Where did we go?

Wondering why you haven't heard from us lately? It's because we're reorganizing around here. Please bear with us during this time of transition. We're completely updating our website at www.grmccf.org. and have now moved our MCCF Activities blog and integrated it within our new website (link is under the "Home" tab). Visit us, let us know what you think of the new site and how we can improve it, and sign up to get regular email notices when we post. Thanks for being patient with us!

Merry Christmas!

Glory to God in the Highest!

Thanks for your participation in MCCF this year!

We're looking forward to sharing 2014 with you.

  Dr. Bill & Susan Morehouse

Click here to read our Christmas letter.

Merry Christmas!

Glory to God in the Highest! 

Thanks for all your amazing support this year!
We're looking forward to sharing 2013 with you.
Dr. Bill & Susan Morehouse

   
Click here to read our Christmas letter.

Healing Missions Conference

Methodist Health Care Fellowship

September 21-23

at Pearce Memorial Church, Rochester NY

(on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan College)

with Bishop David Roller

This Consultation will explore the continued expansion of health care through the church.We will learn how missionaries have been able to do this, as well as how we can partner with them.

The conference is for pastors, people interested in missions, students and health care workers. Attendance at Friday and Saturday morning events is at no charge.

Click here to read a flyer and here for a schedule of events. For further information, contact MCCF member Dr. Norman Wetterau, who will be one of Saturday morning's speakers.

In Memory of Paul LaCelle

 
Paul Louis LaCelle, July 4, 1929 - March 9, 2012

It is with sadness that we share the news that our colleague and long-time member of MCCF, Paul LaCelle, passed away in Rochester last week. He was a beloved husband, father, brother, doctor, colleague, and mentor to many over the long course of his career.

Paul married June Dukeshire in 1953, after both he and June graduated from Houghton College, and then served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. He attended the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and joined the faculty there in the Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Penn State University. He remained at the School of Medicine for the duration of his career, where he pursued research, taught in the Medical School and served in administrative roles including chair of the Biophysics department and most recently as Senior Associate Dean of Graduate Studies. He retired from the Medical School in 2008 after June's death and continued his relationship with the University of Rochester in the Biomedical Engineering Department as his health allowed.

Friends are invited to calling hours on Saturday, March 17, from 4:00-7:00 pm at the Keenan Funeral Home (7501 Pittsford-Palmyra Rd. in Egypt) and to the Memorial service Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Penfield Wesleyan Church (1580 Five Mile Line Rd). Charitable donations can be made to Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.

Click here to visit Paul's Guest Book.

Merry Christmas!

Greetings from the Morehouses! 

We deeply appreciate all your support and look forward to serving together with you in the coming year.

Click here to read our holiday letter.

Merry Christmas!

Greetings from the Morehouses! 

We deeply appreciate all your support and look forward to serving together with you in the coming year.

Click here to read our holiday letter.

Fall Physician Breakfast

The MCCF Fall Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, September 18, from 9-11 am at the Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue.

Walking alongside:
Teaching Medicine in the Congo

Dr. Mark Shelly is an Infectious Disease specialist practicing at Highland Hospital who will be sharing from his personal experiences teaching medicine as a mission to the Congo. Feel free to invite any friends or colleagues who might be interested, too!

Please mark your calendars and RSVP using our Response page. Be sure to note the location (click here for Directions to the Academy of Medicine).

John Seaman Haiti Report

My apologies that the news feeds from Haiti may not have made it to you all. Communications were very difficult while there, and I think my forwarding mechanism to get info to you may have failed.

That being said, we really appreciate your prayers and support during the time in Haiti. Thanks to your gifts and prayers our 2 teams to Haiti were able to transport, use and distribute over ½ ton of medicines and other medical supplies. We saw hundreds of patients in 2 different locations: Carrefour, to the West of Port-au-Prince and at the Nehemiah Vision Site on the Northeast side of Port-au-Prince. The first team was involved in a mobile clinic based at the Nehemiah site and delivered first aid / medical care to people in outlying areas that had not yet received help. Our second team worked at an orphanage that was in the center of an IDP camp of approximately 17,000 people in Carrefour. 2 of our team members, Melissa and Jordan, were able to do a needs assessment of the camp and then connect with other aid agencies and the US military to help obtain food for those in camp while the rest of us were busy seeing patients. The second team then moved to the Nehemiah site where we continued with clinics and also helped organized a large shipment of medical supplies and equipment that will be used to establish a hospital at a nearby site where an IDP camp for 50-100,000 people is being built.

Your prayer made it possible for us to continue under very difficult conditions, maintain unity as a team, stay healthy (no one got sick except one team member who needed a boil drained that started before the trip and then passed a kidney stone as we were getting ready to depart on a 15 hour bus ride to start home. Again, God intervened and his stone passed very quickly!), and bring hope to individuals, teams and organizations.

As we prayed over the land, we felt that this terrible tragedy is also a tremendous opportunity for Haiti to break out of the cycle of poverty, despair, and spiritual darkness. Pray that aid organizations and the Haitian people/churches can break out of the “donor/receiver aid cycle” and that the Haitians can take responsibility for their future as they begin the task of rebuilding. The Haitians have a unique contribution to make to the rest of the world – this is their time to take hold of their future. Please pray for the gift of hope to be given to them.

At the present time, we do not have plans to send further teams to Haiti. Things are transitioning from the acute phase to recovery and re-building. There is still critical need for food and shelter. Many people will be moved out of Port-au-Prince to IDP camps as part of the plans for rebuilding. We encourage you to support organizations with ongoing presence in Haiti such as Roger and Margaret Clark of Elim Fellowship, Nehemiah Vision Ministries and Grace Children’s Hospital and Orphanage in Carrefour. Medical teams from International Medical Relief will continue for some months to come.

Thanks again to all of you who helped make our teams successful.
John and Karen

Drs. Ness - Roca Blanca

 

Our Internet connection has been very spotty this year, and as we speak I am sitting in an Internet cafe in a nearby  town. By preparing everything ahead of time, I was able to be fairly efficient in posting our latest blog. The site again is www.nessblog.com/roca. We hope you enjoy it and invite your comments and questions, either on the blog site, or to our e-mail address.

As mentioned the next week will be dental teaching for the students, while we will be doing clinic and trying to take in the classes when we can.  We think of all of you often, and thank you for your prayers and support.

Que Dios te Bendiga!  Mary Kay and Dave Ness

Dr. Paul Cross - Haiti

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be traveling to Haiti tomorrow morning with a medical team (3 surgeons, 2 anesthesiologists, and 1 nurse). This was pretty last minute, and the details are still coming in. We will be flying into the Dominican Republic and then to Leogane (epicenter of the quake) by prop plane. There are very few medical supplies and fewer anesthesia supplies. This is not a Christian  
mission team, so please pray that God's love would apparent in me, and my team will see that. Other prayer requests:

1. Salvation for the team/others I'm working with, the Haitian people I treat
2. Safe travel and return flight (no return plans have been set, tenative for Saturday the 6th)
3. Health (lots of disease, mosquitos, HIV/AIDS)
4. Medical wisdom and safe anesthetics
5. Jayana and the kids
6. Anything else you're led to pray for!

Jeff Leathersich - Update

Tuesday evening after returning form the IDP camp, I heard from our hospital/clinic team that they had seen a baby that was profoundly dehydrated and malnourished to the point that his skin was sloughing off. They had spent hours resuscitating him and when our team had to leave they hoped he would survive the night, that evening we attempted to make contact with a pediatric hospital or the USS Comfort but all of our efforts failed as we could not get through to anybody. It had occurred to me that a dear friend of mine had just arrived in the country with Helimission, an international organization that flies helicopters to rescue people; they fly in food and do med-a-vacs in developing countries. I sent him an e-mail, and within a few hours we heard back that they would fly out first thing in the morning to pick up our baby. The team arrived shortly before the helicopter only to discover that the baby had died during the night. The helicopter had flown in for no reason… so they thought. You see every day when the staff (our team) arrives there are about 50 people there in the waiting room. As the staff walked through the waiting area they quickly identified a very ill 2-month old baby girl. The baby was taken in immediately and it was determined that she was so dehydrated that she was on the verge of death and you know where this is going… there was a helicopter waiting for her. Our base leader here accompanied the baby on the helicopter to the University Of Miami Mobile Hospital at the Port-Au-Prince airport where a trauma team converged on her and stabilized her. He said that there where 20 photographers and news agencies there filming the whole thing. So if you were watching the world news on Wednesday evening and saw a baby being rushed into the UM mobile emergency room from Haiti is was probably our little girl.

I was at an IDP camp today with my friend Nate who is also a PA at Unity Hospital when the word arrived that the baby had died… it was like a knife going through my heart when I heard it… I never even saw the baby, I just spent a few hours searching the web and trying to make phone calls on his behalf. But I think it was just the weight of one more thing, surrounded by thousands of hurting people with needs too great to meet.

Thursday, Helimisson will do two more med-a-vacs for us, the first is a lady I saw yesterday who arm was completely broken above and below the elbow. When I first saw her she walked into our bus carrying her baby in the other arm with other flopping in two places. The second is a one year old boy who has a very loud hear murmur and is in heart failure who is decompensating. He has never been seen by a doctor.   Thanks to Ben and the Helimission crew whose US administrative office is located in Lima NY.

Today, I feel like we were better prepared emotionally for what we saw at the IDP camp. I think knowing what to expect helped… don’t get me wrong I was fighting back the tears about 4 times watching children, adults and elders limp into our bus… wondering if anything was really making a difference as you were sending them back out into the fabricated houses with little or no food and were the filth is just beginning as there are no latrines. We saw a lot of sick kids with pneumonia and today that makes me feel better when you know you are making a difference in their lives with a shot of antibiotics and some to go… at least this time.

The tears for me is not from seeing them in physical pain, it is not from the gapping wounds crawling with flies, or one more kid with diarrhea and we only can give each one 2 days worth of oral dehydration because it is all we have. It is about the profound emotional trauma that these people have experienced, as I said in a prior e-mail it is watching them scream and break down sobbing when we do something that should only hurt a little, knowing they are really screaming because of the trauma of the past two weeks. It is about meeting the parents who loss 5 kids, the wives who have not seen their husbands since the quake and kids who show up at the mobile clinic alone… because they are.

There is in Haiti what I call a “Great Disconnect”, it is the gap between the hundred of millions of dollars of aid that has been brought to Haiti that I hear is sitting at the airport and big distribution center and the people who need it. We have gone to two IDP camps this week and we were the first to show up with any aid or support at either one. From both of these camps you can see the US Embassy so it is hard to imagine what is happening at camps that are further out. I say further out as have left the center of the city which was the epicenter of the quake, it is in ruins and will take years to rebuild it.

It is also the disconnect between large aid agencies and the front line worker like us who are doing a good portion of the work, we don’t even have a way to contact them….

It still amazes me that two PAs (myself and Nate) from Rochester NY, a family med doc from Warsaw (Dan Zerbee) , a former missionary nurse from Brazil (Ken, who starts work next week at my hospital) and my 17 year old son (Tim)  were able to connect with a team of 7 nurses from Indiana and make a difference, albeit a drop in the bucket in people's lives. With our best efforts some have and will continue to die but many will live. So even though it is painful in so many ways, we are all glad we are here and all hope to return in the months to come.

Jeff Leathersich - Update

Days before we departed to Haiti I saw a national news report of a medical team that flew down just after the earthquake, while they originally intended to stay longer they were melting down emotionally after 5 days. One of them was sobbing while being interviewed she said they could not take it anymore, the need was too great, the devastation was too widespread and the supplies were too few. I did not judge them for leaving but said to myself that they must not have been prepared physically or emotionally. Having traveled to Africa, Indian, Brazil, Fiji, Mexico and Belize on medical and other forms of humanitarian missionary efforts... having designed and directed a International Community Health Program for five years training people to do health care in developing nations, I was certain that I would be prepared... I was wrong.

Today I spent the day at a camp for IDPs or Internally Displaced People. It was without a doubt the most challenging and difficult day of my professional life. One of our team members said it was like a war zone and I have to agree, we had hundreds of people run to the our bus as it pulled into the camp. We were the first medical team to show up to this community of 700. We saw so many gapping wounds that have not been treated and broken bones and other injuries that I loss count. Some flesh wounds infected... some just rotting away. My first patient was a lady who had literally been scalped in the collapse of a building and her right arm she had fractured all the bones in her arm so her upper and lower arm were both flopping. It had a make-shift splint on it. Her scalp wound was healing so I left it alone and splinted her arm. Fortunately we have an orthopedic surgeon coming next week.

The next patient of note was a 3 month old baby that was minimally responsive to painful stimuli, we tried to convince the family that she needed to go to a hospital but they did not want to take her, we offered to find one and take her but they still refused… don’t ask me to explain it they just would not do it after long conversations and I don’t understand it. We knew what the consequence of their decision was but I don’t know if they did even though we tried to explain it or maybe they did… but their decision reflected the degree of hopelessness these people have.

The last patient I will tell you about today was a 9 year old boy who came to our bus without a parent, his mother died in the quake and while his father was found at my request and came, he did not want to stay with his son. The boy was burning up with fever; he was severely dehydrated and vomiting. I tried to orally re-hydrate him but he just could not keep liquids down and they ended up mostly on me very early in the day. He collapsed sobbing when he threw up, it was not hard to tell that he was not just crying about being sick... this sobbing was more than that... it was about the fresh and unprocessed death of his loved ones, the trauma of all he had seen and the hopelessness. While these survivors are alive, it seems like they are crying as they know their life as they knew it just died a terrible death. We gave him 3 liters of IV fluids, antibiotics and Tylenol and benadryl which is all we had to calm his stomach, he looked better when he left, I hope it was turning point for him. Without his mother and having met his father I doubt anyone would have been by his side forcing him to drink.

So what made this day so difficult? The numbers of sick people is overwhelming, you just can’t get ahead, when the people from the next town or camp you are at hear we are there and they walk 10-20 miles to find us. Our supplies while well stocked for adults we are short on medicines for kids as the is the country and the apparently the relief effort suppliers we are working with, by noon we had to apologize and say that we just don’t have pediatric pain medicine. Caring for people who are ALL in such emotional pain is draining. They are hopeless and it is an understandable hopelessness they have and you look around and say, yes, this is a hopeless situation, it is overwhelming. At the end of our day, we have to leave to home by dark, the crowd that is still waiting erupts some in anger others in anguish. I don’t know if I have been able to put it into words for you, this is just the worse thing I have ever experienced in my life, and tomorrow is another day.

Jeff Leathersich - Update

It is 4:30 in the morning here in Haiti and we leave soon for our days work. Our team of 12, 5 from Rochester and 7 from Indiana are splitting up today. I will take 4 of us to a refugee camp that has been set up but yet has medical care. The others will go to our clinic/hospital were we saw between 250-300 patients yesterday.

Antibiotics and wound care are most of what will do at the refugee camp. If we find people too sick for the camp, like they need IV fluids or IV antibiotics for a while, we will take them back to our hospital unless they need surgery well will take them to a surgical hospital. We have 2 surgeons arriving at our hospital next week. When we start doing overnight care we will need to leave a nurse and a provider there.

At one point yesterday I said to myself most of these people have stomach ulcers and they have developed their symptoms in the last 7-10 days I wondered why, then it clicked that it was a stress response. Another very common secondary complaint was “I can’t catch my breath at times”. Yet they had no wheezing on exam… again it took about 20 of them saying that before I realized it was anxiety. There is no one here who has not been affected by this disaster, everyone lost family and friends. Sadly, because the numbers are so profound and bodies crushed many beyond recognition many will have closure.

The most impacting thing when seeing the patients who were trapped and saw others die is that they are like walking zombies, the trauma is so profound they are emotionless at this point and when you do something that is painful, like clean a wound or something, it should hurt but not as much as it does. There pain response is exponentially magnified, also from the extreme trauma state they are living in.

We are headed out the door soon. Thanks to all of those who have expressed that they are praying for us and the people of Haiti, we all need it.

I have taken Tim my 17 year old son on this trip, he is working hard with the rest of us and not complaining a bit. I am very proud of him and I know this trip will change his world view, his appreciation of what he has… and his very life.

I will try to send more but technology is very unreliable here.

Dr. Mark Brown - Haiti

Local doctor talks about time spent in Haiti after earthquake

WHEC-TV – A local doctor told News 10 how he was able to help the relief effort in Haiti. Doctor Mark Brown spent several days treating patients in Port-au-Prince, and he says Haiti now looks like a war zone.
Doctor Brown went to the Dominican Republic, for a ceremony at a health clinic that he opened years ago. But when he saw how great the need was in Haiti, he and several other doctors knew they had to help. So they hopped in a small pick up truck and drove five hours to Port au Prince, bringing medical supplies with them.

Doctor Brown says he couldn't believe, the closer he got the number of buildings that were just flattened. People are still sleeping on the streets. And although the bodies had been removed, he said knew where people died because of the smell. He said it was awful.

He described the entire city as looking "occupied." There was a UN worker, U.S. troops or Haitian Police on every block. He went treated 60 to 70 people on the first day. It was a lot for infections, and smaller wounds. He says it was emotionally draining.

"It was very devastating to see people who already have lost so much and are so greatly in need to lose even more to have their lives devastated."

Doctor Brown said, during the day, if it weren’t for the damage, you wouldn't know anything happened. People are going about their business the best they can. He said even after all they've been through, the Haitian people refuse to give up.

Jeff Leathersich - Update

We arrived in Port-au-Prince at the US Embassy at 9:00 AM Saturday after a 10-hour bus ride from Santo Domingo. We went right to work setting up a field hospital at a school, I say hospital because we are prepared run 24/7 with inpatient beds. We have 8 emergency beds, can do about 10 inpatient, and there are two surgeons coming next week.

The house we are staying at experienced minor damage, you can see cracks in the walls; other houses around us were destroyed. The house we are staying at and the ministry we are working with is called Nehemiah's Vision an arm of Campus Crusade for Chris. Traveling through the city today was long, hot and dry with many soldiers from the UN and US everywhere. We have more work to do on set up tomorrow, and Monday we will open the hospital. We will also be splitting up and rotating though 4 refugee camps in our area.

I will keep you apprised as time and technology allow. We are only getting rare cell phone reception and Internet access. Please keep us all in prayer.

Breakfast Energizes Members

Dr. Jeff Harp has been traveling with with an international medical team to Haiti every 18 months for the past 2 decades, doing community building through a church and orphanage in Port-au-Prince. After speaking to the 45 MCCF members who attended this morning's annual Missions Breakfast about their experiences, the current crisis in Haiti, and relief efforts underway, several of our members are becoming energized to become personally involved.

Dr. Harp and his wife Ellen will be flying with Lynx Air into Cape Haitian on the north coast later this week (1/29 or 30) and then traveling overland 3-4 hours with at team of 12 on a special mission of relief where they will be serving victims who have taken refuge on the church/orphanage grounds. Please pray for supplies, wisdom, flexibility, and discernment about details.

Dr. Mike McMullen will be leaving with Medical Missions International for Haiti by way of the Dominican Republic on February 13 and working with a team at a hospital on the border that is offering earthquake refugee relief.

And, in response to a flyer circulated at the breakfast, Dr. Bruce Thompson is applying to become part of a Global Health Outreach team to Haiti, sponsored by the Christian Medical and Dental Association, that will be leaving in mid-March.

If you know of other members who have become involved in Haiti relief, please let us know so that we can be communicating about their needs and activities.

Jeff Leathersich - Elim Fellowship

Tomorrow I will be leaving on a medical team to Haiti organized by Dr. John Seaman and others. We have $5,000 in medical supplies that we are taking down with us so I am asking you to stand with me and Elim Fellowship in this work. We will be working at a clinic as there are still thousands without access to medical care and disease is setting in now. The Lord has also spoken to me this last Sunday that he wants me to go to Haiti so I can prophesy to the nation. I am asking you my friends to stand with me and please be prepared to bring a special offering to church this Sunday marked for Elim Fellowship Medical Supplies for Haiti. I am also asking that you ask your friends to come prepared for the special offering. Our team oversight has also asked that each team member would have 20 people interceding for them everyday for the week we are there as we all know that Haiti is a spiritually dark nation. They also ask that the families of the team members be held up in prayer.

We are moving forward in faith that our expenses will be covered for this trip which will be about $2,000- $2,500 and want you to know that Pastor Josh has told me that if people want to contribute to Tim and my expenses they can a donation to Elim Gospel Church and indicate that you want it help cover our expenses. Contributions for medical supplies should still be to Elim Fellowship as indicated. Thank you for your financial and prayerful support!

Dr. Seaman - Hope Extended

We have our first team of four – 1 MD, 2 PA’s and 1 RN – leaving for Haiti this Friday, first going to Santo Domingo where they will join another group and share a van to Haiti.

We appreciate the tremendous outpouring of encouragement, prayer and gifts. You are such a blessing to us and will help us bring some hope to one of the darkest places on earth.

Our second team will leave sometime next week. I expect to go on this team. One of my goals is to try and discover a reliable route in and out of Haiti that subsequent teams can take. Please continue to pray for:

1. No missed connections for our first team.
2. No luggage or supplies lost.
3. Safety and security!!
4. Divine opportunities.
5. Strength and clear thinking in chaos.

Dr. John Seaman

Merry Christmas!

Greetings from the Morehouses!

We deeply appreciate all your support and look forward
to serving together with you in the coming year.

Click here to read our holiday letter.
Click here to read the December edition of the His Branches Grapevine.