their hearts give out.

The reality of the life changes that are about to happen is becoming more real every day. I have said 2 hard goodbyes in the last week. One to my sweet friend Lindsey who I have spent nearly every day of the past 2 years trying to survive nursing school with, and one to one of my closest friends Cheyenne [who leaves in 2 days to go to Haiti and is returning the day before I leave]. Both of these were hard for me... harder than I let on... but they are sweet reminders that I am getting closer to starting this crazy journey that Jesus is taking me on! And THAT is exciting.

Tonight I want to tell you about another one of the ways that I will get to serve in Haiti. If you didn't know, millions of kids in America are born with heart defects... it's just one of those things that happens. But here, the kids have open heart surgery to fix it when they are tiny babies and then live relatively normal lives. In Haiti, there is nowhere to have heart surgery [literally]. If the defect is life threatening, the babies die. And if it is manageable, they live to be about 8 or 10 and then their hearts give out because they can't keep up with their bodies. This is the time when they must either be fixed or the child will die.

The organization that I will be working with [Chadasha] has partnered with the International Children's Heart Foundation. You can read more about the mission of this organization and its partnering with Chadasha here. Basically, ICHF does life saving heart surgeries for children in 3rd world countries. Eventually ICHF and Chadasha will arrange for these surgeries to be performed at Chadasha's hospital, Jimani, in the Dominican Republic. But for the first year, the surgeries will take place in Santiago which is a bigger city in the DR. There will be a wave of these surgeries in late August so I will most likely be traveling to Santiago to help with the surgeries any way that is needed.... in prep, recovery, logistics, family arrangements for traveling and boarding, etc. From what I understand there will be about a dozen heart surgeries for kids! I am SO excited that the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to help save these lives!

About a month ago, several children were able to have heart surgeries in the DR. All of the children did great and are healthy now! Below are some pictures of some of the kids on the day of surgery:

these kids are so tough!!

All of them recovered beautifully we hear. I can't wait to be the one holding their hand and telling them we are going to make them feel better! This is the link to a video of a little guy named Olken who had his heart surgery in America some time ago. He now lives back and forth between some families that go to my church in Knoxville. It makes me cry to hear him talk about how happy he is that he can run and play now, and how sad he was when he couldn't play with the other kids when he was sick.

Below is a video of Joenke, one of the most recent kids who had heart surgery last month.

This blog has been all over the place I know, sorry if it's driving you crazy haha. I just have so much that I want to share with ya'll! The next two pictures are updates from the Children's Home that my last post was all about. These kids are living such a good life compared to the majority of the orphans in Haiti!

they say the kids sit on this mat and talk about their futures

this is what I look most forward to!!!

One more thing before I go... THANK YOU to anyone and everyone who has been praying for me, and to anyone and everyone who has sent me a donation. I lack about $1200, which is absolutely amazing. I am reminded daily of how big my God is and have been repeatedly left standing in my kitchen in awe of notes and money that has come in the mail. In case you wondered if the Lord was using you, HE IS!!

Mwen renmen ou! [I love you!]