Moose Jaw Area and Three Hills Team

This team of 12 arrived on Monday, January 28.  They are busy working on the duplex, painting and tiling at the Tech school, home visiting in the area, a 2 day VBS for a total of 200 children on our campus, visit the market, beach, and eating at the 'goat n coke'.

Our blog is now linked on the Haiti Arise website under the blog tab/long term missionaries.  The team also is blogging under the blog tab/team blogs.     haitiarise.org

Making a Living

There are many self employed Haitians doing a variety of things in order to make a living.  From selling goods at local markets - to offering cooked food to eat at roadside stands - to fishing - to the arts...painting and carving are popular.
We were fortunate to capture these shots of two men at work.

Roy the Roof Pourer!

Monday was a big day.  The roof was poured on the first half of the duplex in the Children's Village.  Our friend Roy is the foreman for this project for a few months.  He is from BC., but he is becoming more Haitian everyday!  His crew thinks he is the greatest.  This fellow in the picture with Roy is showing off his boot covers.  They are made from an inner tube knotted at the toes and then he pulls it up his leg to protect his shoes and pant legs.  There were approximately 40 people working on the pour that day.

Rebuilding

 

As we mentioned a few days ago, work on the Technical School is continuing. Here are a couple of shots of the school.............

 

 

 

 

Our Haiti Home

Welcome!  This is the residence building.  This is our Haiti home.  Our room is on the second floor and the dining area and living room area are on the main floor.  It is a beautiful place.

It's always a treat to have fresh baked bread.  This is a bag of bread from the bakery in town.  These are the bags it comes in!  Believe or not!

Update on Unrest

The citizens of Grand Goave are unhappy that the mayor will not step aside even though his term is over.  They do not feel that he has done much for this city.  As we blogged a couple of days ago, there has been some protesting in town.  It seems as though it may be settling for now, however, as a safety precaution, the elementary school classes here have been canceled since Tuesday.  We usually have church services also, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, but Marc thought it would be wise to cancel them for this week, too.
We are staying close by within our walls as this state of unrest is quite unpredictable and we wouldn't want to get in the middle of something.
......Tonight is fresh goat for supper!!

Technical School

Until the earthquake hit, Haiti Arise has had a technical school here on campus.  Classes in the trades such as cabinetry, plumbing, electrical, etc., were taught so that people could start their own small businesses or find work in their field of training.  Computer and English classes were taught as well.  The Bible school met in the same building.  The earthquake damaged the school beyond repair, so it had to be demolished and a new one is in the process of being built.

This week, we have a couple of men here from Alberta, John and Terry, to lay tile in the school.  They are laying approximately 1,100 sq ft per day.  We thought we would take a picture of them working as proof that they aren't at the beach everyday!!  It is fun to have them here.

Eating Locally

We will be eating very well for the next few days!  The top picture is of a big sail fish.  The bottom picture is of a goat that will be our supper tomorrow.  There are 10 of us here right now, so there won't be much for leftovers!

Unrest in Grand Goave

The mayor of Grand Goave has completed his term, but he refuses to leave.  This has caused a state of unrest in town.  For the last few nights, there has been gunshots in the night.  Yesterday, there were gun shots during the day and a diesel truck was set on fire out on the highway.  The UN police has made their presence known here.  Some of the gun shots we hear, are likely the police shooting into the air to try to disperse the crowds.
Haiti Arise campus is just out of town, and we have 24 hour security, so we feel quite safe.  Marc stayed here last night as he did not want to make the trek on his motor bike to his house which is in town.

Goats

In Haiti, goats are becoming the animal of choice to raise.  They are very hardy and can eat anything and stay healthy.  As we have mentioned in an earlier post, they are used for milk, meat and they breed plentifully.
Here is a photo of an amusing billy goat on the way to the beach....

Sunday evening, we went to town to Mondy's (we call it the Goat & Coke) to have goat and it was excellent!  Looking forward to more.

Third Anniversary of the Earthquake

It was three years ago today that the earthquake hit Haiti in late afternoon.  As far as we can tell, there will be no services or community gatherings to commemorate it.  Marc, who is Haitian, says that the Haitian people are somewhat tired of talking about it and making a point of remembering it.  They just want to be busy moving forward.  They are a strong and determined people.  I had a visit this morning with Sterling (one of our Haitian staff), over mangoes (yum), and he said that he still has nightmares about it.
Wade left early this morning for the airport to pick up some folks.  Today is a national holiday, so hopefully Port au Prince will be quiet and restful. The have police with them, so they have protection.

Rebuilding of the Goat Farm

 

The goat farm wall is being rebuilt after its destruction from the earthquake on January 12, 2010.   The reconstruction was started mid November and they have made an amazing amount of progress.  There are between 20 and 25 people working on it. It is approximately 3 acres. 
Haiti Arise purchases goats for incoming ministry teams to purchase and give to Haitians as a source of milk, meat and breeding.  If a family is given a female goat, they are asked to give away some of the 'kids' to other families so they can benefit as well.  This is done in good faith.

Wade is the workers 'white guy' to haul bricks to them.  They call him 'blanc'!  It's all in fun - they laugh together.

Hurricane Sandy

There is a road that we walk down and around to get to the beach.  On our way there on Sunday afternoon, we came across this washed out area from Sandy.  This is normally a well treed and lush area.  It is also a densely populated neighborhood.  Sad to think of the loss caused by this.

Life with / without electricity

 
One of the realities of living in a country such as Haiti, is electricity is not a given.  There is city power, which is not on all of the time.  It is sporatic.  When city power goes off, we have an inverter that cuts in in which we then have electricity in a limited way.  After a time of being on the inverter, we require more power to operate adequately, so we then turn on our generator that can run the whole campus, but it is costly.  Also, in a rather complicated way, our water supply is connected to our power supply.  We do not take power for granted.
When we came in the fall of 2011, the batteries were old and in need of being replaced. They were no longer reliable.
With the generous support from you, we had a surplus of funding so we were able to give additional help to the this ministry.  We put the funds towards the purchase of new batteries for the inverter. There are 42 of them at approx. $100 each. The inverter now works like a charm and is reliable when we need it to be.  Thank you.
Here is a photo of them.

A Look Around

This is the progress on the first house in the Children's Village.  It is a duplex and teams will be continuing to work on it throughout the next several months.

This is a gourd tree that grows on our campus.  They are quite large now.  They would be used as bowls or scoops once they have been cut opened and dried out. On the lower left of the photo is a bee hive where we get fresh honey from.  Yummy!

Going backwards..........
Preparing to leave, Christmas tree out of the house and moving one car outside so Scott can use the garage.  Scott moved the snow so Wade could drive in, but it was warm enough that day we got a little stuck and laughed our 'heads off'  trying to move it forward enough so it would be out of the way. Eventually, Wade just backed up and ran for it!  It's there until the snow melts or until June.

Settling in.....

These past few days since we have arrived have been busy getting settled and starting to get organized for teams of all sizes arriving and departing and planning a few activities.  Wade has spent some time working at the Childrens' Village cleaning the area around the first childrens' home so more work can be done on it as teams start to come down. 
The pastors' conference that started the day we arrived ended yesterday.  The attendance kept growing, so by the end there were probably about 300 here. It was really well organized and the people of Haiti Arise church who hosted it managed to keep all these folks fed and watered!  
Also, want to let you who are reading this that Wade's Dad has been hospitalized since we have arrived and will be unable to return to his home.  So other living arrangements will have to be made for him.  We would appreciate your prayers as we don't know how this will affect Wade's status here.
Today, we had a great worship service and soon we take off to the beach with a couple of guests and Roy and Joe, who are two other long-term missionaries here to help with construction and maintenance. Then we get to go to the 'Goat 'n' Coke' - the local restaurant for supper with Marc.  Can hardly wait!  Until next time..............

Hi from Haiti

We arrived yesterday safe and sound.  Our day started at 3:45 a.m., so by the time we got to campus here in Grand Goave, it felt like mid afternoon even though it was only 9:30 a.m.  The airport in Port au Prince has been completely renovated in the past year.  The arrival area is beautiful and all indoors complete with nice restrooms and refreshments available.  It is also well guarded.
Another nice surprise is that the tent city beside the airport is gone and that area is now a grassy field - even the garbage is gone.

However, before we were out of the city, a reminder of where we are was a huge garbage dump with several people digging through it with sticks looking for something of worth to them.

We arrived here to the news that there is no internet service at all.  So today we went to a neighboring town (Laoguone), to purchase some 'sticks' from a Haitian company with a months worth of useage.

There is a ministers' conference going on right now and for the next few days.  It is for Haitian pastors from the area and there are speakers here from Mexico, Washington and Red Deer.  The ladies from the church are cooking for them, which means about 150-200 people, so they are busy from sunrise until after dark!  Everything is cooked over an outdoor fire.