Quisqueya News: Friday, February 5

Today’s Quisqueya News update will help you get to know a few faces commonly seen around Quisqueya’s campus.

Mrs. DeBlaeij teaches our littlest Quisqueya Eagles in PreK through 1st graders. She is from the Netherlands and speaks Dutch.  She has five grandchildren in Canada and the Netherlands, and has served in Haiti for many years. She is a very talented baker- especially her delicious pies!

Mrs. Jean-Charles teaches 2nd-4th graders at Quisqueya. She loves spending time with her elementary-age daughter and teenage son.

Mrs. Heath teaches our 5th and 6th graders, preparing them for junior high coursework. Mrs. Heath works with CSI Ministries and loves her little dog, Levi.
 Junior high and high school students attend Bible classes with Mr. Day. Mr Day is from Dallas, Texas and loves soccer. He also loves riding motorcycles.

Mr. Kulpa teaches 7th-12th graders in math and sciences. Mr. Kulpa has lived in Florida and Canada, has a cat named Peter, and is famous for his beard!

Mr. DeKoter is our Quisqueya principal. He is a proud Canadian! Mr. DeKoter has a long history of service in Haiti and in the field of education, and he is joined here in Port-au-Prince by his wife, Mary. He loves the television series Chuck.

Mr. Blesh is working hard to coordinate technology for both the school and the Quisqueya earthquake relief efforts. Mr. Blesh spent time in the US Navy, has five children with his wife Denise, and is a “Mac person”.

Mr. Steinhauer is the leader of all the earthquake relief work based at Quisqueya, including the coordination of the many mission teams of doctors staying at the school. Mr. Steinhauer grew up in Haiti and has very strong Kreyol skills.  He just welcomed the arrival of his eighth grandchild two weeks ago!

Mr. Hersey is the director of Quisqueya Christian School. He loves spending time with his wife, Ruth, and their two kids. Mr. Hersey is an avid reader who enjoys cooking Japanese food- he grew up as a missionary kid in Japan.

Mrs. Vervloet is another QCS staff member from the Netherlands. She works hard coordinating many jobs including intake of new medical teams, registrar duties, and alumni relations. One of her lifelong dreams was to ride in a helicopter, and her wish was fulfilled yesterday when she got to assist in a helicopter delivery of medicines to a Haitian hospital in need.

We love our Quisqueya team!

Quisqueya News: Tuesday, February 2

Here at the Quisqueya earthquake relief center, more doctors are arriving daily to assist with medical needs. We have welcomed new teams from Long Island, Mercyworks (Seattle), Christian Medical Network, Colorado Springs,  One Heart Ministries (Kansas), University of Maryland, Catholic Relief Services, Aimer Haiti, Delta International (Oregon), Jesus in Haiti (Indiana), and Comprehensive Disaster Response Services. The 175 – 200 medical relief workers staying on our campus include firefighters, chaplains, paramedics, doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and midwives.In the last few days, the medical relief effort has moved from a phase characterized by a high volume of critical surgeries and untreated earthquake injuries into a new phase of more post-operative care with a renewed emphasis on public health and infectious disease prevention. At our nightly meeting of all the medical teams’ leaders, the discussions are beginning to move from how to handle having too many surgeons and now enough operating rooms into the new area of general public health. We continue to coordinate patient transfer around Port-au-Prince and greater Haiti to get patients to the facility and specialists that best suit their needs. We continue to discover new operating medical facilities to add to our network of connected and communicating providers of care, including a just-established German Red Cross facility set up at a soccer stadium near Carrefour. We also continue to work to overcome challenges such as a lack of x-ray, ventilator, and CAT scan capabilities at many hospitals.One of our earthquake relief center’s primary concerns is alleviating the future health problems associated with contaminated water due to rain and inadequate toilet facilities in many tent cities. Last night our doctors’ meeting featured a special speaker, Dr. Mary Deschamp from GESKIO, to share about how we can all work together to battle infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and malaria in this season. We are so grateful to be able to offer a place of communication, teamwork, and coordination among the many doctors coming to Haiti to serve following the earthquake. Praise God for all the dedicated servants seeking to simply help people in need.
Meanwhile, our morning chapel service with the PreK through 12th graders enjoyed a great guest speaker. Former Quisqueya teacher Kim Hargrove and her fiance Johnny Gryglewicz came to Haiti to serve after the earthquake, and Johnny led our students on Monday in a fun game called “Beach Babe, Surfer Dude, Wave” before teaching on Jeremiah chapter 20.
Here, Johnny led two upper school girls in the championship round of the fun game.
Mr. Clay plays a game with senior students around lunchtime.
9th grade girls enjoy a lunch break.
Elementary boys join the lunch line.

Quisqueya News: Tuesday, January 26

Here’s the latest from the QCS Relief Coordination Center:

New medical teams from a church in Fairfax (Virginia), Water for Life, Operation Blessing (Florida), the Netherlands, Trinidad & Tobago, and Kinder not Hilfe (Germany) have arrived to treat earthquake victims. In addition, representatives from the Haitian Ministry of Heath and Airline Ambassadors have become involved in our coordination efforts, resulting in increased cooperation between aid groups and efficiency. In the last few days we have begun to implement three new efforts to better serve injured Haitians: inter-facility patient transfer, evening shifts at hospitals, and shifting post-operative patients to facilities outside the city for follow-up care.One major medical problem has been that often a patient arrives at a hospital or clinic, only to discover that the specialists or equipment needed to best treat him are in another location. For example, only one or two locations in Port-au-Prince are currently equipped to perform C-sections or have obstetricians. The goal of our inter-facility transfer effort is to compile lists of specialists and equipment throughout the city and then move patients to the best location. A second major issue is that there are only a few functional operating rooms in the city, but hospitals are closing around 4 or 5 pm. Adding a night shift to work from dusk until around midnight will double the number of surgeries that can be performed. A third challenge is that after patients receive treatment or operations, there are no facilities for follow-up care in the overcrowded hospitals. Our effort now is to locate hospitals further outside Port-au-Prince with vacancies so that follow-up care may continue after initial surgeries and treatment.

So far we have been able to connect with the US Navy to transfer 8 patients with spinal cord injuries to the University of Miami. Another 6 post-operative patients have been transferred within Haiti.One of the highlights of this QCS relief effort is our nightly 8 pm meeting for leaders of each medical team. The group tackles logistical problems as a team, brainstorming about how to overcome challenges such as hospitals lacking an operating room scheduler, the lack of blood banks, and how to care for patients in a hospital lacking running water or electricity. They also share stories of encouragement. One doctor shared how his hospital had delivered a baby that day without any obstetricians, and that the baby was born not breathing. After several tense minutes and hard work, the baby began to breathe again and had a heartbeat. Praise God!
Another highlight of our Quisqueya relief effort is serving the children of our Haitian staff members who have lost their homes and are temporarily staying on campus.

Quisqueya News: Friday, January 22

The Quisqueya campus has become a hive of activity. Our buildings are undamaged and cleared for use by both civilian and military structural engineers, so it is our desire to use this campus to bless the Haitian people. Here’s the latest:Director Steve Hersey and the rest of our administrative team are now officing in the Elementary Library. We are looking forward to our Parent Meeting on Monday, January 25 at 9:00 am in the Elementary Building. Please enter at the Upper Gate.

We will be happy to accommodate your requests for transcripts, report cards, and any needed transfer paperwork. Please contact Mirna Beneche at mbeneche@quisqueya.org with your requests. We would love to account for every student and hear your family’s future education plans, so please be in touch with us at communication@quisqueya.org.The Quisqueya Christian School Relief Coordination Center has hit the ground running. A collaboration between our school and Crisis Response International has received over a dozen mission teams from locations including Germany, Korea, Mississippi, Texas, and the Dominican Republic with more arriving each day. The Relief Coordination Center is collecting information on the needs of area hospitals and is deploying medical teams, water purification teams, engineers, and donated medical supplies to where they are most needed.
Our campus is also continuing to house the families of our Haitian staff whose homes were destroyed in the earthquake. In addition, Quisqueya has formed a partnership with the US Army whereby the Army is using some parts of our campus for command and control of their local operations.

Lastly, Steve Hersey recommends the following helpful articles on how to help children cope with the earthquake and its aftermath.

Children Coping with Earthquakes

NASP Responding to Natural Disasters

Please check back often for updates, as we will post new information to this site. God bless!