Now you can purchase from AFH and support our ministry. There are now a brand new AFH t-shirt and coffee mugs available. Watch for more soon. Click here to find out more!
A Home for AFH
After five years of effort, we’ve achieved a major milestone in our work in Haiti: a home for Aid For Haiti. Allow me to explain…
Not every ministry needs a physical place to dwell. In fact, we have functioned for the past five years without a true physical home – we’ve been borrowing space from other ministries. Up to this point, many of our activities have been short-term engagements designed to maximize long-term impact. As we’ve continued to fulfill our commitment to the Haitian people, it has become clear to us that we could do more if we had a permanent presence in Haiti.
We have taken a strategic step forward by buying land. We recently purchased 2.25 acres in the southern mountains of Haiti, in an area called the “Grand Valley.” We plan to build in this area because we believe it advances our long-term objectives.
A unique focus of AFH’s ministry has always been to reach out with the Gospel to people who live in places where other aid groups are not going – to meet the Haitians where they live and work, mostly in rural areas. In keeping with that emphasis, the area in which we purchased land is a couple hours from any sizeable city. We have previously worked in this area through our medical outreach and believe it offers further opportunities through our established relationships.
While this purchase represents a big step forward for AFH, our vision itself remains unchanged. Our main priority for AFH’s land in the Grand Valley is to continue our mission: “Sharing the love of Christ with the people of Haiti through compassionate health care, spiritual ministry and training for service.”
Medically, our base will serve as a launching point to reach further into the remote, underserved villages scattered throughout the surrounding mountains. We will also continue to support and encourage a nearby clinic that has been operating in isolation for many years.
Concerning spiritual ministry, this land purchase allows us to develop closer relationships with local church leaders, elders and lay pastors. This is a valuable opportunity since many of these men have received little spiritual training and have few resources to use in shepherding the flock. We expect to host intensive evangelical leader seminars at our new location for these leaders to equip them to shepherd and teach other Haitians. Additionally, this base will also allow us to launch new ministries such as Community Health through Evangelism (CHE), women’s health programs and agricultural projects as the Lord directs.
What needs to be done to make these goals a reality? We have quite a bit of construction to do. We plan to build facilities to meet our immediate needs – storage space for all medical and training supplies, a staging area for teams, garage for vehicles, and a place for staff to live – as well as space for future work as the Lord permits. Since we purchased the land in late January, we have begun to clear zones for a driveway and a perimeter fence. We have plans for an economical multi-purpose building that is secure, sustainable, and serves our multiple needs.
Aid For Haiti (AFH) is growing in exciting and significant ways. We believe God is leading and we are pleased about the doors which stand open for the Gospel. We wanted to make you aware of these updates as well as our ongoing needs. Our foremost need is for your prayers – for our Haitian friends to know and follow Jesus, for wisdom for believers and AFH’s leadership, for energy as we serve Him. We also welcome financial support for this building project, as well as volunteers to help us complete its first phase.
We desire to see the Haitian people grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe this is accomplished best through a long-term, relationship-focused ministry. AFH primarily exists to lead Haitian people into deeper relationships with Christ and our land will provide increased opportunities to proclaim the Gospel. If you would like to financially help with this, volunteer with us, or simply know more please click below:
[button url=”http://www.aidforhaiti.org/donate”]Donate Now[/button] or [button url=”http://www.aidforhaiti.org/contact-us”]Contact Us[/button]
New Aid for Haiti website
Check out the Aid for Haiti website. It includes many new features and great new content. You can now keep up to date with upcoming teams, shop for merchandise, look through the history of missions in haiti, and many other things. Check it out!
Tramping
Do any of you know what that means right off? To me it means a beautiful day of some form or other, when the sun calls and the weather is warm, and there isn’t anything to keep you from going out. If you live in a rural area like I do, it means walking through fields, crossings fences, wading streams; just… tramping. There is an old homestead place a couple of fields away from here that is surrounded by a field full of daffodils. No exaggeration. Take a look, it is a gorgeous place; the ground falls away behind the house to a creek. This is looking from the creek up the rise.
The creek, daffodils, old stumps, everything was just so beautiful! The small hung up tree was 10 feet above the water. ”Lord willing, and the creeks don’t rise… “
The maples are blooming, and the other trees are pushing buds. Warm weather to stay, is just around the corner. I’m so glad!
The old barn is built over top of what I suppose is the first cabin/house of the homestead. The log walls are so beautiful, and you can see one of the doors through a crack in the barn siding. I love old things.
And one last picture, the “new” house. It is so sad that everything is falling to ruin…so much history… I wish I knew this place’s story.
A Last Post on Camilson
From this…
To this…
Isn’t it wonderful? I think he will grow up fine now. I’m so glad I was there to give what help I could, and be the hand God used to save his life. What a privilege! Thank you Shana, for running the Milk Program, and to everyone who gives to help these little ones.
God bless you.
Last Scenes
I am back in the States since Friday, and I am enjoying my family! But, I miss Haiti and my friends there… pretty badly sometimes. Here are a few last scenes…
The last prescription I filled
My dear fellow Mis Yos… ( I miss you girls!)
The farewell party the day before I left… Shana made some really good food.
One of my Haitian friends… her little boy always reaches his arms for me and gives me a smile!
The weekend before I left, we single girls and two of our brothers had the chance to go to the ocean for a couple of days. We had planned to do this since last fall, and it never quite worked out. I was so glad that we were able to do it before I left. It was a lovely time of rest and relaxation… how could it not be?
My brother and I
My dear friends:
Breanna, Loretta, Rhonda, Janell, Rhoda, Anita, and I
Fish eyes anyone? (Michael ate one…”kind of rubbery”)
How beautiful! I love the ocean!
Michael dove to the bottom and brought up these star fish. See the suction cups? Oooo….they tickled! I didn’t know that starfish could bend in half, did you?
Pure water
Recently a small distribution of water purification units was done in an area in the mountains of southern Haiti. Here people have no access to clean water. Hours away is the closest city with clean water available to purchase. Water purification units were distributed to families and training was done to ensure proper use. These units are able to purify water enough water without electricity to supply the needs of entire families for years to come.
Saturdays
Saturday I was invited to one of my Haitian friend’s house for lunch. Well, I got there and she wasn’t around. Apparently my Kreyol isn’t as good as I hoped, and she thought I was coming next Saturday. Well, she showed up, and as I am busy next Saturday, we started making lunch. First she took the heads of millet and she and her friend pounded the grain loose. I helped pound a bit, but soon blistered my hands!
Then they winnowed it and put the grain back in the “pilann” and pounded it with just a touch of water till the hulls and the thin skin surrounding the seed came off. It took about an hour and half of solid pounding till the grain started to crack. Then they winnowed it again and washed it.
After that I sat and stirred the pot of boiling “pitami” till it was soft. During the cooking process, I had to keep feeding the fire with dead congo bean plants. It was SO smokey sometimes! In the meantime, my friend made a sauce with a bit of meat she had.
I really enjoyed just spending time with her, and again was amazed at just how difficult it is for them to do anything, even cooking a meal. They have to get water – 20 or 30 minutes to go and come; gather dried plant material or chop up a little wood using an ax that the head comes off of; use a VERY dull knife to cut up any meat or citrus; wash out the kettle without soap; pound HARD for an hour and a half to prepare grain; keep the children and chickens out of the food because you are working on the ground; lean over a very smokey fire for an hour with your eyes running tears; then finally – after 4 hours – you can eat. And that is just cooking for one meal.
I got to hold her little boy while he fell asleep. He is such a sweet child, very quiet, but when he smiles he lights up!
That was my Saturday two weeks ago. This past Saturday Michael and I went out to Labich to visit some friends. It is a 2 hour drive on the four-wheeler. I didn’t get any pictures, but we had a good time. The Pastor there has a very nice family. I think his children are the most well-behaved children I’ve ever seen in Haiti. We came back Sunday after church,… and we got rained on. Oh well, part of the fun! The four-wheeler ride was great, even though I was stiff the next day. I loved being able to spend time with Michael!
Just a Sunday
Yesterday I went to church… and just about froze. It was a misty rainy morning, and the temp had to be in the low 60′s I’m sure. I didn’t look at the thermometer though, there isn’t one to look at. In the afternoon around three, I went down to the clinic where Anita and Breanna were staked out on a birth. I took my Kindle along, and as nothing was happening yet, I read to them a while. It was so much fun! Around 7:30pm, things started happening and a very black little boy blinked in the light around 8:45. You wonder that I say “black”. Most babies here look very “blan” for the first while. But this little boy’s mama was dark, and his grandma was black! So he had reason to be a “black baby”. We went to bed, and after a while I heard the clanging/tinging of a rock on the gate. I hollered out the door to learn that there was a lady that “had something that hurt”. I asked what that was, and kind of groaned a bit when they said she was pregnant. Oh, well, duty calls. So with the required escort, I walked down to the clinic to find out what exactly was going on. I was glad for the escort this time, the group of guys who had carried the lady in were just a bit rough, and smoking who knows what! I laid down the law that there was no smoking inside the clinic fence, and had them carry the lady in. She was 8 months pregnant, and had an abnormality we couldn’t deal with. So, Anita and I decided that the only thing to do was take her to Ti Goave, and it couldn’t wait till morning. Anita went out with her cousin driving, and I did not envy her the COLD trip out of the mountains. At least the moon was rising; earlier in the evening it was PITCH black, but as I left the house shortly after 1am, it was a big yellow crescent resting on top of the mountains to the east. I crawled back in my bed and slept hard the rest of the night. Anita got back after we were at clinic this morning, and was promptly sent to bed. One of our Haitian nurses was gone, so I did consultations. I really enjoyed that; I finally feel competent enough communications wise to know that I’ll understand what they are telling me or figure it out in a round about way.
Well, that was all of Sunday. Sometime I’ll try to tell you about one old lady I saw today, and about my Saturday. I have pictures from Saturday. Talk to you again soon!
Clinic Moving
The clinic move was way more involved than what I can write here. The first whole week was spent making counters and shelves, painting, cleaning and finishing floors, cleaning doors and sills and windows and equipment, just a whole bunch of hard work. The second week we started moving in and the above mentioned work continued. I don’t have many pictures, and the ones I do are of my work. If you want to see more, go to the GTH website http://www.gospeltohaiti.net and look at the blogs.
With help from Breanna and Rhoda mostly, I sorted and organized the supplies and medicine in the clinic depot and the pharmacy. It took the whole week, but we were done by Saturday evening. Here are the shelves of supplies, after that came organizing the medicine.
It took a while, but the shelves were finally full and the boxes empty! It wasn’t just a matter of stashing things, it had to make sense, and be organised.
Here is my empty pharmacy, by Saturday, it was looking like a huge job to get it organized and filled, but by Monday morning, it was up and running!
When we were hauling boxes out of the house to the Gator, Cherie came and said “Help”. So I gave her a box and she toddled out the door with it, then decided that it wasn’t as easy as it looked, and left for activities more her age!
These other pictures are just a glimpse into the other work that was going on.
Here is a bonus picture. My dad came down to teach a Pastor’s Conference. He and Caleb Trent, who was helping teach, came up the mountains Friday afternoon to see the land and to see me. It was so nice to take an hour and go spend a bit of time with them. If you don’t know, Aid For Haiti bought some land 10 min out the road from here. It is a nice fertile piece of land, and Michael is going to be working on fencing and building for the next couple of months. When I return to Haiti, hopefully there will be a place to live up there. I’m looking forward to that! I hope you all will pray for God to speed the work and provide all we need for that project. I’m so glad we found a place here in the area where we know people, and where we can have fellowship with the other missionaries. Our cousins are currently building 40 min farther into the mountains.
That’s all for tonight. God bless you!
