MEMO Miracles
Since MEMO:Cuba's work began in January of 2004, the work that MEMO does has been blessed with small miracles. Some would say it is just coincidence or serendipidy of good luck but we choose to think of these big and little events as special blessings.
For example, at the beginning, when MEMO went to the Canadian Embassy in Cuba, the counsellor officer knew exactly who to contact in the Cuban government. Her friend, Alfredo Rodriguez in the Ministry of International Cooperation, was very encouraging and told Dr. Harvey and company exactly what to do to get permission for shipping. Back in Canada those who had tried shipping items to Cuba in the past had suggested that it would take a year or more to get the permits. MEMO applied to the Cuban government and within two weeks had permission to send an unlimited number of ocean containers to Cuba in 2004!
Then, in August of 2004, for three weeks over 200 volunteers from across Canada of all ages, faiths and political persuasions joined together to empty two hospitals
that at one time housed up to 1,000 patients! Nineteen ocean containers - including some highly sophisticated equipment - were removed, packed and shipped without any serious injuries to these amateurs!
When emptying out McKellar Hospital, the team questioned whether to send eleven cots from the psychiatric ward. They had side rails but didn't go up and down like hospital beds.
They decided to send them.
On the next visit to Cuba Dr. Harvey was informed that the government had told the church-run home for the aged that they would be shut down. Their beds fashioned from three pieces of rough plywood were no longer adequate.
MEMO donated the beds from the psychiatric ward to them. The side rails made them perfect for a home for the aged. How many beds in that facility? Eleven! Is this merely a coincidence?
On one trip to Cuba, Dr. Harvey was visiting the 350 bed children's hospital in the capital city of Villa Clara province. As has come to be a custom, the question as to what needs existed was asked. He expected to to be asked for a cat scan or ultrasound machines, etc. Instead the paediatric oncologist asked for a "Laminar flow Cabinet." Dr. Harvey was not exactly sure what that was but said that as Christians, they would pray for one. Subsequently, he learned that it is a very specialized cabinet that purifies air for chemotherapy preperation and then exhausts the toxic fumes from the chemicals. Dr. Harvey was told that nurses preparing these treatments without this protection on the average died after 15 years of work from liver failure or cancer.
On return to Canada, one day Dr. Harvey was taking a shortcut through the now empty laboratory rooms on an errand in the closed McKellar hospital. Through the gloom of the unlit room something shiny caught his eye in a corner of the laboratory. It was a laminar flow cabinet!! Checking with the Regional Hospital Administration, Dr. Harvey was told that MEMO could have it as it had been left behind two years previously. After a lot of hard work (these cabinets weigh about 1000 pounds) it is now installed in Cuba and saving lives not only of cancer patients but the lives of nurses as well! Coincidence?
In 2008, a Winnipeg x-ray engineer that had been to Cuba with MEMO to repair a broken Shimadzu flouroscopy x-ray machine was sent to do some work in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
While there, he noticed an identical unused Shimadzu x-ray machine in storage that had since been replaced by a new digital machine.
Inquiries revealed that MEMO could have this old x-ray machine. The only problem? How would MEMO move it the thousands of miles from the arctic shores of Hudson Bay to Thunder Bay without cost?
The MEMO director of transportation, David March, when hearing of the problem, suggested Dr. Harvey contact a certain man working for a company called NUNA in Thunder Bay. Upon speaking with him, Dr. Harvey learned that this company moved heavy mining equipment to Rankin inlet by rail to Churchill, Manitoba and then by barge via Hudson Bay to Rankin Inlet. He quite willingly agreed to put the machine in waterproof crates and transport it to Thunder Bay at no charge to MEMO. When asked if he knew David March he said, "Oh, he's my father in law!" Coincidence?
At one point, the Regional hospital donated several fibreoptic scopes to MEMO. They were still usable but several were missing parts.
At that point in time MEMO was contacted by St. Joseph's Hospital. Several years previously, when they went from an acute care to a sub-acute care hospital, they had closed their
endoscopic department. The nurses had carefully mothballed all the equipment and stored it in the basement. When the MEMO team looked through the scopes and various pieces of equipment,
all the pieces we needed to complete the scopes from the Regional hospital were there! Coincidence?
There are countless stories of these "MEMO Miracles" - and all of them suggest that, whatever you believe about God and the supernatural, these stories cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence! The work of MEMO in Cuba is surely on the right course as these blessings poured out all around attest to this fact!