Rise in maternal deaths likely in Haiti, and UN expert speaks out on cholera

Midwife tells of delivering babies by torchlight in flood waters, and fresh threat of cholera as row continues over 2011 outbreak

People carry a body at the entrance of a hospital after Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti. The storm killed more than 500 people and caused widespread devastation. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

In the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, there are fears of a huge rise in maternal deaths in Haiti. Karen McVeigh speaks to a midwife at St Antoine hospital in Jérémie, Grand’Anse – one of the country’s worst-hit towns – who tells of delivering babies by torchlight as she stood knee-deep in water, while the hurricane ripped through the south-west tip of the country.

The widespread devastation has also triggered fears of a fresh cholera outbreak; this comes at a time when the UN’s human rights special rapporteur has spoken out against the organisation’s actions over the epidemic that followed Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. As Ben Quinn reports, in a scathing evaluation at the UN general assembly, Philip Alston condemned as “a disgrace” the United Nations’ refusal to accept responsibility for the devastating cluster of cases that claimed more than 9,000 lives, after the deadly bacterium was brought into the country by peacekeepers relocated from Nepal.

- the Guardian

Teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are seeing deteriorating health conditions among people in the heavily hurricane-affected departments of Sud, Grand’Anse and Nippes.

There are signs of food scarcity: most of the crops are destroyed or flooded and the vast majority of the livestock is missing or dead. In Sud and Grand'Anse, MSF has started to monitor the nutritional status of children under five years old in its mobile clinics in order to provide treatment with ready-to-use therapeutic food if necessary.

As the cholera epidemic is unpredictable under the current conditions, it is crucial to monitor new cases, provide sufficient access to treatment centers and provide safe drinking water. While the number of patients in MSF's cholera treatment center (CTC) in Port-à-Piment decreased to six on Oct. 25, the neighboring town of Chardonnières reported 40 suspected cases.

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• Voice from the Field
  October 28, 2016
  Hurricane Response in Haiti: "There is Still Much Work to Be Done"
• Voice from the Field
  October 22, 2016
  Haiti: Responding to the Aftermath of Hurricane Matthew
  

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Marble cladded tomb uncovered

English: Tomb of Jesus, inside the Edicule. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Français : La tombe du Christ, église du Saint-Sépulcre, Jérusalem. Română: Mormântul Domnului (Sfântul Mormânt), Ierusalim. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Restorers working in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Israel uncovered a stone slab venerated as the tomb of Jesus Christ.

Since at least 1555 C.E., and most likely centuries earlier, the tomb has been covered by marble cladding.

Fredrik Hiebert, archaeologist-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, a partner in the restoration project was very surprised by the amount of fill material beneath it.
An analysis of the original rock may enable them to better understand not only the original form of the tomb chamber, but also how it evolved as the focal point of veneration since it was first identified by Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, in 326 C.E.. 

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Exclusive: Christ's Burial Place Exposed for First Time in Centuries

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To be faithful over a little

May we soon have our faith turned to sight – and hear the words,

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).

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Juji Nakada the "Moody of Japan"

English: A portrait of Bishop Juji Nakada in sepia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the age of thirteen Charles Cowman had become a Christian though for for ten years he drifted away. Once back on track he tried to bring others to the Gospel. Within six months he had converted seventy-five of his co-workers, including the first man with whom he shared the gospel, Ernest Kilbourne.

October 29, 1870 Juji Nakada saw the light of this world and when grown up he found that so many people knew nothing about the true God.
When he was twenty-six he enrolled at the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago,  to "get filled with the Holy Spirit." Dwight L. Moody's fame as an evangelist had spread around the world. Eventually Juji would himself be known as the "Moody of Japan." His vision was to found a similar institute and train national pastors for his native land.
Still at study he met Charles Cowman in church and became befriended.

Kilbourne and Cowman founded the Telegraphers' Missions Band. This group supported Juji when he returned to Japan in 1898. Three years later, Charles Cowman and his wife Lettie sailed for Japan.
Together with Juji and Ernest Kilbourne, they founded the Bible institute that Juji had dreamed of. Juji became its first president. In 1910, the team incorporated the Oriental Missionary Society in Tokyo. This became a significant world mission, now known simply as OMS.

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The stone of essential truth

Jeshua - Jesus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:11,12).

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 And that has been the essential truth of the message ever since!

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According the vatican ashes and bone fragments cannot be kept at home

emblem of the Papacy: Triple tiara and keys Français : emblème pontifical Italiano: emblema del Papato Português: Emblema papal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Roman Catholics with their idea that a person has something extra in his body that can leave him when he dies, do want to avoid that that spiritual being would be shattered and as such be destroyed, not able to find its pieces together.

For the Vatican their members should know that the church maintains the deceased should be buried. For the Roman Catholic Church cremation is a "brutal destruction" of the body. Though many countries in the West, like Belgium seem to ignore that saying of their pope and allow cremations by their members, though they do not encourage it. And the Catholics got to hear church-approved ways to conserve ashes for the increasing numbers of Catholics who choose cremation "for economic, ecological or other reasons".

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reports ashes and bone fragments cannot be kept at home because it would deprive the Christian community of remembering the dead. Rather, church authorities should designate a sacred place, such as a cemetery or church area, to hold them. Only in extraordinary cases can a bishop allow ashes to be kept at home, it said.

"The dead body isn't the private property of relatives, but rather a son of God who is part of the people of God," author of the text, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, said. "We have to get over this individualistic thinking."

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