Hello and Merry Christmas! We hope and pray that you have an enjoyable Christmas season and that you take time to reflect on the birth of Jesus, the hope of the world! We wanted to share information about our Christmas adventures with you so you can keep us in your prayers.
A warm hello and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from the Caribbean!
We try to take time here and there to remind ourselves of the beauty in Haiti and not to just take it for granted. As the USA has dealt with some very cold weather already, we are thankful for a little break from the heat and not seeing many temperatures above 90 F. In this season of Thanksgiving, we want to reflect on other things that we’re thankful for….and it starts with the amazing donors, supporters and friends that are all essential to making this journey possible! Thanks for all your prayers, financial assistance, encouragement, conversations, care packages, and sharing our social media posts. We can’t do this without you and really appreciate each and every one of you.
We’re thankful for the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner we had with local friends old and new. It was great to get together and enjoy a turkey dinner with a variety of other foods and people! There was an amazing spread of dinner and dessert items!
We’re thankful for power! As I sit and write, we are enjoying power from the local electric company. We have endured 14 weeks of ongoing protests about government corruption and the many side effects of money not being spent where it would best help the people and the country. Continue reading “Thanksgiving 2019 Update”
September is always a very busy month in Haiti. The final preparations for school usually fill the first week, including delivery of new school uniforms, finalizing school shoes for everyone, getting haircuts, purchasing and laminating the last of the school books, loading and distributing school backpacks, and planning routes to get all the kids to their various schools on time. By the time September rolls around, the kids are often ready to return to school…and so are the staff!!
Celebrating character and growth with all of our Hands and Feet Project kids and staff from our Jacmel and Thozin campuses
Derek Minor and Canon on stage with our Hands and Feet Project musicians
Every year in the late summer, Hands and Feet Project wraps up the summer with a celebration we call Village Values Weekend. It’s a time when everyone comes together in one location to have a little end of summer party. We celebrate the kids and staff who exemplify love, responsibility, honesty and obedience throughout the year. We also have some great Christian musicians come to entertain, challenge and even teach us and our kids. This year the event is on our campus in Jacmel, and Christian rap / hip hop artists Derek Minor and Canon were here. Derek has been to HAFP in the past, and many of the kids really like his music.
Hands and Feet Project is celebrating 15 years of working in Haiti. What better way to celebrate than have people that originally started taking in and caring for orphaned kids in Jacmel come visit us along with people that came to visit within the first few years? This was our first time to meet the first Hands and Feet Project missionaries, Drex and Jo Stuart (parents of Mark Stuart), and we had a great time hearing stories about early successes and challenges that they faced. And with them came many people who came on teams in those early days.
Today, June 17, marks our 2 year anniversary of moving to Haiti.
When you think of all that can happen in a two year time period, it boggles the mind. That is how we are feeling at the moment. Really? Two years has gone by? We mean, flown by!
As we approach the end of our 2nd year in Haiti, there are some successes that bring us a great deal of joy. Our relationships with the kids continue to grow as they see that we’re not packing up our belongings and leaving Haiti. That’s been a topic of conversation with some of our kids as many of our predecessors left before the 18-month mark. It’s also exciting to see 12-15 of our older kids wanting to go with us to church and wanting to also attend church youth group Continue reading “Campus Life Spring Update”
We returned to Haiti on January 10 after a restful furlough. We had a great time visiting with many family, friends and supporters during our time in upstate New York and on both coasts of Florida, and wish we could have visited with many more of you! We also intentionally built in a good time of rest for us. Self-care. We have learned the value of that, big time! We are so glad we did!
As we write this we can almost guarantee that anyone reading it has a full belly. We have seen posts on Facebook all day of all the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pies, and even pizza that has been prepared and consumed. So now you have someone napping, watching football, doing dishes or maybe even out starting the Christmas shopping!
What are Village Values? Love, Obedience, Honesty and Responsibility. These are the values we strive for here at The Hands and Feet Project. Our Village Values. We talk about them, teach them, strive for the best of them in everything we do. From our littlest of kids to the caregivers, wash ladies, cooks, maintenance and our office staff.