{"id":1177,"date":"2012-07-24T11:30:44","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T16:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2012-08-20T11:14:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T16:14:29","slug":"will-the-mountain-schools-open-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=1177","title":{"rendered":"Will the Schools Open This Year?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Skip Lindsey came for 10 days and blessed us by doing much of the plumbing and wiring of the base.\u00a0 We vacated our leased home and moved to the new base.\u00a0 A few days later, we had two working toilets and an outdoor shower working.\u00a0 What a blessing!! \u00a0We are so grateful to the friend who made so much of the new base possible. \u00a0But a change in Haiti\u2019s fall school opening date means I need to talk about the schools now.<\/p>\n

Usually, the Haiti school year starts the first week of October but the announcement just came out from the government that they are to start Sept. 3rd<\/sup>.\u00a0 That is only a month away.<\/p>\n

As you know, JUST MERCY<\/span><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0sponsors three schools in the mountains.\u00a0 Nearly 500 children attend these schools in an area where the adult illiteracy rate pushes 100% and no other organization is active.\u00a0 Besides teaching children the usual subjects, reading, writing, and arithmetic, we started Christian Character classes last spring, hoping to make a difference in the lives of these children.<\/p>\n

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Pelerin school in 2010<\/p><\/div>\n

We visited all three of the school\u00a0locations with the building team early this month and saw the pressing facility repair needs that should be done if we are to continue operating the schools.\u00a0 The first school in Pelerin has 188 students with six teachers.\u00a0 The school\u00a0was built five years ago out of woven twigs between poles.\u00a0 Just two years ago, it still looked pretty good.\u00a0 But on this\u00a0visit, it was falling apart, raising concerns it might even fall down on the children.\u00a0 Nathan and Bill discussed possible ways of repairing it.\u00a0 We thought we had till October and hoped to do some work on it in September.\u00a0 Now it is even more urgent to make a plan to repair it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Collapsing walls on Pelerin School 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

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Chapelle church\/school and “tent”<\/p><\/div>\n

The school in Chapelle has around 150 children with three teachers.\u00a0\u00a0 The classes meet in a small church and two \u201ctents\u201d, one of tarps covering a plastic pipe frame and the other of tarps on wood sticks.\u00a0\u00a0 We hope to move one of the currently unused cholera tents to Chapelle to operate school in this year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The school in Robia has the best, most permanent facility of the three.\u00a0 The 160 children\u00a0with three teachers in three rooms meets in an empty rough concrete shell. All of the schools need work.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

School at Robia<\/p><\/div>\n

The basic budget to pay the teachers at all three schools is around $1300\/month. It is also time to buy books.\u00a0 It costs about $10\/student to buy the books new.\u00a0 That is around $5000 for books for the coming year.\u00a0 We are currently making an inventory of what is still usable from last year, hoping to cut that amount down. Schoolbooks in Haiti are not like our textbooks.\u00a0 They are all basically like a paperback notebook and usually are used up by the end of the year.\u00a0 They are cheaper now than they will be in three weeks if they are available at all then.\u00a0 Sometimes the vendors run out just before the school year.<\/p>\n

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Children from the Chapelle school<\/p><\/div>\n

We have talked with our two Haitian friends who oversee the schools about opening them this year and they know that we are coming home to try to ascertain if it is possible to commit to that. \u00a0We hope to open all three schools, Lord willing, but may have to settle for less. \u00a0Our mailing address is \u00a0PO Box 93 \u00a0Stark City, MO. \u00a064866<\/p>\n

Thank you for your prayers and support.\u00a0 May God bless you all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skip Lindsey came for 10 days and blessed us by doing much of the plumbing and wiring of the base.\u00a0 We vacated our leased home and moved to the new base.\u00a0 A few days later, we had two working toilets and an outdoor shower working.\u00a0 What a blessing!! \u00a0We are …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1578,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}