We’re in the States for a few weeks and have some downtime to share what we’ve been up to recently. We wrote last month about Christmas and the fun we had with kids assembling solar cars and running them through some obstacle courses.
Most of January involved working on finances, budgeting, payroll updates, work contracts, food distribution, expanding the daycare, and some special events with kids. It was a lot to squeeze into a month!
Daycare for Family Preservation & Job Creation
Our daycare was opened about two years ago. Our main mission for the daycare is to create a safe place for infants and children to learn and be loved. In our vision it states, “we want to create a safe space for the infants and children that are vulnerable in our community.” If a mom and/or dad do not have a safe place to put their child while they go to work, the parent cannot work. In some cases they may even take the child to work with them. This creates a financial burden which sometimes leads to a difficult decision of what is best for that child, another family, an orphanage, etc. Our goal is to keep that family together by providing free child care while they work. We have hired Haitian teachers to care for the kids (job creation), as well as a cook for the kid’s meals while they are with us. They are dropped off in the morning and most stay with us until late afternoon.
These kids learn many life skills appropriate for their age, play, learn their alphabet and have lessons from the Bible. There is also nothing like sipping on a Haitian cup of coffee in the morning and hearing the kids and teachers singing worship songs together. Currently we have 16 of those precious kids arriving each morning.
We currently have had a waiting list for the daycare. We are reaching out to other churches in the community to possibly open a daycare in their churches that we will help with. Please be in prayer about who to talk to, that they are open to hosting a daycare, and that the needs of these kids and families can be met.
Activities for Kids
Our crazy schedule of meetings to oversee the care of the kids and the operation of our campus keep us very busy. We continue to build into our Haitian staff to get them closer to being able to run the campus independently. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to organize and participate in regular activities with the kids. We’re thankful when we have help with that!
We had a special guest stay with us through most of January to learn more about Hands and Feet Project and to help with a wide variety of things such as kid activities, pictures, and organizing things on campus.
Florida Furlough
We are in Florida for a couple of weeks for a regularly scheduled furlough. There are a few things going on in Haiti that continue to need your prayers:
- Covid-19 cases have been increasing in Haiti over the last month. See the Daily New Cases graph to see the current numbers and trends. We have renewed our efforts to protect our kids and staff with restoring the hand washing stations on campus and advising mask usage off campus.
- Political unrest continues as the opposition pushes for the Haitian president to resign. Protests are planned for February 7, but may start before then and continue well after that. Please pray that the protests are calm and that they end quickly.
- US travel restrictions recently implemented by the CDC make it a significant hurdle to return to travel from Haiti to the States. The health care system in Haiti is already strained, and it does not currently have the resources or capability to meet the requirements of getting tested for Covid and getting results within 72 hours. This article in the Miami Herald talks about some of the challenges international travelers from Haiti and the Americas face.
We’re thankful for some cool weather in Florida, but the 50’s feel much colder than we remember! We don’t have enough long sleeve shirts or jackets with us to be outside for very long on cooler days. We’ve found some nice places to enjoy some short hikes, and Denise is happy to be friends with the new cat at the place we’re staying!