A New Home for Yvrose’s Family!

5th Haiti Trip – Vol. III

Eight days!  That’s all it took!  Last week after coming and seeing Yvrose’s situation, Rod

Rod Baker with Yvrose’s family and Bill & I

Baker of Victory Compassion, which puts up small houses for earthquake victims with an emphasis on widows and orphans, told Bill that if he would get two foundations in, he would put up two of the houses this week!!!  The race was on!

Bill hauled water in barrels up the hill numerous times for mixing concrete. He hired some Haitians and along with the children, they all started clearing the lot of rocks and vegetation.  Then the excavation began to level the areas needed for the foundations, no small task.  Bill designed the foundations with another concrete area between the two small houses so Yvrose would have an area to cook and eat in outside of the houses.

I arrived in Haiti on the 26th after an overnight delay in Ft. Lauderdale.  They were pouring the second foundation that day.  The next day we poured the area between the two.  Rod brought out the insulated panels for the first house in the afternoon.  The next morning he brought out the panels for the second house and his crew.  By the time Bill and I got there, the first house was up!  It took another hour or so to apply all the metal trim pieces but it was amazing how fast it went.

Second house going up

Watching them put up the second house was an eye-opener.  The panels are preassembled with a thin layer of insulation to help keep the metal house from being so hot.  The houses are about 15 x 18 feet each and have two rooms.  Yvrose was “walking on air” as she put it.  The children were so excited!  What a wonderful God we serve!

Saturday night, we had the family over for supper.  We then had a time of praise and worship and testimony.  The children took turns standing up and saying how thankful they were to God for “Mommy and Poppy” (Yvrose and her husband, Pierre-Richard), for “Daddy” Bill and “Mam” Janet, and for the new houses God has given them!  They sang, recited scripture, and were so precious to hear.

Working with Rod was a blessing.  He is a large man with a large heart and loves the children!!!  We are so grateful to him and his people for making it possible for Yvrose’s family to have a home!  The next thing needed is a well for the family, the school she runs on her land with 150 children, and the community around her.  All water has to be hauled up in buckets on people’s heads unless we are coming up in the truck.  Every trip we take up there we try to haul containers of water.  It is just one of countless communities who have no water source.

We have given Yvrose two Sawyer water filters which they use to filter their drinking water.  Many of the school children stop at their home after they leave school to ask for a cup of water and they are always willing to share what they have.  But sometimes they run out and have to turn people away until they can haul more water up, a trip of over a mile.

We would like to ask all of you that receive this if you would consider making a contribution to get a well in for Yvrose’ and the community.  It is going to cost six thousand dollars.  You would literally be helping to fulfill Jesus’ admonition in Matt. 10:42 that “whoever……..gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.”