapped and saw others die is that they are like walking zombies, the trauma is so profound they are emotionless at this point and when you do something that is painful, like clean a wound or something, it should hurt but not as much as it does. There pain response is exponentially magnified, also from the extreme trauma state they are living in.

We are headed out the door soon. Thanks to all of those who have expressed that they are praying for us and the people of Haiti, we all need it.

I have taken Tim my 17 year old son on this trip, he is working hard with the rest of us and not complaining a bit. I am very proud of him and I know this trip will change his world view, his appreciation of what he has… and his very life.

I will try to send more but technology is very unreliable here.

Dr. Mark Brown - Haiti

Local doctor talks about time spent in Haiti after earthquake

WHEC-TV – A local doctor told News 10 how he was able to help the relief effort in Haiti. Doctor Mark Brown spent several days treating patients in Port-au-Prince, and he says Haiti now looks like a war zone.
Doctor Brown went to the Dominican Republic, for a ceremony at a health clinic that he opened years ago. But when he saw how great the need was in Haiti, he and several other doctors knew they had to help. So they hopped in a small pick up truck and drove five hours to Port au Prince, bringing medical supplies with them.

Doctor Brown says he couldn't believe, the closer he got the number of buildings that were just flattened. People are still sleeping on the streets. And although the bodies had been removed, he said knew where people died because of the smell. He said it was awful.

He described the entire city as looking "occupied." There was a UN worker, U.S. troops or Haitian Police on every block. He went treated 60 to 70 people on the first day. It was a lot for infections, and smaller wounds. He says it was emotionally draining.

"It was very devastating to see people who already have lost so much and are so greatly in need to lose even more to have their lives devastated."

Doctor Brown said, during the day, if it weren’t for the damage, you wouldn't know anything happened. People are going about their business the best they can. He said even after all they've been through, the Haitian people refuse to give up.

Jeff Leathersich - Update

We arrived in Port-au-Prince at the US Embassy at 9:00 AM Saturday after a 10-hour bus ride from Santo Domingo. We went right to work setting up a field hospital at a school, I say hospital because we are prepared run 24/7 with inpatient beds. We have 8 emergency beds, can do about 10 inpatient, and there are two surgeons coming next week.

The house we are staying at experienced minor damage, you can see cracks in the walls; other houses around us were destroyed. The house we are staying at and the ministry we are working with is called Nehemiah's Vision an arm of Campus Crusade for Chris. Traveling through the city today was long, hot and dry with many soldiers from the UN and US everywhere. We have more work to do on set up tomorrow, and Monday we will open the hospital. We will also be splitting up and rotating though 4 refugee camps in our area.

I will keep you apprised as time and technology allow. We are only getting rare cell phone reception and Internet access. Please keep us all in prayer.

Breakfast Energizes Members

Dr. Jeff Harp has been traveling with with an international medical team to Haiti every 18 months for the past 2 decades, doing community building through a church and orphanage in Port-au-Prince. After speaking to the 45 MCCF members who attended this morning's annual Missions Breakfast about their experiences, the current crisis in Haiti, and relief efforts underway, several of our members are becoming energized to become personally involved.

Dr. Harp and his wife Ellen will be flying with Lynx Air into Cape Haitian on the north coast later this week (1/29 or 30) and then traveling overland 3-4 hours with at team of 12 on a special mission of relief where they will be serving victims who have taken refuge on the church/orphanage grounds. Please pray for supplies, wisdom, flexibility, and discernment about details.

Dr. Mike McMullen will be leaving with Medical Missions International for Haiti by way of the Dominican Republic on February 13 and working with a team at a hospital on the border that is offering earthquake refugee relief.

And, in response to a flyer circulated at the breakfast, Dr. Bruce Thompson is applying to become part of a Global Health Outreach team to Haiti, sponsored by the Christian Medical and Dental Association, that will be leaving in mid-March.

If you know of other members who have become involved in Haiti relief, please let us know so that we can be communicating about their needs and activities.

Haiti contributions deductible

Haiti contributions deductible for 2009 taxes

NEW YORK (CNN) – The Senate unanimously passed legislation Thursday that will allow taxpayers to deduct cash donations to Haiti earthquake relief on their 2009 tax returns instead of having to wait to file the claims next year.

Leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee from both parties introduced a bill Tuesday that makes contributions made between Jan. 12 and Feb. 28 count toward an individual's or family's 2009 taxes. The House unanimously approved the measure Wednesday. The legislation also allows contributions made through text messages to be deducted if cell phone bills are provided as proof of donation.

Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Rangel, D-NY, said in a statement that the committee “developed this legislation to make it easier, and encourage people, to donate to the relief efforts in Haiti.”
Leaders from the Senate Finance Committee introduced an identical version of the bill Wednesday afternoon. The Senate passed the bill late Thursday.

“Last week, Haiti and the world was reminded Mother Nature knows no deadlines,” said Finance Committee Max Baucus, D-Mont., in a prepared statement.

Similar legislation was passed in 2005 to boost contributions in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami that occurred in late 2004.

Dr. Seaman - Hope Extended

We have our first team of four – 1 MD, 2 PA’s and 1 RN – leaving for Haiti this Friday, first going to Santo Domingo where they will join another group and share a van to Haiti.

We appreciate the tremendous outpouring of encouragement, prayer and gifts. You are such a blessing to us and will help us bring some hope to one of the darkest places on earth.

Our second team will leave sometime next week. I expect to go on this team. One of my goals is to try and discover a reliable route in and out of Haiti that subsequent teams can take. Please continue to pray for:

1. No missed connections for our first team.
2. No luggage or supplies lost.
3. Safety and security!!
4. Divine opportunities.
5. Strength and clear thinking in chaos.

Dr. John Seaman

Summer Medical Institute

The vision of the Summer Medical Institute (SMI) is to raise up healthcare providers who use their professions to honor God and grow in love for Him. The SMI is organized by the Valley Baptist Family Practice Residency in Harlingen, TX. This will be the ninth year for the South Texas SMI. Being located on the TX/MX border, we have ample opportunity to provide care to medically underserved neighborhoods called colonias.

The SMI medical outreach serves as the practical vehicle for mentoring the next generation of health care workers. Each year we accept applications from qualified physicians and nurses to serve as mentors to SMI students. Mentors come alongside students to encourage and inform them about the role of the healthcare worker in reaching the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Most faculty serve for a week during the month-long project. If you would be interested in coming alongside students this summer, feel free to contact Steve Johnson, SMI Coordinator, by phone at 956-389-2492.

Please take a few moments to pray about playing a role in what has proven to be a significant experience in medical students’ lives.

Rafiki Missions Opportunity

The Rafiki Foundation is looking for help with their ministry to needy children in Africa and is seeking Christian physicians to serve short term during one of their quarterly Community Medical Clinics.

Rafiki, a Swahili word for friend, is a Christian missions organization with Villages in 10 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Their Villages are located in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Ethiopia.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the AIDS pandemic has deprived many children of their fathers and mothers. Even with one surviving parent, the needs of a child cannot be met in most of these countries. School enrollment and literacy rates in Africa are among the lowest in the world. An estimated 42 million children in sub-Saharan Africa alone are not enrolled in school. Many cannot afford to go or stay in primary school and in some countries, 70% of the girls do not continue to secondary school. In response to this need, Rafiki Villages are designed to care for children from infancy to age eighteen.

The goal of Rafiki is to nurture orphaned African children into godly contributors in their countries. They do not place their children for adoption. If you would like further information, please click here to read the letter we received, here to visit the Rafiki Foundation's website, or contact Joe Baucom, Rafiki Area Representative, at 574-370-2699.

Prayer for Bongolo Hospital

From Deb Walker, head of Pediatrics

PLEASE PRAY FOR BONGOLO HOSPITAL

We are getting hit very hard because of the government hospital worker's strike that is already a month old (since Jan.12). It is just now getting to the unbearable stage at our hospital. Maternity is up 2.5 times the normal volume and outpatients have doubled. Almost all hospital beds are full. If this rate continues very long, we will run out of certain medications and tests like HIV tests before our next order can arrive. People are getting angry at having to wait because of consultation and lab overload or when we don't have enough tests and supplies to meet the demand. This is especially critical in the area of HIV tests to test the pregnant women and the antiretroviral (ARV) medication to prevent the transmission of the virus to the baby. Women who were planning on doing their prenatals in other cities, including Libreville, are flocking to our hospital. The government HIV program was not able to grant us any HIV tests or ARV medication for pregnant women and their babies at our last request so we are running out. In addition, our X-ray machine is broken and our lab chemistry machines were all fried in a storm last week. Half our missionary medical staff is away on trips. We are doing the best we can but we can 't keep this rate up for very long.

Several of our members have served at Bongolo Hospital in Gabon, and Dr. Keir Thelander is there as a full-time missionary with his wife and family now. Thanks for praying.

Laugh, love, lift

I would be true, for there are those who trust me.
I would be pure, for there are those who care.
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer.
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.

I would be friend of all, the foe, the friendless.
I would be giving and forget the gift.
I would be humble, for I know my weakness.
I would look up and laugh, and love and lift.

I would be prayerful through each busy moment.
I would be constantly in touch with God.
I would be tuned to hear His slightest whisper.
I would have faith to keep the path Christ trod.

A hymn, written by missionary Howard Walter

Be present

Practice presence
Breathe in the squeaky cry of a too-thin infant
dirt blowing off the road in your eyes
the pain of having too little to give

Breathe out flaming bougainvillea
the sun fading behind the hill
magic of medicine on an infected hand

Breathe in poverty and pain and confusion
the ache of tip-toeing on another’s suffering
Breathe out fresh watermelon
Honduran coffee in the morning
a game of duck-duck-goose.

Breathe in the guilt of problems unanswered,
wasted time, a broken world
Breathe out a new friendship and a fresh coat of paint.

Practice presence –
learn to sit still, listen longer, absorb more than you
thought you could - or even wanted to.

Remember your gifts –
be the first one to smile when passing another
expand a few vitamins into hope for a village
try to turn chaos into a dance.
Learn to let go.

Be still. Be present.

Shoulder to Shoulder, Santa Lucia, Honduras

Martha C. Carlough, MD, MPH
U of Rochester Family Medicine (Class of ’92)

Trip to Honduras

URMC to provide help in Honduras

by Justina Wang. Democrat & Chronicle Staff writer

Next month, about a dozen University of Rochester Medical Center doctors, nurses and students will travel to Honduras to repair water filters, build cook stoves, hand out school supplies and talk with impoverished families. It's not pure medical work, but they believe their helping hands could do more for the health of people in developing countries than any stethoscope or needle.

"It's so easy to see there that if you don't have clean water and your child gets diarrhea three times a year, then the intervention is clean water, not medicines," said Dr. Douglas Stockman, director of the university's global and refugee health program. "Prevention is probably more important than curative care." Since 2003, Stockman and residency program director Dr. Steven Schultz have taken a medical brigade down to the village of San Jose, where there's no running water, electricity, hospitals or clinics.

The project is part of the national Shoulder to Shoulder effort to help the poor in Honduras, and URMC has committed to helping the village for at least 10 years. In the last two years, the First Unitarian Church of Rochester has also joined the project, raising more than $70,000 for the San Jose area and sending one or two parishioners with the URMC team.

During the twice-yearly, two-week trips, the group has installed 140 ventilated stoves, built 4,500 gallon water tanks, supplied 578 pieces of PVC pipe to bring water to 30 homes, put water filters in 20 homes, helped construct latrines, trained midwives, and handed out fluoride rinse for schoolchildren. In between the community work, half the doctors and residents also see patients and write prescriptions in a makeshift warehouse clinic, where students learn that medical issues aren't isolated from daily problems.

Children who drink infected water come in with worm and parasite infections. Poverty takes the form of malnutrition and stunted growth. Open fires in homes without stoves lead to serious burns, bronchitis and asthma. Adults who have had no medical attention in their lives come in with advanced cancers, untreated diabetes and high blood pressure, schizophrenia and psychoses that have never been diagnosed.

"It's sometimes very difficult to see the causalities and linkages," said Schultz. "Violence is a huge concern in Rochester, but is it a medical problem? Maybe violence is having an issue on the health of many members of the community, and maybe as a physician I should be looking at that, and not just concentrating on what I'm doing in the exam room."

First-year resident Donald McLaren, a 26-year-old from New York City and a son of Haitian immigrants, said this is exactly why he went to medical school. He wants to work with diverse populations and is preparing for his first trip to Honduras on Oct.18 — brushing up on his Spanish and picking out a tent and sleeping bag to keep out mosquitoes and scorpions when he sleeps on the floor of an open cinderblock school. "This is going to be a very interesting experience," he said. "I expect to be shocked, and I expect to do a lot for the community in Honduras."

News from the Seamans

I imagine all of you are aware of the double tragedies unfolding in Asia – the Myanmar typhoon and the Western China earthquake. We had considered going to Myanmar – but the way seems blocked at the moment for Americans (and most everyone else, for that matter). Pray for a breakthrough in the spiritual strongholds that keep help from arriving. Then there was the earthquake in China almost 1 week ago. We received a call from friends in China who live and work in that area. They have been contacted by many national believers who want to help but have no training or experience. They have asked for our help. After praying, we knew that we should respond to this request.

This is a strategic opportunity to help the Christians in China reach out and demonstrate the love of Christ in a very practical way. Therefore we will be leaving this Friday, May 23rd, for Chengdu, China which is about 60 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake. Karen and I will be accompanied by our good friends and frequent companions in these efforts, Gerard and Maureen Haberstro and their son, Matthew. Our Singaporean “daughter”, Jolene, will also be joining us. We will be training local believers in disaster response and perhaps helping them get started with deployment, doing assessments, etc. As you might expect, we really have no idea what we may be getting into. We will be stopping in Singapore on the way over and back to make contact with our friends there who also want to be involved.

I know that many of you may want to be involved in this in some way. First we need prayer support. I’ll be updating you with items as often as possible. The first things we need you to pray for:

1. Visas. China is being very restrictive about granting visas right now, due to the Olympics. hey are also being very restrictive about people helping in the disaster response effort. Our visa applications and passports will be taken to the Chinese embassy tomorrow morning (Monday) for processing. Please pray for FAVOR with embassy officials.
2. Contacts. We need to meet and connect with the right people here, in Singapore and in China.
3. Wisdom to know what to teach and how to teach it as we prepare our materials. Wisdom for our hosts as they prepare for our arrival.
4. Flexibility as plans, schedules and circumstances change.
5. Grace and strength. We are already quite tired from the preparation of the last few days (with a wedding thrown in the mix). We have much to accomplish in the last few days before departure. The weather in Chengdu is hot and humid – quite oppressive – we will need extra grace to adjust to the climate.
6. Health and safety. With the stress and climate change, we need your prayer that we would stay healthy. Also that we would know when to rest and when to press on.

Our second need is for finances. Travel costs alone will be about $15,000 for the 6 of us. Not sure yet what we’ll need for supplies, etc. We’re thankful that a number of you have already started to offer support. We appreciate your help. If you would like to participate with us financially, you can send donations to Hope Extended, 1355 Paul Road, Churchville, NY 14428.

Some of you may want to actually participate directly in the relief effort. We’ll know a lot more after this trip about ongoing needs and opportunities. I will be keeping you informed about this after we have had a chance to be there and assess the situation. There certainly will be need for a prolonged time. It remains to be seen what the role of outsiders will be. So, stay tuned and be prepared. If there are opportunities for you to participate, we’ll let you know and probably design some training to help you get ready.

Blessings to you all,
Dr. John Seaman

Spring MD Breakfast

The MCCF Spring MD Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, April 26, from 9-11 am at the Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue.

Drs. Dave and Mary Kay Ness will be back from Oaxaca Mexico to share with us about their commitment and recent missions experiences serving in Roca Blanca. For more background information about the ministry they've become involved in, check out their website and then come to hear an up-to-date report!

Please mark your calendars and RSVP using our Response page. Be sure to note our new location (click here for Directions to the Academy of Medicine).

The Jungles of Gabon

Don’t miss great stories of God’s work in the jungles of Gabon!

Including photos of termites, bats, snakes and Bongolo Hospital!

Tuesday, May 6 at 7:15 pm
Browncroft Community Church - Fellowship Hall
2530 Browncroft Blvd., Rochester, NY 14625
Questions? Contact Diann Conquest - 585-381-5605

Winter Missions Breakfast

Please set aside the date and sign up now for our Winter Missions Breakfast coming up on Saturday, January 19th, from 9-11 am at the Rochester Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue. We're going to have a smorgasbord of local speakers (including 2 URMC residents and one faculty member) who'll be talking about missions experiences and opportunities from Honduras to Iraq, by way of Uganda and Tenwek Hospital in Kenya, so don't miss this one!

Please mark your calendars and RSVP using our Response page. Be sure to note change of location (click here for Directions to the Academy of Medicine).

Nesses in Roca Blanca

We've just received a holiday newsletter from Dave and Mary Kay Ness about their mission work in Mexico:

We are quickly moving toward early January 2008 when we plan to return to the mission base Roca Blanca in Oaxaca, Mexico. Many of you have been faithful supporters and prayer partners in this mission activity over the past 5 years. Earlier this year we went for 2 months and this year we actually intend to go for 3 and a half months... Please do let us know if you will stand with us in your prayers day by day.

Click here to read their entire newsletter and here to visit their ministry on the Web.

HOME Ministry Abroad

Our friend Aubrey Beauchamp, USA Coordinator of Hospital Christian Fellowship, has recently written a report on the ministry of Health Outreach to the Middle East (HOME) for the ASSIST News Service. She concludes:

"As a nurse and HCF Coordinator, I feel privileged to know some of the dedicated members of this outstanding and unique ministry. I am also honored to see the interaction between Hospital Christian Fellowship members and those of the HOME ministries. It confirms the Scripture in Ephesians 2:21-22: "In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple of the Lord. And in Him, you too, are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit."

Click here to read Aubrey's whole report.

Thelanders of Gabon

On April 29 and 30, Dr. Keir and Joanna Thelander will share about what God is doing at Bongolo Hospital in Gabon, Africa, with a report about their experiences with medicine in the jungle, heat and humidity, electrical storms, their missionary family, God’s many provisions for Luke and Sarah, the new AIDS clinic, the road to Libreville, and the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons. Click here for more information about times, locations, and how you can RSVP.

Winter MD Breakfast

The annual MCCF Missions Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, February 10th, from 9-11 am at the Meliora Faculty Club on the River Campus. Speakers will include:

• Dr. Jeff Harp - Haiti mission
• Drs. Nick Venci and Chuck Culbertson - Senegal mission
• Jared Tomlinson - Ghana mission
• Dave & Diann Conquest - Dr. Keir Thelander's work at Bongolo Evangelical Hospital in Gabon, Africa
• Dr. John Seaman - Disaster Preparedness

Information about the upcoming CMDA Global Health Outreach trip to Nicaragua in 4/07 will also be presented. Mark your calendars and sign up now!

Winter MD Breakfast

Our annual MCCF Missions Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, January 28th from 9-11 am at the Meliora faculty club on the U of R River Campus. Speakers will include:

• The Cannon Family (trip to Honduras this summer)
• Alexi Matousek and Sarah Bliss (trip to Haiti)
• Drs. John Seaman and David Ragonesi (trip to Tibet)
• Dr. David Holmes (Buffalo outreach)

Mark your calendars and sign up now!