december 2015 helping orphans...helping orphans blessings’ new mobile medical support for orphans...

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Healing the Hurting | Building Healthy Communities | Transforming Lives in Haiti Stanley (Continued on page 2) December 2015 The Newsletter of Blessings International HELPING ORPHANS BLESSINGS’ NEW MOBILE MEDICAL SUPPORT FOR ORPHANS TO LAUNCH EARLY IN 2016 Stanley is four years old. No one knows his father. His mother died recently and he was sent to live with his grandmother. Then she died. So Stanley went to live with some uncles, but they didn’t have the ability to adequately care for him. By the time an uncle brought him to an orphanage, he was sick and badly malnourished. “His belly was distended. He had a fever and was listless. In just a five minute examination, I could tell he was severely suffering from parasites,” says Debi Lammert, APRN, who will lead Blessings’ new Mobile Medical Support for Orphans project. “He was anemic, and had a cold and an ear infection. The poor guy had no shoes and was filthy. We put him on amoxicillin, some deworming meds and multivitamins, and now he is doing great. He’s laughing, eating well and not vomiting, and everyone loves him.”

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Page 1: December 2015 HELPING ORPHANS...HELPING ORPHANS BLESSINGS’ NEW MOBILE MEDICAL SUPPORT FOR ORPHANS ... buy seeds so that farmers can replace crops they lost. ... hurting, build healthy

Healing the Hurting | Building Healthy Communities | Transforming Lives

in Haiti

Stanley(Continued on page 2)

December 2015The Newsletter of Blessings International

HELPING ORPHANS

BLESSINGS’ NEW MOBILE MEDICAL SUPPORT FOR ORPHANS

TO LAUNCH EARLY IN 2016Stanley is four years old. No one knows his father. His mother died recently and he was sent to live with his grandmother. Then she died. So Stanley went to live with some uncles, but they didn’t have the ability to adequately care for him. By the time an uncle brought him to an orphanage, he was sick and badly malnourished. “His belly was distended. He had a fever and was listless. In just a five minute examination, I could tell he was severely suffering from parasites,” says Debi Lammert, APRN, who will lead Blessings’ new Mobile Medical Support for Orphans project. “He was anemic, and had a cold and an ear infection. The poor guy had no shoes and was filthy. We put him on amoxicillin, some deworming meds and multivitamins, and now he is doing great. He’s laughing, eating well and not vomiting, and everyone loves him.”

Page 2: December 2015 HELPING ORPHANS...HELPING ORPHANS BLESSINGS’ NEW MOBILE MEDICAL SUPPORT FOR ORPHANS ... buy seeds so that farmers can replace crops they lost. ... hurting, build healthy

Above top: Mobile Medical Support team members Esai and Williamson. Above: Debi with orphanage children.

www.kairos10.org

HAITI

Blessings International has been fortunate over the last year to be able to provide a significant number of anti-malarial treatments free of charge to teams traveling throughout the world. The primary means of being able to provide the free anti-malarials was due to a grant from our partner Kairos 10.

For medical teams traveling to areas where malaria is present, we are still able to provide a number of free malaria treatments you your order for other items is placed. We are glad to provide these treatments to your team to help in providing hope and healing to those you are serving.

For anyone looking to purchase a beautiful Christmas gift that will also save lives, we encourage you to consider jewelry from Kairos 10. To view the bracelets, necklaces, and other items they have available, go to www.kairos10.org. Through Kairos’ website, you can also learn more about the artisans that make bracelets how their lives have been changed as a result of being able to work.

According to Debi, little Stanley had probably never seen a healthcare professional.

“Healthcare in Haiti is so bad it’s probably beyond the ability of our modern imaginations to conceive,” says Debi. “The healthcare system doesn’t work. It’s erratic, not accessible, and there isn’t even any basic health education so a lot of kids suffer needlessly. Their growth is stunted and they suffer from easily preventable afflictions like worms and malnutrition. And a lot of crazy things are done to treat basic conditions because of local traditions or superstitions.”

Blessings created the Mobile Medical Support for Orphans project which will include a team of three people and a vehicle that will regularly visit 25 to 30 Haitian-run orphanages on a three month rotation. “Most are medium to small orphanages run by people who felt called to do this but have very little financial or material support. The goal of the Blessings project is to work directly with the orphanage directors and the nannies, the ‘mommies’ working with the kids, and help them provide preventative and basic healthcare as well as dealing with medical issues that come up.” The team will provide vitamins, deworming medicine, first aid kits and basic medical training to each orphanage. The team will also facilitate bringing medical teams to Haiti to treat significant issues.

Debi says that the Mobile Medical Support team will “come alongside these orphanages and help them, give them advice on the use of first aid, provide appropriate medical care, but also try to emphasize a whole person approach — body, mind, spirit — and identify anything early that needs a higher level of care or intervention.”

Debi and her team will work to ensure that these children are safe, healthy and happy. With your help and support of Blessings’ Mobile Medical Support for Orphans project, many children like Stanley will have a chance to become healthy and whole adults.

“Sometimes little things make a big difference,” Debi says.

HELPING ORPHANS IN HAITI

“Sometimes little things make a big difference,” Debi Lammert

Fight malaria with beautiful jewelry

Page 3: December 2015 HELPING ORPHANS...HELPING ORPHANS BLESSINGS’ NEW MOBILE MEDICAL SUPPORT FOR ORPHANS ... buy seeds so that farmers can replace crops they lost. ... hurting, build healthy

MYANMARDENTAL TEAM CHANGES LIVES IN MYANMARIn August, Cyclone Klomen ripped through Southeast Asia. The massive storm killed more than 100 people, destroyed more than 15,000 homes and affected more than a million people in Myanmar alone, according to UN reports.

Because Blessings has had a presence in the nation for many years, we were able to quickly mobilize a medical team that traveled to some of the hardest hit areas. The team was headed by Dr. Naw Li, a dentist. He organized a group of nurses and literally loaded up in a boat to travel to some towns located in the Kangyi Thauk region.

Children of the Americas is just one of nearly 3,000 teams that orders medicines through Blessings International every year. Over the last year (Blessings’ Fiscal Year 2015, which runs between September 1, 2014 and August 31, 2015), Blessings International shipped medicines with a Human Treatment Value (HTV) of 100,570,687. That number includes both individual daily doses of medicine (called a Daily Treatment) and a full course of medicine (called a Curative Treatment). The overall HTV number for 2015 includes more than 13 million additional treatments and represents a 15% increase compared with the previous year! The significant increase means that Blessings shipped more medicines that treated many more people!

“Because of the flooding, many people could not travel to receive medical care, so we brought it to them,” says Dr. Naw Li.

The team found that most of the crops in the area were destroyed by the storm, so they used an earlier gift from Blessings to buy seeds so that farmers can replace crops they lost. Dr. Naw Li also provided dental care and antibiotics to people who were suffering from major dental problems.

Blessings supplies products to dental teams traveling all across the world, not only on disaster relief missions. If you are a dentist, or know of one going on a mission trip, please let them know that Blessings has a list of supplies designed just for them. Simply have them go to www.blessing.org, click on the Order Medicine tab and follow the links to the Dental Order Form.

RECORD NUMBERS OF PEOPLE HELPED BY BLESSINGS

...THE STORY OF ONEJulia (not her real name) was born with a cleft palate. This condition makes it difficult to eat or speak. But the worst thing is the way other people treat her — as though she is a monster. The condition and the way others treat Julia often make her mother cry.

Julia’s life changed completely when a surgical team from Children of the Americas arrived in Guatemala earlier this year. The team performed surgery to repair the cleft and enable Julia to lead a normal life. Now all her mother can do is smile.

OVER

100 MILLION TREATMENTS (HTV)

IN 2015

Page 4: December 2015 HELPING ORPHANS...HELPING ORPHANS BLESSINGS’ NEW MOBILE MEDICAL SUPPORT FOR ORPHANS ... buy seeds so that farmers can replace crops they lost. ... hurting, build healthy

Code #11864

Text to give by texting “Medicines” to 41444

Federal employees can donate through the Combined Federal Campaign #11864

State and Local government employees can also give to Blessings through their payroll giving plan

Above: Blessings’ booth at GMHC 2015

Give online at www.blessing.org

For more information or to order medicine, go to www.blessing.org or email [email protected]

Mail gifts to P.O. Box 35292, Tulsa OK 74153-0292, USA. Make checks payable to Blessings International.

For more than 30 years, Blessings International has worked to heal the hurting by providing life-saving pharmaceuticals, vitamins and medical supplies to medical mission teams, clinics and hospitals located around the world; to build healthy communities by treating the poor and victims of endemic medical problems, outbreaks of disease or overwhelming disasters; and to transform lives by actively demonstrating the love and compassion of Jesus Christ.

What is Blessings International?

I’ve just returned from the annual Global Missions Health Conference in Louisville, KY. It is an incredible event, in which some 4,000 people interested in medical missions gather to network, learn and inspire each other to “love and good deeds”(Hebrews 10:24). Many of the attendees each year are medical students, nursing students, dental students and pharmacy students in the process of considering careers in medical missions. The conference includes some 175 exhibitors and more than 160 breakout sessions. I led two of those breakout sessions and shared about how medical teams can source safe medicines. Our Communications and Development Director, David Harder, also led a breakout session in which he detailed results of a study we conducted on how teams that order medicines through Blessings incorporate prayer in their outreaches. Part of David’s session provided training on how medical personnel can pray for their patients. Information on both my and David’s sessions are available as resources on our website.

We believe sharing of information is vital to successful missions. Visit our Resources and Tools page at www.blessing.org/order/resources-tools. If you have information you would like to share or have suggestions for items for us to create and share, please let us know so we can better serve those who serve others.

Your gifts and prayers enable us to not only heal the hurting, build healthy communities and transform lives, but also to inspire others to do the same. Thank you!

BlessingsINTL BlessingsInternationalblessingsinternationalFollow us on social media

CEO’s Corner

Consider making a legacy gift to blessings

Would you like to make a lasting contribution to Blessings International’s work to heal the

hurting around the world?

Consider adding Blessings to your will. Your legacy gift will be used to bring healing and hope to people all over the world who need medical care and a touch

of God’s love.

PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF MEDICAL MISSIONS WORKERS

Barry Ewy, PharmD, JD, MHA