Update about Haiti
joseph glass
declared the winner in the recent presidential elections in Haiti. The
final results provided him 68% of the vote. Leon called last night to
provide the news and advise that there were celebrations in the streets.
There is much work to be done to help Haiti and our prayers are with the
president-elect. Here's the link to the Miami Herald article.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/04/2151886/haiti-president-elect-martelly
.html#
For those who have been following their lives, Stephen and Autumn are now
married and back in Haiti. Several of us had the honor of witnessing their
marriage last month. Pray for them as they start this new chapter in their
lives and remain in the ministry in Haiti. Nathan, the other original long
term volunteer who went to Haiti in February 2010 is back home now. We
welcome some new long term volunteers - presently we have Stephen Byxbe
(construction projects), Autumn Whitby Byxbe (sponsorship liaison), Zach
Warrender (vocational and microloan programs), Stephen Carlton (trip
coordination), and Forrest Shroyer (medical teams and clinic coordination).
A summer volunteer, Adam Muller, arrived this week. Several more are
traveling down in the next couple of months for anywhere from 4 weeks to a
year. Nadege and BMB, young Haitian professionals, are living in the
compound with the volunteers. Our goal for the balance of 2011 is to bring
2-4 young Haitian adults into the team area to live with the long term
volunteers and expand that Haitian-American community. This is a great
opportunity for the Americans to have close relationships with Haitian peers
and for the Haitian young adults to have an equally unusual opportunity to
experience an intense English language environment and participate in the
management of the ministry. Nadege and BMB have been exceptionally helpful
during the past year. These young Haitians and the long term volunteers
have been a key part of the ability of the ministry to respond to its
expanded scope and model how a team can develop and live in Christian
community.
The sewing program is steadily improving. This month a Haitian-American
fashion designer is traveling to Haiti to spend a couple of weeks with the
sewing instructors and will start a long term program and providing them
instruction and ideas to enhance the school and the products that the
students and co-op members are sewing. When the Cite Soleil food storage
building is completed later this fall it will provide upstairs space for a
workshop for the co-op. We have moved the retail shop into the Blanchard
compound and expanded it to provide more products for sale and space for the
card and jewelry workshops. Income generated by these co-ops helps support
the programs and the families of the co-op members.
Schools are in session and we are still enrolling new students for next
school year. This includes the new school at Repatriote. Teams are
traveling down steadily (bookings are pretty solid through Labor Day). We
are thankful for each team and their commitment and hard work. Medical care
at Repatriote has been relatively robust in 2011 thanks to the visiting
teams, medical care is being provided to the people of the Cite Soleil tent
shelter by visiting teams, shoes are being distributed to the communities by
teams every couple of months, amazing stone masonry and other work is being
done by work teams, skills taught to new co-ops, and much more. Each team's
visit has three separate impacts. First, the Haitians being directly helped
are impacted by the material progress. Second, the Haitian communities see
the dedication of the visiting teams and their willingness to make such an
effort, and, third, the team members themselves derive huge benefit from
their experiences. Mesi anpil to each team and the churches that have sent
them. Please consider planning your team's visit this fall or next winter -
your life will be changed forever.
Facilities projects are entering an intense period of construction:
- Cite Soleil clinic completion
- Cite Soleil food storage/vocational co-op workshop building under
construction
- Repatriote perimeter wall continuing reconstruction
- Repatriote church reconstruction commencing
- Repatriote school phase 1 commencing
We are shifting some of the Haitian workers who have been rebuilding homes
to the facilities projects and are suspending the house project. We have
spent approximately $650,000 on this project to date, with over 125 homes
built. Our thought is to suspend this effort now, seek new donations for it
and resume it later this year when the major facilities projects draw down
and when/if we receive sufficient donations to resume.
While we are thankful for the visible progress being made, each step is
truly taken in faith since HOM remains very much a shoe string organization.
We are always prayerfully hopeful that provision will be made for the many
ministry programs that so impact the people of the Cite Soleil, Blanchard,
Repatriote and Ibo Beach communities.
We are assembling the travel schedules for Leon, Luc and Profaite for the
remainder of 2011. Let us know if your church would like to be involved.
Shalom - Bill Glass
Soli Deo Gloria!