Link for Health

September 1, 2007: Evelyn arrived with a severe cleft lip and palate. She and her parents were given much support from the midwife, doctors and nurses from the minute she was born. They recommended and located a specialty bottle, made for babies born with cleft lip/palate, so she would immediately be able to get the nourishment she needed to grow and thrive. They not only gave their family hope and encouragement, but also the education they needed to best support Evelyn.

March 27, 2008: Diego was born in Guatemala. He also arrived with a severe cleft lip and palate, but unlike Evelyn’s situation, Diego and his parents were sent home from the hospital with no hope or encouragement. There was no education or advice available in the remote village where Diego was born; no one to show his parents how to feed and take care of him.

Evelyn’s Baskets of Love and Life is a mission dedicated to providing necessary items for babies born with cleft lip/palate in Guatemala. The founders began their mission after their first granddaughter, Evelyn, was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate. The midwives and nurses were very helpful; Evelyn received wonderful care and has since thrived. A doctor on her team, originally from Guatemala, told them about babies born there that struggled to survive because they could not breast feed, and the mothers did not know what to do when regular bottles didn’t work. Those babies who did survive were often malnourished to the point that surgeons would have to turn them away.  Evelyn’s Baskets was established to provide items necessary for the care of babies born with cleft lip and palate, giving hope and encouragement to their parents and caregivers. 

Joe and Jane Bartel, the organization’s founders, went together to Guatemala in the late fall of 2007 when they brought two specialty bottles and a breast pump for babies born with cleft lip and palate.  A friend helped them translate the story of Evelyn.  They put a basket together with the bottles and breast pump and they brought it to a local clinic.

Jane decided to go again and to bring more specialty bottles and breast pumps. In March of 2008, Jane and her friend Susan Moretz, who could speak Spanish, made plans to meet with different missionaries in ten different places to bring Evelyn’s Baskets of Love and Life to help babies who were born with cleft lip and/or palate. Jane, Susan and a friend, Felix Santizo (a friend Jane had made the first time she had visited in Guatemala) traveled together. They went to visit Lloyd and Melanie who were the missionaries for the mission Porch de Salomon.  They said that a friend, Estrella, had heard of a baby who was born with a cleft lip and palate and was sent home with no hope and no additional information on how to feed the baby. After two days of everyone searching, they found the baby and his family. They were able to visit them, and with Estrella translating, Jane told them about Evelyn and showed pictures of her before and after her first surgery. They gave them a filled basket, showing them the specialty bottles and breast pump and explained how to use them. Baby Diego took to the bottle right away! Holding hands, Diego’s mother and Jane wept together with joy and hope. They visited ten other places with the help of Felix whose assistance is huge for the mission. They left a total of 24 baskets, and continue to hear success stories from grateful families.

To learn more about Evelyn’s Baskets, please visit their website.