healing changes everything
Check out the latest edition of our podcast featuring news about a recent visit with one of our Afghan doctors! Go here to download it or listen now.
Also, here’s a story to check out about the Beemers, who will be serving at our hospital in the DR.
We now have an email address especially for the blog. Send your comments, thoughts, etc. to: cureblog@cureinternational.org
Enjoy your day!
Brad Statnick is a new employee at our CURE Lemoyne, Pa., home office. A couple of weeks ago, he had the chance to spend a few days at our hospital in the Dominican Republic. While there, he wrote an ongoing account of his trip. We’d like to share some excerpts from his journal:
Brad watches a surgery at the DR hospital.
I was overwhelmed after spending time in the barrios of Santo Domingo. Four amazing visits with three kids and a young woman, all of whom have benefited from the physical and spiritual care they received at our hospital. God has truly blessed me by giving me the opportunity to work for CURE International…
I think I’m really starting to get CURE International. Yesterday, I visited our hospital and met many of the staff. I also met a Haitian mother whose little girl was here for life-changing surgery. I later learned that she gave her heart to Jesus that very afternoon after our spiritual director prayed with her…
Today I was in the CURE OR from 7:30 a.m. until 3:45 p.m. I saw three surgeries, including an operation on a 4-month-old girl in which the surgeon removed scar tissue and then returned her hip to its socket. It was an amazing experience to see the CURE surgeons at work…
I am now home after a long day of planes, trains and automobiles. Was it worth it? You better believe it. I will be processing what I saw in the DR for some time. But the one thing I know for sure is that I am exactly where God wants me and that’s with CURE International to do my part to help cure children in the developing world of both their physical and spiritual needs. Healing truly does change everything!
I think Brad speaks for all of us at CURE.
Good morning from a suddenly rainy and chilly Lemoyne…
We’ve just received a beautiful story from our Dominican Republic hospital about a 2-year-old boy named Brandy. Before he came to CURE, his knees bent backwards; but thanks to the surgical experts at our hospital, his knees now look like normal.
Brandy before his surgery at CURE
Brandy after his surgery at CURE
Brandy’s family and neighbors are already viewing him as a miracle! We always love getting these stories and look forward to sharing many more with you. These kids are the reason why CURE exists.
A couple more items….
The Pendulum, Elon University’s student newspaper, published an excellent story about Drea Dorrow, an Elon student who has spent a lot of time at our hospital in Malawi. You can check it out here.
And in a follow up from last week, CURE’s own Abbie Taggart successfully completed the Baltimore Marathon in a time of 4:28:14. Abbie’s supporters really came through as well. She raised almost $6,500 for CURE. Congrats to Abbie and many thanks to those who donated to her cause!
Gerry Luongo, CURE’s director of government relations, recently returned from a trip from Haiti. She toured the country with Cross, a nonprofit organization that shares CURE ‘s dedication for reaching the developing world’s children.
CURE has a hospital in the neighboring country of the Dominican Republic. About four times a year, the hospital sends a team led by the hospital’s medical director, Dr. Scott Nelson, to the city of Cap Haitien (on Haiti’s northern coast) to perform much-needed orthopedic surgeries and other procedures on the country’s physically disabled children. A team from CURE was in Cap Haitien at the time of Gerry’s visit.
Gerry shares some of her experiences:
Our schedule was busy. We drove from Port-au-Prince up to Cap Haitien, visiting several Cross programs along the way and ultimately connecting up with CURE and our outreach clinic in Cap. As we traveled, I experienced the people of this lovely country, their often difficult lives and their beautiful smiles.
The outreach clinic started bright and early in the morning as the CURE team started treating patients. People had begun lining up at dawn for a chance to meet with the team.
Dr. Scott Nelson holds a patient who was cured of clubfoot at the Cap Haitien clinic.
Some were there for a follow up appointment for a surgery they had received during Dr. Nelson’s last visit, and some were there in hope of surgery and healing. The patients had clubfoot, tuberculosis in the spine, osteomyelitis and other conditions I am not familiar with. For two days, Dr. Nelson and his team met with and treated as many patients as time would allow.
While watching the docs work, I saw a girl named Alison among the 50 or so patients sitting outside the small clinic area. Alison is a little girl with severe burn contractures.
She was hunched over, and her right arm was fused to her side due to an accident with an oil lamp. Dr. Nelson had seen her during his last visit and had arranged to have a plastic surgeon come to Cap Haitien to begin a series of surgeries needed to free Alison from her own body.
She was just one of the many patients I encountered on my trip. Sometimes, it was a little overwhelming. This is until I looked at the faces of these children with their crooked feet, broken limbs and painful spines and was hit with the realization that God loves each of them. And that CURE is there…bringing them hope. It was both humbling and amazing. I will keep these faces in my thoughts and prayers.
To learn more about Dr. Nelson’s work in Haiti and in the DR, check out his blog.
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