Its January, the beginning of a New Year, and many people are working hard to keep their resolutions. In general, it seems like most resolutions are difficult to keep. Statistics say that 45% of people make New Year’s resolutions but only 8% of people are actually successful in keeping them. If you have made a resolution, I apologize for the bad news. But don’t worry; there is still hope, because CURE is here to help. Read the rest of this entry »
Here at the CURE hospital, we have really good food. It is important that I say that up front.
The food is good. The only problem is there is not a ton of variety. There are a few different sauces that they use (peanut sauce, okra sauce, and a few other sauces that I haven’t been able to identify), and they are all delicious, especially when you add this spicy chili stuff that is basically just chopped up peppers. But if you were hoping for a salad, or a sandwich for lunch, you should probably look elsewhere. Don’t even think about asking for a wrap. You can pretty much count on the fact that every day, you are going to get some kind of sauce on one of the following: Read the rest of this entry »
church dome in Addis Ababa
Greetings from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! What a beautiful morning! I awoke quite early in the quiet darkness. As I searched for my light and my book a soft sound arose from off to my left. The tone slowly rose and fell into the morning call to prayer. In Al Ain, this chanting song lasts a few minutes and the jarring amplified sounds fade as dawn approaches. Here in Addis, the songs linger on. Even though I fail to understand any of the words, the breaking of the night and calling of the dawn draws me into a new day. After my morning routine, I walked outside the hospital up to the kitchen. The kitchen staff is an amazing group, spoiling me rotten. Approaching the faucet for clean drinking water, I am greeted with smiles all around. One woman always rushes to the stove. The clay pot is resting there ready to be heated; my coffee shortly arrives. Oh yes! Today I cuddled the warm cup and walked along the pathway as food was prepared. The song from off left was still accompanying my day. As I strolled farther, other vocalists were also in tune. After breakfast, I walked down to the bottom of the CURE hill and could appreciate four different singers surrounding me and echoing across the hills. The hills were indeed alive with music! Read the rest of this entry »
“The best Facebook game goal ever: Helping real kids walk again” from games.com
“Facebook game gets kids needed surgery” from WPVI-TV
“Pacquiao praises Tebow for setting up hospital in PH” from ABS-CBN
It’s a new year, so how ‘bout we reconnect? Before I knew it, good ol’ 2011 was taggin’ 2012 into the ring, the hospital was re-opening, surgeries were underway, and then I was on a plane to Ethiopia. Seriously… out of control. But now having the chance to breathe in a good supply of new year air, I felt like this blog needed some attention. Read the rest of this entry »
Editor’s note: Meet Bri DiGiacomo, the new CURE Correspondent for Ethiopia. She will be working at our hospital in Addis Ababa, interviewing the CUREkids there, and telling their stories right here at cure.org. You can follow Bri on Twitter at @bridigiacomo, as well as on her blog, http://bridigiacomo.wordpress.com. From time to time, we’ll share one of her blog posts here at cure.org.
It finally hit me. Two weeks into life in Addis, I’ve realized that it’s only been two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been an incredible two weeks, and I’m so happy about the other 50 to come, but what was only a “mere year” last week just turned into a scary, heart-beating-faster-when-I-think-about-it, entire year. I’ve found a few remedies to battle the fear, though, so I’ll share them here. Read the rest of this entry »
Bethel University nursing students attending to babies at the CURE Uganda neuro ward.
Bitew
Bitew, a mother of a 6-year-old and a 10-year-old, wept in despair as she talked to me. She has very little hope of ever being cured from the disfiguring tumor that has cursed her life for the last five years. Even now, with her surgery on the OR schedule, she is obviously terrified. She is afraid that something will happen which will preventive the surgery from actually taking place and will take away this one chance she has at a normal life. In the exam room, as I performed her pre-anesthesia evaluation, she repeated again and again the circumstances surrounding her tumor and her life, pleading for help the whole time.
Muhedin
Bitew has a tumor called an “Ameloblastoma.” In the U.S., these tumors would be removed when they were still small. It is extremely rare to see anything like this back home. Bitew’s tumor is disfiguring and painful. She can no longer eat solid food. The only reason she
has hope for a future is that a few hardworking and visionary people came together to make it happen at CURE Ethiopia. An extremely dedicated and very experienced team of surgeons from Germany is coming to perform these life-changing surgeries for one week. This mission of mercy was initiated and coordinated by some very hardworking physicians here in Ethiopia and back home in the U.S.
Please pray for the upcoming surgeries being done at CURE this week. The acuity and technical difficulty of these surgeries is very high and beyond our normal scope. Every one of these patients is desperate and beyond hope.
Kassahun
Abebe
Mohammed
Originally posted at: http://ethiopia.thebernards.org/2012/01/22/difficult-surgical-cases-this-week/.
USAID posted the following article about maternal care in Afghanistan and the great work that’s being done through USAID efforts in that country (of which CURE is a key figure) to improve the health and lives of moms in Afghanistan.
I’m excited to announce that as of January 23rd, we’ve reached our goal with the team at ToonUps and A Better World.
It took merely a month for us to reach 1,000,000 positive expressions in the game. Each 100,000 expressions helped one child who likely would never have walked without the intervention of CURE. Take a minute to puzzle that through. Simply by playing a game and sharing your positive thoughts and encouragement through it, 10 children will have their lives changed in a dramatic way. Forever.
Here at CURE, we pray asking God to show up in ways only He can take credit for. As I see it, this is one of those ways. It’s not every day that God brings us an organization to partner with. Nor is it every day that an organization will provide a way to help heal children simply by expressing yourself and sharing positive emotions with others! Yet, again God saw fit to provide for CURE, and for that, we are grateful. ToonUps is planning to officially present CURE with their donation in early February. We’re incredibly thankful for the new friends and partners we’ve made at ToonUps and look forward to partnering again in the future!
Keep up to date with the kids being healed through A Better World on the A Better World community page!
0comments