Serving in Haiti

Janina’s buddies Asson, Pwanel, Dieunison and Dieury

We have a full house this week.  I love it!  Peter and Janina have been here for two and a half months now.  They are doing come incredible work at the restaurant in St. Etienne.  Janina has been finishing up the coral columns and making blue bottle windows for the bathrooms.  It’s all really cool.  Peter has been making unique, exotic window security pieces (they look like giant pieces of coral) and working on fencing for along the cliff out back.  They both leave in another eleven days, so the race is on to see how much they can accomplish.  Ti Ben has been installing the Haitian blue tiles for them.

PKG

Pastor Kevin Groder arrived Wednesday to prepare for our very full next three weeks.  He’s here as the host for all these teams coming in, but this time things are quite different.  In just another six weeks, he and his wife Tammy will be moving to Haiti.  The mission compound will become their new home.  I am so excited about this move.  They have so much to offer, and few people (if any) know us better than they do.  Change is never easy, but I think we’re all up to the challenge.  I’m looking forward to utilizing their gifts next year with our students as we introduce ballet and elementary martial arts (self-defense) to our preschool classes.  Pastor Kevin is a major geek and we look forward to him training up some of our young people to follow in his footsteps.  Tammy is quite the seamstress and already has several ideas to not only teach sewing (hand and machine), but also to help her students to make money sewing.  These are just the side projects that I’m getting all excited about.  Their main focus will be in running and expanding the International School of Ministry (ISOM).  They hold licenses for both the French and Haitian Créole versions of this video Bible School and are already working with our current students to help their development.

A team from Village to Village (KY) arrived yesterday.  Our plan for them this week involves preparing library books for cataloging, maintenance, laying foundations for two houses and some carpentry (if time permits).  They are ready to teach, preach and share in music, as well.

Bless Back Worldwide (NC) also arrived yesterday.  They helped out in Sunday School this morning, but their main focus will be soccer.  Tomorrow morning 60 kids will be meeting at the soccer field for soccer camp.  Older kids will be coming in the evening for another session.  Each child will receive their own soccer ball at the end of the week.  It will be a great surprise for them.  I think soccer balls are the most requested gift from all our male students.  They are all going to be so blessed!

Bless Back Worldwide and Village to Village teams arrived at MOHI Saturday.

BBW team is already playing soccer with our neighbors

Cayes Mirliton

We have LOTS of people coming to stay with us over the next several weeks and so we’ve been working hard getting ready to accommodate them.  If you’ve been following this blog at all, you know we’ve been building another dorm room.  We need to install the windows and doors and it will be all ready for beds.  We’ve also been putting stone walk ways and patio areas in.  It’s looking pretty nice.

Dorm room at Cayes Mirliton

I worked a couple of days at the mission compound this week.  We decided to make a small boutique/snack shop for our visitors.  We’ll be selling art work from local artisans as well as special snacks/drinks that are not easily obtained locally.  It so happens that Alexis and A. Jay are taking a Personal Financancial Literacy class this summer and so running this little shop will coincide with what they’re learning, as well.  I also took this opportunity to teach my kids a little about carpentry.

Working on the boutique and snack shop at Cayes Mirliton

Odds and Ends

Please remember our 12th grade students in prayer as they go to national exams this week.

The UN has requested that we send a group to sing the Haitian National Anthem again at their medal award ceremony.  We are honored and it benefits our kids in several ways.  Of course the favorite part is likely to be the abundance of food that will be served to us afterwards.

These UN officers finally tracked down Lex after two days, to request our students sing the National Anthem for their ceremony.

Many of our students will be out in the mountains or in the big city this summer, visiting relatives.  We are glad, however, that many of our computer club students will be here for the summer.  It’s great to see them so eager to learn, play and explore with the laptops.

Next week we will be holding our 14th annual conference at the church in Thozin.  We are expecting people from many different areas of the country to stay with us for 3 nights.  The church looks forward to this time of serving and receiving from the Lord.  In addition to Haitian national ministers, Pastors Kevin Groder and Dan Lee will be joining us.  Please pray for everything to go smoothly and that all those attending will be blessed.

Angela has had some help this week, catching up on filing.  Next week a medical team from Bless Back Worldwide will be working with us.  We will begin using electronic medical records as part of our regular clinics.  Praying for a smooth transition.

Angela with student nurses, Merline and Baby

Our church was looking very international this morning with several groups visiting local missions.

Church Service in Thozin

Our cute little neighbors carry a big pot home to mommy