December 2010 Update

The day before Christmas Eve this week as we prepared for our family to arrive for the holiday, another group was at our house in Haiti.  Grassroots United, who sent the Global DIRT team we were with in the mountains to assess the cholera situation, sent a team of six people to our house to prepare to leave on Christmas Eve day for a three day trip into the mountains to take medicine, water filters, and other supplies but mostly to try to educate the people on how to prevent cholera.

This was the expedition that was supposed to happen the second week of December just after we left Haiti but, because of the election results and subsequent rioting, had to be put off till now.  When we left, the cholera clinic next door was reporting a slow down in the number of patients coming for help but the next week it rained, spreading the cholera in the water, and they have been over run with patients ever since.  Bill will be returning to Haiti next week to help.

I also in this message wanted to correct a story I had told earlier.  As you know, we have been very impressed with Yvrose, the lady who has the school of 150 children about half a mile from our home in Haiti and who has taken in or “adopted” 14 children.  Actually, she has taken in two more since we left so the number is up to 16 now!  She and her husband have a couple of young ladies helping her with the children.

Yvrose in front of her two rented rooms

I reported that she ran the school and she and her husband lived in a house they had built.  Somehow that was the impression I had gotten.  Actually, they do own the land the three large tents they use for the school are on.  However, the house they are living in is leased next to their land.  They leased the house for a year, or so they thought.  After giving the landlord the money, he came back and told them they were only leasing one ROOM in the house for a year, an impossible situation with 14 children!  So they negotiated and instead took two rooms for six months!  No electricity or running water.  They have to haul it in.

Yvrose loves the Lord and it is a great blessing to us to be able to talk with her.  She traveled to the mountains with us and was invaluable in translating for us.  Bill went up one evening to visit with them and found the children singing, “Jehovah, Jirah, my Provider”.  That song really means something when often they do not know where their next meal is coming from!  She gets some help from friends in the states and looks to the Lord to meet their needs.   I’m blessed and amazed at the life of faith they are living.

Please pray for the people of Haiti, for Yvrose and her family, for the people spending Christmas in the mountains of Haiti trying to save lives, and for all of God’s people around the world seeking to serve Him in dire situations.  May we not take our blessings for granted and may you and your family have a blessed and joyous Christmas as we remember the birth of our Savior.

Avatar photo

Written by

Janet, wife, mother and grandmother has made many trips to Haiti since the earthquake of 2010. She works to support Just Mercy and her husband Bill and does the many things such as research, communication, ‘technical support”, etc, at home in Missouri that are often quite difficult to do in Haiti. All these activities and her children and grandchildren keep her busy.