Category: General

McGarvey News – May 2023

Denise and Randy are back in Florida after driving Randy’s parents back to Rochester, New York and visiting with friends and family there. We had some great time visiting with people while we were there, but there’s never enough time to see everyone!

We are constantly watching for opportunities to head back to Haiti, even if it’s for a short term trip to tackle some projects or address some issues. Here are the types of warnings we are seeing from the State Department. This one has been expanded to account for the current conditions.

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Haiti News Update

Haiti News

Despite ongoing issues in Haiti, we continue to thank God for His provisions for the kids in our care and the staff who keep things moving forward. It is amazing how God brings together partners to help meet needs.

The streets in Haiti are still dealing with gang issues. It seems like every week it gets more and more difficult and dangerous to drive to and from Port au Prince. In some areas around the capital, people are joining together and rising up against the gangs. As you can imagine, confrontations between the gangs and the people have been violent. There is still no news about progress on settling the gang issues and bringing peace to the country. Please continue to pray for revival and peace throughout the country.

Campus Update

We are excited to share that over the Easter weekend, many of the kids in our care spent the weekend with family. The goal for all of the children who have family is to bring them all back together whenever possible. It is a long journey to work through that process, but our Haitian staff have been diligent in working towards that goal. Our belief is that the best place a child can be is with family. Please pray that the children and families can work through these challenges on the road towards potential reunification.

You can always find more details of Hands and Feet Project and campus activities on the Hands and Feet Project web site, Instagram and Facebook pages. Updates on those sites happen very frequently thanks to our dedicated team!

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Spring 2023 Haiti Update

What have you heard about Haiti lately? There hasn’t been much good news reported from the usual news sources as they try and explain the current situation and how Haiti got to this state. We’re here to update you with some good news about Haiti.

Good News!

We are happy to share that Hands and Feet Project continues to provide food and supplies for the children we’ve been entrusted with, and the many families that we’re helping to support in some way. We’re so thankful that God continues to provide the means and the methods to obtain food and supplies needed.

What other good news is there? Here are a few things you should know.

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Hands and Feet Project – Helping Haiti – Building the Kingdom

We are working to bring you all more information about the organiation that we are a part of, Hands and Feet Project (HAFP). The organization newsletters, videos and Facebook posts often share updates about specific children in our care. They give you more insight into life in Haiti. Some of these are about their life stories (Mercidieu, Daniella and Joel), health care updates (Darbens), and reunifications (Kerby). There is information about campus events, along with videos documenting power upgrades, new furniture and conditions in Haiti. The video below (also available here) is an update about the organization and what we are doing to help children and communities in Haiti.

We encourage you to follow Hands and Feet Project on Facebook and subscribe to the HAFP newsletter if you would like more details about the organization and the impact we are having in Haiti. These resources provide additional information about what we do and the impact that we’re having.

2022 in Review – Hands and Feet Project

It’s a new year. Welcome to 2023! As we make plans for the year ahead, we wanted to review what Hands and Feet Project (HAFP) accomplished in 2022 as we all continue following God’s call to care for those in need in Haiti. This information was shared in a recent HAFP newsletter.

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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Here’s a year-end update about how things are going in Haiti and how we’re able to help keep programs moving forward.

Haiti Status

We’re really thankful that things are opening back up in Haiti. It started with restoring power on our campus. We had a system malfunction in September that disabled our power system, and it took a long time before the repair guy was able to come from Port au Prince to assess the damage and begin repairs. Then internet was recently restored and we can finally have our Haitian team working in the spreadsheets, documents and communication tools we all use every day. One of our big challenges while systems were down was getting financial information. We had to use photos and text messages to get vital information while power and internet were out. We’re so thankful we can move forward and try to catch up before the year-end finance reports are due! I have taken on a much bigger role in finances while I also train our new Haitian bookkeeper and bring him up to speed.

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McGarvey Fall Update 2022

Haiti News

James 5:16 reminds us that, “The prayer of the righteous person is powerful in what it can achieve.” (James 5:16 CEB) In this season of challenging times in Haiti, there is always hope on the horizon through our prayers and actions. There is talk of international aid to improve the security for the Haitian people, but there is also a segment of the population that does not want outside assistance to deal with the powerful gangs, ineffective government officials and outmatched police force. It is certainly a challenging situation that continues to evade a clear solution. Haiti needs the prayers of the faithful to resolve the issues and restore peace across the nation.

Haiti Flag

We are thankful that God continues to provide for the children and families in our care during these tough times. Food and fuel are scarce, leading to a huge increase in those in desperate situations. We’re still able to communicate with our Haitian staff on a fairly regular basis and help them deal with the challenges.

Travel Update

In travel news, we had a great visit with our kids and some old friends in Arizona. We had some rare downtime and enjoyed our time away. Now we’re in Rochester for a week to visit with more family and friends before heading back to Florida.

For those in the Rochester area, we have scheduled our next Open House at Panera Bread in Penfield for this Friday from 5-8PM. We would love to see as many of you as possible! If you’d like, you can RSVP on our Facebook event page, or you can just stop by any time between 5 and 8PM to say hello, and perhaps grab a drink or a bite to eat. Here’s the address:

Panera Bread Company logo

Panera Bread
2152 Fairport Nine Mile Road
Penfield, NY 14526

We hope to see you there! If you can’t make it to Panera and want to get together, let us know! We would love to see you!

Fall is Here, But Schools Have Not Started in Haiti??

It’s still summertime in Haiti…sort of

We had a great time of fun activities, events and entertainment for all of our kids in Haiti over the summer! On top of regular activities and events with the kids, we also had a week-long Vacation Bible School with huge help from our older kids. The program for this year was “Christmas in August”, and the children got to experience the love, joy, and peace of opening the Bible and learning more about Jesus and why He came.  The VBS program included lesson time, skits, creative crafts, snacks, and games.

We had plans for our annual Village Values weekend celebration, but that was canceled due to protests that prevented a team from the US from coming in, and also prevented safe transportation in and around Jacmel and Grand Goave.

Schools in the USA have all started a month or more ago. The school year was supposed to start in Haiti on September 5th, but the government pushed back the official start of school until early October due to protests regarding ongoing fuel shortages, insecurity, massive inflation and government inaction. Now the gangs have said that they won’t allow school to start until Prime Minister Ariel Henry steps down. We heard similar demands about the former president stepping down that were never met, and protests eventually let up. We hope and pray that those funding protestors run out of money soon so things can stabilize for the people of Haiti. There are still many issues surrounding the control of the country that still need to be resolved.

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And then there was a wedding….

A couple plans for what seems like forever for their “big day.” In a country that isn’t considered “third world”, you can pretty much count on your wedding happening on the day you plan it and things going fairly smooth and as it was planned.

Wedding setup at Hotel Cyvadier Plage

This past week you may have heard that the country of Haiti again, was on a lock down. Road blocks and protesting because of so many things that the people in Haiti are just plain tired of. You can read more about it in our last blog. While the city we live in was pretty much stopped, there was a couple who had planned their wedding for this past Saturday. Waiting for this day, to become one. I am sure that the whole week was spent just not knowing if the wedding would happen the way they planned it, let alone at all.

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Fuel Shortages in Haiti

We are so thankful that God continues to lead us and provide for us, for the children we help care for, and for Hands and Feet Project, even when the times are tough! Here’s an update on what’s going on across the country of Haiti as many people here struggle to survive. We continue to share the message of hope in Christ to the kids in our care, our staff, our church and those we encounter in the community. Thank you all for your prayers.

Have You Ever Experienced A Fuel Shortage?

Most of us have either experienced a fuel shortage or have seen vehicles lined up at gas stations for fuel in the midst of a fuel shortage. What sort of impact has a fuel shortage had on you? Has it impacted your driving habits so you don’t go out as often? Have you used the smaller car that’s more fuel efficient rather than the truck or SUV? Have you ever been concerned about a fuel shortage affecting the electricity at your home or work?

Fuel shortages happen frequently in Haiti. The challenge here in Haiti is that the country basically runs on 3 types of fuel: diesel, gasoline and propane. The vast majority of city power is provided via diesel generators. A lack of fuel over a long period of time in Haiti can virtually shut the country down, from communications to businesses and transportation. Reserves are very low, even for the places that plan ahead and ration fuel usage!

Gas line in Jacmel that blocked traffic recently
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