Tent City at Morningstar Academy compound, Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
For those of you who are following my updates on my husband Ray in Haiti, he is now looking for a way to fly home to Kansas City, Missouri. He doesn’t want to leave. There are still great needs there; there will be needed work there for years. But Ray has to come back to his job and family here. Please continue to keep the people of Haiti in your prayers. May we not forget them.
Ray has set up and stocked a medical clinic at pastor Jay’s Christian school, Morningstar Academy. They are seeing an average of 200-300 people per day in the clinic since he started it, and are now making the transition from urgent care to primary care.
Ray is trying to make sure the medical clinic he set up there is still operational after he leaves. Ray has been working this week at the clinic with an orthodox Jewish doctor from the U.S., who he said is just fantastic. He is breaking in the new medical team and hopes to be home in Kansas City by this coming Friday.
Pastor Jay’s school compound, where the tent city and medical clinic are set up on his property, still needs food, water, and supplies. Ray says that there are food, water, and medical supplies available in the area, but when they ask for it, they are told by the U.N. or other organizations that they are “holding it until we develop a plan for distribution.” Please pray for God to bust through their control and government red tape to help the people of Haiti!
Ray is doing a little better now with his upper respiratory cough and fever. He said it is mostly annoying. He said he also got bitten on the neck by a tarantula spider the other night as he was sleeping! Think, really big, hairy spider with large fangs on you in the middle of the pitch-black night. Yelling “Tarantula!”, he grabbed and threw it, and his room-mate stomped on it, while Ray went back to sleep.
Only my husband, man of no fears and the world’s deepest sleeper, could go back to snoring after something like that happened. He really is not scared of them. He thinks they are interesting. On his last two trips to Haiti, he and his men friends went on a night-time tarantula hunt and filmed them for folks back home. I have watched the video of Ray and his friend Mike looking for tarantulas in the dark, and getting close-ups of them with the camcorder, using the accent of the Crocodile Man (Steve Irwin) as they poked the creatures with sticks. I saw the tarantulas when I went with Ray on his last mission trip there, and stayed a far distance from them as much as I could. EEEK!
Tarantulas are poisonous, but their bites are not fatal unless the person is allergic to them. It is much like a bee sting. Ray’s cough right now is probably unrelated to the spider bite. Please pray for his total healing. I asked him to please not bring any tarantulas home as souvenirs!
On a serious note, on his Facebook update status, Ray said, “I am not buried under tons of rubble, so my issues pale by comparison.”
Ray has a word of warning for people regarding donations: “Fresh water, food, and medicines are at a premium. DO NOT just give to a ministry or organization that says, “We are helping in Haiti.” We had people the other day taking photographs of the clinic I built here, and posting the pictures on a website claiming it was “thier clinic” and to donate to them.”
He encourages people to give food and donations to ministries that have been there long-term and know what they are doing, such as pastor Jay Threadgill of Fishers Of Men International. You can also still give donations to Ray’s medical-security missions organization SEMSAR, since Ray and I funded this trip out of our personal checking account and through SEMSAR. To donate, click here.
This week I met with the editor of the local newspaper to do a story on Ray’s mission trip there. I can’t wait until it comes out this week! Thank you so much for your continued prayers for Ray until he returns safely home!
Picture of Haiti from Ray’s last trip there; this is probably all leveled now.
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