2nd Haiti Trip – Vol. III

It’s been nearly ten days since I last updated you on the Haiti situation. Things have been progressing slowly at the house.

House on Lake Azure

The electric poles are set but the guys working on it the last few days have been unable to come out from Port au Prince as Haiti is out of gas and diesel! Bill and Jesse drove to Jumani in the Dominican Republic and were able to get some for their truck but they had heard a tanker was not due into Haiti till this coming week so everything has slowed down.

When Bill went with the owner to arrange for the water well to be drilled, they were told to put their name on a list and they would see them in a year! We weren’t sure what to do but God knew what we needed. There is a Mennonite hospital going in right next to the property we leased and they have a deep water well. Bill went over to talk with them and they have agreed to let us pipe water to the house from their well until we are able to get one in on our place. We are so grateful that we will be able to get water soon!

Happy tent recipients

Everyone wants tents!!!! After giving about 30 tents to Haitian Christian Mission, Bill and Jesse traveled to Mirebalais and gave some more tents to Yves Prophete with Global Vision Citadelle Ministries. They traveled into the mountains there and passed some more tents out in a really poor village whose population had swelled with refugees from the earthquakes. It seems like the mountain villages are even poorer than the villages on the flatlands though it is hard to believe that is possible.

Back in Fonds, Bill hired a man to get some help and come clean up the large lot our leased house is on and prepare to plant a garden. He hired two men from up in the mountains or “up stairs” as they say. Those two men worked so hard! During a break Bill got to visiting with them and found out that they are farmers but they have no money to buy their seed and right now is the time to plant. They only have a 90 day window at this time to get a crop in and out before the heavy rainy season.

This was exactly one of the things we had hoped to be able to help with so Bill gave them the money to buy their seed. They are going to continue to come back down to help with our garden. They will bring back with them whatever is currently being harvested “up stairs” to help pay back the money. It will probably be avocados which are ripe now. They also agreed to bring us some of the produce when they harvest it. Hopefully this will be a blessing to them and their families by making it possible for them to plant their crops.

Bill and Jesse are headed into the mountains Monday to see their places. They will have to drive up as far as they can and then take mules and a horse on to the mountain villages. They are also taking some tents as the farmers’ fields are sometimes far from home and they have to spend nights up on the mountains and need some shelter.

On Saturday Bill and Jesse drove into Port au Prince (PAP) and took 32 tents to Dottie Diehl, a woman we were put in contact with through Doug Gripka, the Baptist pastor in Newtonia near our home, who has gone to Haiti on mission trips for years. Dottie runs a guest house for visiting mission workers and also works with a school for poor children in PAP. Many of her students are living in so called “tent cities”, mostly with only tarps and sheets for shelter. She was very excited about being able to give some of the children’s families a tent to put up.

Last week Bill met some young women from England who are working in PAP. Through that contact they returned to PAP today and met the chaplain of the Haitian police force who is also an Englishman. They are having meetings in PAP and he told Bill that 800 people had been baptized that week!! He was very interested in what we are hoping to do and wants to find out about the farmers in the mountains and set up an agriculture program to market Haitian coffee. Bill and Jesse took him some tents and after hearing about the situation of the villages in the mountains they have visited, he gave them medical supplies and MRE’s to take tomorrow to the mountains!

It is interesting to see the contacts God leads us into and how things work out as we step out to try and bless the Haitian people in the Lord’s name. Please keep us in your prayers as the days go by. May God bless you all.