Our Program is for Admarie, Fenise, & Jina

We're waiting anxiously with Admarie (first photo) and Jina (last photo) for the arrivals of their babies. Both of these beautiful ladies are due at the end of December. Please be praying for safe deliveries of their little ones.

Fenise (middle photo) had a healthy baby boy on Thursday, December 10th. She named him Stevenson. Mom and baby are doing great. Due to her involvement in our program Fenise is receiving life-saving medical attention that she would have been unaware she needed had she not joined the Prenatal program.

Because Fenise will now be in the Early Childhood Development class, her spot in the Prenatal program has opened for a woman on our waitlist. We're excited to have an opportunity to meet and serve another woman this coming Thursday.

We are also so thrilled to share that we are only approximately $5,000 away from the $60,000 goal. With your help, we will soon be able to go to the dealership and order our emergency transport vehicle.

Please consider sponsoring any one of the runners for $1 per mile ($26) or $3 per mile ($78) or $5 per mile ($130) as a year end gift to Heartline Ministries ... in reality it will be a gift to a Haitian woman who will be cared for and loved by our team on the ground in Haiti. Thank you so much.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas from Port au Prince.

The Heartline Team

Update

We have received the $10,000 matching grant from the Texas college graduate. We have also been promised $20,000 from one donor toward the transport vehicle. This puts us at $49,292.20 as of this moment. (The meter reflects the current goal.)

This is exciting news! It puts us over 65% of goal with 21 days until the marathon weekend and 30 days left to reach our goal by January 18th, 2010.

We hope that you'll share this site with others and let them know how they can help. We only have 10K left to go! Thank you for your concern for the women of Haiti and for getting involved and helping us reach our goal.

The Heartline Team

Pictured above is the most common mode of transportation in Haiti. These trucks run all over the city and countryside and are called - kamyonnet or tap-taps. The system works well - if you're not in a hurry. When a woman is in labor she needs to flag down one of these trucks and hope that she gets to her destination in time. If you are looking for a ride after a certain time of day it may be impossible to find one. The truck stops very frequently and the time it takes to get from point A to point B can vary greatly. Can you imagine being in pain and riding in this for an hour or more?

We are very pleased to share that the 10K matching grant from the anonymous college graduate has been received. Thank you to each of you that have given and helped us get to this point. The meter does not reflect $11,200 in donations. We will update the totals soon and let you know where things stand. We have not yet reached the 60K necessary to move forward and purchase the ambulance vehicle. We have a month left to raise the funds before the group of 15 runs the races in Florida. Please consider helping us by sponsoring a runner. Please pass this on to your friends and family who might be looking to give a charitable donation (to a GREAT cause) at the end of the year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

This story is not uncommon in Haiti, we thought you might like to read about life in Haiti from the perspective of another ministry doing work here. We hope our efforts and our birthing center will reduce situations like the one described in this story.

Our Program is for RoseMarie

With a smile like this, it is tempting to believe that life is happy and easy for Rose Marie. She is generally cheery despite many challenges. Lately, things have gotten pretty tough. Her smile is not shared nearly as frequently as it was when we first met her.

Rose Marie has faced many obstacles in recent months. Her pregnancy has been precarious and her living situation has become worse than that.

For the last six weeks Rose Marie has been coming each day to eat at the Women's Program house. We started doing this after her blood pressure began to climb. It is not uncommon to take her BP and find it 170/100 and sometimes higher. The goal has been to help her get enough protein in her diet to avoid preeclampsia.

She has faithfully made her way to the house each day to eat boiled eggs and a vitamin fortified rice mixture. She is checked every couple of days for other signs and symptoms. She has been referred to Doctors without Borders, they sent her home until she goes into labor. We're doing everything we know to do ... especially praying.

Rose Marie has two other children that live with her mother in Mirebelais, about two hours north of Port au Prince. In Haitian culture it is very common for children to be raised by relatives and for families to split up. Rose Marie's sisters no longer offer her a place to sleep, there are problems between them that they seem unwilling to work out. Their small houses are already over-crowded.

Rose Marie finds herself without a permanent home and no plan for caring for herself or her baby. Each night she hopes a friend will let her sleep under their roof. Her pregnancy is so high risk that the very few jobs that she might be able to find are dangerous to her health at this time.

This week Rose Marie shared with us that the father of her baby lives in the USA. He was here for a brief visit earlier this year. He might come back to visit again in late December. She is not sure. His sisters don't want him to care for Rose Marie or the baby. They are trying to convince him that this is not his child. They don't want her to move in with them at the house he provides for them.

She went on to tell us that she just wants to "give him the baby", and that if he is not going to help her she won't be able to keep the baby. Her mother has all that she can handle caring for the other two children. This week there was a fight that led to her getting punched in the face. The people holding her belongings threaten to throw them in the street, the friends say she can only stay a few more nights. She is trapped and feels alone.

As she explained the situation further she began to cry. She wants her baby to be born healthy, but she feels uncertain of everything, including her ability to provide for herself or the child due in January.
Rose Marie's situation is especially difficult in that there are not a lot of great options or solutions. Many women end up having their baby without the help of the father, but most are not homeless. Our program exists to love the women and meet them right where they are. We know we cannot provide housing, food and clothing for every woman in need. But we can provide vitamins, education, counseling, encouragement, a listening ear, moral support, a kind word, a hug, some food, some medical care ... and prayers.

Please pray with us for Rose Marie and her unborn baby.

(Written By T.Livesay)

Serving in Simone Pele

These little girls stand in the doorway of an average looking home in Simone Pele.

Heartline Ministries began going into this community last summer and started doing prenatal class in September. We are now committed to doing a monthly outreach to the pregnant women of this community. Our goal is to offer teaching that may make a difference in their lives and the lives of their babies and to spend just a few minutes each month giving them the love and attention they so need.

Meet Heartline Runner, Tara Livesay

The Disney Marathon is the second marathon in just a few months for Tara. It will be her fourth total. She ran the Twin Cities Marathon in October raising money for Medika Mamba, a high protein food for malnourished kids in Haiti.

Tara went from training for one marathon to training for another without skipping a beat. She is energetic, takes care of 7 children, works in the Heartline Women's Program and works for World Wide Village. Tara is known for her open and honest blog about the Christian experience and life in Haiti.

Tara is passionate about life and the women and children of Haiti. She and her husband Troy have 3 Haitian adopted children, 4 bio-children and are taking care of their Haitian niece until she goes to her home to her adoptive family in MN. Busy does not begin to describe her day-to-day life.

Tara trains on the roads of Port-au-Prince. She is a committed runner who runs under extreme circumstances. Not even malaria kept her from training. Tara cares about the women we serve in Haiti and wants the best for them. Like many of them, Tara was a teen mom who relates to these women and wants better for them.

Running a marathon is one way we can serve the women of Haiti. Help us help them! Please sponsor Tara Livesay today!

Our Program is for Nicole

Nicole is in our program for the second time. We love her, but she is work. Although she is in her early twenties she is more like a teenager. She is always needing attention and finding new ways to get it from us. If she doesn't have an ailment she'll think of one. She reminds us to pray for her in case we forgot.While everyone else sits nicely in their chair Nicole lies on the floor during class. Her drama keeps us rolling our eyes and laughing. We do love her and are disappointed that she cannot deliver with us due to a previous c/section with complications. She is more than disappointed. She asked us over and over again to change our minds.

Nicole agrees wholeheartedly with us on the benefits of breastfeeding and brags that her little guy is smarter because of it. Since she is second time around in the program she knows the score.

Nicole was not happy when she got pregnant for the second time and begs us to pray for her husband to get a job. She and her little family live on the edge. They are in an intact family, the husband clearly cares for his family but has no work and little hope of finding one. Nicole took the entrance exam for our sewing program but failed.

Pray for Nicole as she is in the hospital for her second c/section today. We will celebrate with her when she returns with her new baby. A baby born into a family with so little. A baby whose mom is almost a baby herself. But, our program is for Nicole, our program provides her some love and attention. When Nicole comes with her baby in a few days we will do a newborn exam, offer support and encouragement and send her home with a gift bag of baby goodies. But not until we pray for her and her family.

Please help us reach the goal and chip in ... for Nicole and others like her.

BY Beth McHoul

Teaching on Breastfeeding, by Esther D.

Simone Pele December