It’s so great to look back over the tapestry of our lives and recognize that God is truly THE MASTER Weaver.  Some details in our lives seem so insignificant, yet in the whole picture they are quite critical.

Boss Fanès

Lex visited Boss Fanès’ home this past week.  No big deal, right?  Heh!  He was huffing and puffing when I called him while he was hiking back up to the car.  Where he lives is difficult to get to, but is just so beautiful!  Everyday he gets up well before dawn, climbs up the mountainside to the main road, where hopes to find a ride.  If no ride appears, he walks 7 km down to the taptap station in Carrefour du Fort.  There he pays for a ride to get to Grand-Goave before the start of the work day at 6AM.

 

Boss Fanès began working for MOHI about 3 years ago.  He’d been attending our church in St. Etienne and Pastor Hakine proposed that we hire him to do some work at the mission compound at the beach.  He seemed a very fair man and had gone to school to become a “contremaitre” or job foreman.  He did a great job of managing the different contractors, that we talked to him about staying longterm.  Not long after that, the earthquake hit, destroying about 80% of all our buildings.  Had we not encountered Boss Fanès, we would have been very hard pressed to re-build, but today we have solid structures and walls, designed to withstand tremors.  Details in a tapestry are important.

MOHI School Project

This story involves many, brilliantly colored threads in our tapestry.

We had met and worked with Paul Fallon a couple of times in Fonfrede, where Forward in Health’s clinic is being built.  After the quake, Paul and his son, Andy, came to Grand-Goave and helped MOHI put up transitional shelters.  On that trip, Lex expressed some of the vision he had for the Thozin campus.  He had no idea that Paul would make a simple sketch that would turn into a reality so quickly.

During the earthquake, we had several young German nationals here with us in Haiti.  When they were able to leave the country, they were flown to Germany to appear on radio and TV news shows.  Due to this exposure, as well as the work of MOHI Board member, Pastor Dan Lee, a child advocacy organization, Ein Herz für Kinder (A Heart for Children) chose to give us a grant to help start this project.

Paul introduced us to John Thomsen at Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger, at their Boston office.  John offered to do the design engineering for us pro bono and put two more engineers to work on it, Mike Bolduc and Mike Peddie.

Now we had top notch Boston engineers joining our top notch Boston architect, but how does that build a building?  Around this same time, we were introduced to Len and Cherylann Gengel and Britney Gengel’s Poorest of the Poor Foundation.   Len has been building custom designed homes and neighborhoods for over 30 years.  Another important thread in the tapestry was put in place.  As Len is so fond of saying, we created a win-win scenario.  We brought our Haiti knowledge, understanding and experience to help Be Like Brit and Len brought his resources, knowledge and understanding of building to the equation.

We were now ready to begin.  Samaritan’s Purse came along side to help move dirt.  Len and Paul were there to help layout the building.  The engineers had provided us with VERY detailed plans and under Len’s guidance we were able to layout and pour the mat.  We were amazed at the amount of steel that went into that 1x10x54′ block of concrete!  We took pictures of everything to send to the engineers, who advised us about everything from soil quality, to concrete slump, to re-bar placement, to finishing the concrete.  For us, with our crew of Haitian masons and laborers, it was an all-consuming task.  We were just beginning to see what Paul’s little sketch had started.  It was overwhelming, to say the least.  Beyond that, Lex and I were already so busy with all the other things we do to keep MOHI operating on a daily basis.

Enter John Armour.  Talk about an interesting thread.  We started the mission and wrote to several local pastors, inviting them to come minister in Haiti.  Pastors Phil & Irene Cebula responded and came to Haiti along with Peter and Esther Plastridge.  The Plastridges retired, moved to Jacksonville and met John and Lisa.  They introduced us about 7 years ago.  We were all very excited about John’s invention of a water filtration system that removed all bacteria, viruses, parasites, parasitic larvae and eggs from water.  After the earthquake, Branches of the Vine donated one of these units to MOHI.  At a time when clean, potable water was hard to come by, MOHI had the best water in the world.  Remember, this all began by writing a letter to someone we didn’t even know!  We asked John to create the electrical and plumbing plans for the school and when he returned we were thrilled to discover that he was a knowledgeable and experience builder of three-story concrete buildings.  After much prayer and counsel, he and his family are ready to move to Haiti for a year to see this project completed.

Lennie and Amy Engman opened their home to us when we started the mission.  We went to the same church, but really didn’t know each other at all.  For five-years we would stay with them each time we returned to the States from Haiti.  They did more for our family than I could even begin to tell you here.  As it relates to the subject of the school project… Their niece, Lori recently spent two months serving at MOHI and her brother Daniel just spent about 6 weeks with us.  They were supposed to come together, but God knew that the building wouldn’t be ready for Daniel’s arrival at that time.  He arrived at the perfect time and was able to bring his extensive building, engineering and job management skills to us.  Drainage just happens to be one of his areas of expertise and we just happened to be ready to get that put in place while he was here – among many other things.  Another important thread in our tapestry.

We recently learned that we have two more team members joining us.  John Picard and Alan Roseberry will be designing the electrical and plumbing systems respectfully.  We are so grateful to God and to them for their willingness to be a part of this project.  Now, I can’t help but wonder what other threads are heading our way that we don’t know a thing about.

Construction Update

Daniel, who works in Alaska with all the latest equipment and highly paid personnel on each job site, often found things a bit frustrating on the site here.  Of course, not speaking Kreyol didn’t help, but he did have Huguener working with him to help translate.  He discovered that Haitian logic and American logic don’t always agree and a “Yes, I understand” doesn’t mean you’re going to get the results that you were expecting.  Daniel may have been the happiest man in the world when the World Race came to work.  He was able to explain in English and people really understood and actually did what he was expecting.

…

 

 

…

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

…

 

 

…

 

 

The World Race After Hours

The World Race participants have been working really hard on the school construction, as well as painting, moving the clinic, updating student information, etc.  When the sun goes down, the praise rises up.  Last Sunday night they led worship at the church and Pastor John Armour shared a message from the Bible.  (Oh, I didn’t mention that John is also an ordained minister!)

 

 

In the Beginning…

Many have come and gone over the years, but MOHI has made a difference in each of their lives, just as they’ve impacted the students that they worked with. I was looking at this picture of our very first teachers and our school director and thought I’d share it with you.

Franck served as the second of three mayors until the last election, when he won a congressional position.

Roseann pastors a church.

Edon runs Mission of Hope International when Lex and Renée are not available – which is quite often!  He’s also the local pastor of the church in Thozin.

Rosenie started as a school teacher, then school director, then director of Fondespwa (micro-loans for women).  She just had her fourth baby and fourth girl and is now working for Samaritan’s Purse in their nutrition program.

The tapestry is enlarging.

Clara and the Love Brothers

About three years ago we found this family by a stream where the mother was washing clothes.  Chrislove, 17 months at the time, had a very bad inguinal hernia.  We visited their home – a small room they rented in a thatch home with a mud floor.  They had no bed – not even a mat to sleep on.  We felt led to help them with food and medical help.  When we could not find a doctor in their area to operate on Chrislove, we invited them to Grand-Goave.  The operation was done.  The earthquake came.  This family went through it all here with us.  This week they had the privilege of moving into their own home, built by our friends at Be Like Brit, just up the hill from our school.  What a bitter-sweet day for all of us!

Now, the boys walk down the hill to get water for cooking and bathing.  This afternoon Clara pointed out to me that really they’re coming to see me.  “Don’t you see they came with just one empty gallon?” Making my day, they are!  This family will always be a part of the tapestry of my life.