Life in Haiti
Our hearts are broken for Haiti. July has been a tough month with the assassination of the president and the subsequent challenges with the investigation and apprehension of people involved. Changes were in the process of being made, but not finalized, regarding leadership and succession of power. A new leadership team is being formed to help the country move forward and solve the issues of violence that hold many of the Haitian people hostage and make life more difficult. Hands and Feet Project sent out this message about the situation in Haiti recently. If you’d like to receive HAFP messages, you can sign up for their newsletters here. Please join us in praying for peace throughout the country, and a smooth, peaceful transition in leadership. This country needs strong, Godly people in leadership that care about the wellbeing of the Haitian people.
We’re thankful that life in Jacmel continues to be calm and peaceful. Our local grocery store has been able to get supplies from Port au Prince on a fairly regular basis despite persistent problems with gangs, armed robbery, roadblocks, kidnappings, carjacking, and protests for various reasons. The local markets have been open for our kids and staff to purchase food and supplies. Schools have been open so that final exams from last school year and placement tests for the upcoming school year can be taken. It’s not long before school starts again in the fall!
School Status
Speaking of school, we are celebrating many of our kids doing well in school. Some were even first and second their classes! The rewards program we introduced the first year we were here has been a huge success. We have many more kids benefitting from it! We are also celebrating with those who graduated High School! That’s a big deal here and opens more doors of opportunity in the future.
Vacation Bible School
The Vacation Bible School program in Jacmel was a big success. We invited our younger kids on campus, along with the kids we care for in the community, and also kids of our Haitian staff come to learn about the life of the apostle Paul. It was a weeklong event that involved skits, crafts, games, Bible verse memorization, and ended with a pizza party on Friday night. Many of the kids still have the Bible verses memorized and can recite them!
Our older kids did an amazing job helping to run different parts of VBS this year. It’s great to see their leadership abilities demonstrated in events like this and to see them excited about opportunities to build into the younger kids! The same VBS program was consolidated and was presented to the kids in Grand Goave last week.
Computer Lab is Up and Running…Again!
We’re happy to say that the computer lab is up and running again! We’ve had a variety of technical issues that keep cropping up and preventing us from long-term computer training for our kids. We’ve overcome those hurdles yet again. We do many impromptu sessions on a variety of topics with small groups of kids. One of our older kids has taken on the role of teaching others and has held multiple classes on how to use the mouse and keyboard, Microsoft Windows basics, and an introduction to Microsoft Word and Excel for our older kids. It’s great to see them eager to learn, and some are already demonstrating great skills and are able to teach others. We’re praying that no more technical issues get in the way of our plans to teach computer skills.
Intern Update
We are thankful for the interest and dedication of our interns every year. We’re happy to report that our summer interns schedule was only slightly disrupted by the events in Haiti. It was great to have them all in Haiti to help with the VBS program, a wide variety of fun events and activities for the kids, and perhaps some mundane office work. It’s been a good summer already, and it’s not over yet! Randy and the interns were able to get in some morning runs in the front half of their time here. Those only happened until Randy had a flare up of a foot injury, and then one of our interns had an issue with his running shoes. It was good for Randy to get out a few times! He always looks forward to having visitors that like to do that.
Rochester Visit
We are heading to Rochester the last week in August to see some doctors and visit with friends and family. While we’re there, we will plan on having an open-house type event at Panera again. We will post details when we have the details. We would love to get together while we’re there! If you’d like us to share about the work that Hands and Feet Project is doing with you, your family, a small group, church, or business, please let us know and we will work out details for that.
Thanks!!
We are thankful for the many partners that allow us to do this work in Haiti. Your ongoing encouragement, prayers, financial support and care packages are truly a blessing. Because of your faithful support, we are able to work here to spread the good news about Jesus Christ and help kids have a better chance to succeed. Thank you all!
“But as for you, be strong; do not be discouraged, for your work will be rewarded.”
2 Chronicles 15:7