We’re back in Haiti after our visit to the Rochester, New York area. It was great to see so many people at our Panera open house and to be able to meet with many others! The end of a furlough is often bittersweet. There are always people that we aren’t able to see. We would love to stay longer and visit with more people, but we also feel the need to get back to Haiti and continue our work firsthand. And we miss the kids and staff when we’re away!
Continue reading “September 2021 Update”Rochester Visit – Summer 2021
August Activities
It’s been a busy month in Haiti! August brought us a great weekend of celebrating our village values of love, honesty, responsibility and obedience with all of our kids and staff. We taught about the importance of these values, awarded children and staff who exhibit these characteristics.
We also celebrated with dances and singing performed by the kids. The weekend ended with a pizza party Saturday night and a church service on campus on Sunday morning. During this month we also had some fun outings for our kids, unpacked and distributed school supplies & shoes from amazing supporters of Hands and Feet Project (HAFP). We have seen great progress on campus maintenance and improvement projects, too.
Continue reading “Rochester Visit – Summer 2021”Haiti Update – Summer 2021 Events and Activities
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!
Continue reading “Haiti Update – Summer 2021 Events and Activities”Haiti Life – Summer 2021
It’s been a few weeks since we posted anything here. We’ve posted and shared a few things on our Facebook page, but an update here is overdue. Here’s what we’ve been up to since our last post:
- Returned to Haiti
- Unpacked some amazing care packages
- Moved off campus
- Settling into new job roles
- New staff started
- Summer interns arrived
- Leadership team visited
- Trip to Grand Goave
- Network equipment repairs & updates
- Repaired computer lab…again
- Appreciation event for daycare staff
- New daycare staff interviews
- Appreciation event for other Jacmel staff
- Appreciation event for Grand Goave staff
- Schools ended for most of our kids
- Summer activities / celebrations
- Soccer games & tournaments
- Student rewards planning
- Graduation ceremony?
- Vacation Bible School planning
- Village Values preparations
- Hurricane / Tropical Storm Elsa prep
Back to Haiti
It happens every year at this time: the school year ends, we roll into summer activities and event planning, and the time just flies by as we endure some very long, busy, but fun days. This year is no exception!
Continue reading “Haiti Life – Summer 2021”Spring 2021 McGarvey News Update
Welcoming Spring
Spring is a time for new life and new growth after surviving the winter season. Every year we see the pictures of snowdrops and crocuses poking through the snow on warm days. We had many of those flowers at our house in upstate New York and looked forward to seeing them mark the beginning of the Spring season every year. This Spring is a new season for us as well.
Continue reading “Spring 2021 McGarvey News Update”Life in Haiti Update
The challenges of a pandemic and politics continue to be a burden on Haiti. They also impact the ministries and other organizations that work there. The instability continues to affect the tourism industry and short term mission trips in a big way, resulting in countless jobs lost and a significant reduction in income for many people and businesses. Here’s a recent newsletter from Hands and Feet Project that provides an overview of the current issues and the impact on each area of our Circle of Care. This covers a lot of key areas of our work and how we’re accommodating the challenging times.
If you aren’t already a subscriber to the Hands and Feet Project newsletter but would like to sign up, you can do that here. They share details and information about the programs and kids that affect all of our campuses and offer a wider perspective than our work that focuses primarily on caring for kids in Jacmel.
Continue reading “Life in Haiti Update”January Update and Florida Furlough
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.
Continue reading “January Update and Florida Furlough”Wrapping Up 2020 & Jumping Into 2021
Happy New Year! We’re thankful that 2020 is finally over, but there’s still a lot of work to do in 2021. Are you ready?
Thinking ahead about the new year before us, some of our Hands and Feet Project team have chosen words to describe their intentions for 2021. What word would you choose for 2021? Here’s the post from the Hands and Feet Project Facebook page that you should be able to see even if you don’t have a Facebook account.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Here we are at Thanksgiving 2020. What a year it’s been for all of us! Covid, travel restrictions, mask requirements, business closings, jobs lost, and election challenges in the United States. Haiti has dealt with huge exchange rate fluctuations followed by substantial price swings for goods and services. Thankfully Covid hasn’t been as big of a factor here in the Caribbean countries. There are many days we’re thankful that we’re in Haiti!
what are you thankful for this year?
In a year of challenges, can you still identify positive things that God has provided for you? A good friend? Extra time with family? Time to clean the house? Extra time to devote to Bible reading and devotions?
Continue reading “Happy Thanksgiving!”Caribbean Chronicles – Fall 2020 Edition
Fall Update
September 1st seems like it was so long ago. That’s when we returned to Haiti. It seems like every time we write an update we’re saying the same thing, but it’s so true. The time just flies by as we continue to work towards keeping things running smoothly, but also implementing changes to further improve how we care for the kids. Here’s a not-so-quick overview to get an idea of what activities we and our team have been up to since early September:
Visitors and Team Activities
- Coworkers and supporters from the States visited and helped move some programs and projects forward
- Our team visited, inventoried and evaluated each of our 11 residential houses on our campus and have been working on updates based on those findings
- Some members of our board of directors visited and completed some projects and implemented some upgrades that were a huge help – we now have 2 more working washers, a basketball net up again, improved network and Wi-Fi, better office computers, another solar light and a working lawnmower!