Nel Jane Bautista just turned eleven years old. She lives in a dwelling made of cinderblocks, corrugated metal, and scrap lumber in Tacloban City, Philippines. She loves pretty things, like pink dresses and hair bows. 

Last June Nel Jane’s grandmother dressed her up in her prettiest dress, washed and combed her hair, and finished it off with a giant pink bow. Our medical team was seeing patients in a nearby community, and Grandma was going to make sure Nel Jane looked her prettiest before they set out together to see us. And Nel Jane is lovely, despite being tiny and frail, with dusky lips and strange fingers that don’t taper like other little girls and instead have large bluish balls on the ends. 

Nel Jane’s lips are blue, and her fingers are clubbed, and she is tiny and frail because her heart valves and vessels are hooked up wrong. She’s lived with it that way all her life, but as she grows it becomes more of a challenge for her to survive. It seems lately that every time she catches a bug, she ends up in the hospital — twice in one month! And once in the hospital, it’s getting harder and harder to get out! The doctors and nurses would draw her blood and then tell her it’s not time to go home yet. Her weak heart causes her blood to be “too thick,” they would say, and if Nel Jane went home now she might not survive.  

Our team from Oregon and friends in Tacloban arranged for Nel Jane to see a cardiologist. The cardiologist said Nel Jane needed to travel to Manila for a special test, called “cardiac catheterization.” It would cost $5000. So, with the help of her friends in America and the Philippines, Nel Jane and her mother travelled to Manila, and Nel Jane underwent the catheterization on August 10, 2023. 

After the test was complete, the cardiologist told Nel Jane and her mother that her heart can be fixed. That surgery will cost $12,000. We have been given until November 21, 2003 to raise these funds. If the funds are not secured by November 21st, Nel Jane will not be able to have this life-saving surgery on November 23rd.  

Nel Jane’s friends both here and abroad are desperately seeking funds from every possible source in order to raise these funds. They are contacting politicians and public figures in the Philippines, but are very worried that anything gained there would be too little too late. 

If you can find it in your heart to donate any amount to help this little girl get her heart fixed, you would be giving her the world. Every tax-deductible penny donated will go to Nel Jane’s expenses: First to get the $12000 open heart surgery scheduled and completed, then for the $5000 catheterization as well as travel, lodging, and incidental expenses.

Please please consider helping Nel Jane. And please don’t delay. This little girl cannot wait much longer. You can make your tax-deductible donation below. And please share this with anyone else who might be able to help as well. Thank you and God bless you!  

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