Growing

Here at MOHI we believe in growing GOOD things. Sometimes it’s children and sometimes it’s a stalk of corn. Ideas and attitudes are growing here, too. It’s our constant prayer that it all be GOOD!

The corn you see in this picture is our most successful attempt, thus far, at growing sweet corn here in Haiti. It’s looking healthy and is already taller than our last failed attempt, so I’m excited about it.  You may recall we built flower beds in front of the school to help protect the freshly painted walls from being dirtied.  It’s unusual in our community to find flowers growing without having some corn mixed in with them.  After all, the flowers aren’t edible.

 

Our rainy season was non existent this Spring.  It normally begins in March, but this year we didn’t get rain until the middle of May and it didn’t last very long.  Nevertheless, God has blessed us and our mountainside fields are starting to produce.  We tasted our first watermelon this week and it was very sweet.  The corn (not sweet, but good for making cornmeal) is getting tall now, too.

We planted a Moringa seed several months ago. It grew into this amazing tree (below). Tiny Moringa leaves have 7x the vitamin C of oranges, 4x the vitamin A of carrots, 4x the calcium of milk, 3x the potassium of bananas and 2x the protein of yogurt. I eat them in a salad most mornings. Time to educate our neighbors! 

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Kids Against Hunger

We are so grateful to our friends at Kids Against Hunger in Tulsa, OK for the shipment of food we received this week.  The rice/soy casserole packets were created with some hefty nutrients added.  In an area where malnutrition is rampant, being able to share this food with our neighbors is a major blessing.

I often think of the biblical accounting of Jesus feeding the multitudes.  He was sharing words of life with the people and they were following Him to hear more and more.  The Bible says that Jesus was moved with compassion.  He ministered to people on two different levels – spiritually AND physically.  He didn’t neglect one in favor of the other.  He didn’t want the people to suffer.

Kids Against Hunger is based on the idea of kids feeding kids.  I have participated in packaging sessions myself.  It’s an opportunity for kids (and adults, too) to look beyond themselves – to put their hands to work providing for the need of another.  It’s an avenue for them to express compassion – to be more like Jesus.

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Construction at MOHI

Thozin School

Railings are going up on the second side of the new school building and the van with the remaining electrical components needed is on the ship.  Yes!!!  Thanks to Ted Bronson for driving the van to Miami.  He and Rick will be coming to Haiti once the van arrives here to install the rest of the electrical.  It would be wonderful to have some others join them. (Hint!  Hint!)

We will need lots of benches to put into the new classrooms.  Elgane has started painting some benches, but we will need to build more.  It sure would be nice to have some carpenters come to Haiti with Rick and Ted.  (Hint! Hint!)

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Mirliton Dorm 

The walls are up and the transitional house has been disassembled at the missionary compound.  We’ll be pouring the bond beams tomorrow.

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St Etienne Restaurant

Janina and Peter continue working hard in St Etienne.  It’s fun to see their creativity coming through with an ocean theme in the mountains.  When they first arrived (about a month and a half ago) they spent some time collecting coral.  We’re now starting to see it appear in the restaurant construction.  We think it’s pretty cool.

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Literature, Books, Computers

Gloria managed to stir something up in me while she was with us two weeks ago.  I’m all excited about making literature available to our teachers, to start, and then to our students, as well.  I was able to download about 17 books from a list of literature books she gave me – all in French!  How exciting is this?!!!!  Gloria will be coming in August, with her son Kyle, to work with our science teachers and will also be discussing a book she bought for others of our teachers.

At this point, our teachers and students are familiar with mostly French and Haitian literature and most of that is really philosophy.  Books for Haiti has donated two Kindle Readers to MOHI, which are being made available to our teachers.  The hope is to eventually have enough of them for an entire class.  Now they can be reading the works of world renowned authors like Hawthorn, Shakespeare, Meliville, London…

I think back to the time when Lex and I were just talking about the vision for MOHI.  Lex was intent on providing a school for children whose families could not afford to send them to a private school, but he was also determined to make that school as good as any private school in the country.  It is so exciting to see what God is providing for these kids.  Many of them are very poor, but all of them have such potential.  Working together, we can develop that potential and impact the destiny of this country.

Here are some samples of drawings our computer club kids have been working on:

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Moments at MOHI