What a nice day! The weather was still hot but there was a breeze, and it felt good. We finished the house, and it looks great!  What a difference from when we started.  Many people may be questioning why a team would go all the way to Haiti to paint a building and, before I left, I wondered myself.  But now I know.  The people who live in that housing are the nurses who work at the hospital. They are Haitian woman who chose to stay in Dessalines.  Instead of taking the training and moving somewhere else, they stayed here.  This hospital is nothing like any hospital that you would see in the US.  It is small and basic, yet they service around 200,000 people in this area. They are the only hospital around and are very busy.  When we finished that house, you could see the pride on the people’s faces. One woman told us that she had lived there for 22 years, and it had never been painted. Painting a building is a small part of God’s huge plan.

We gave out water filters to the nurses and gifts to their families and when we left, there were very big smiles on their faces.

Dinner was spent with our team and the families of the people who worked with us during the week.  What a joy to meet them and interact with their children!

Tomorrow (Friday) we go to Port-Au-Prince. We will see what the Lord has to show us there.

I doubt that I will get a chance to post tomorrow so we will see you all soon!  Thanks again for your continued and consistent prayers! 

Hello to all our friends and family!

A lot has happened today! Every morning a group of four people walk
over to the hospital for devotions with the patients that are waiting
to be seen and then go into the hospital to pray with patients. Today
was my day to go. There were at least 25 -30 waiting to see a doctor.
Many of them were pregnant.  We saw some sad stories and some happy. I
was able to hold a 10 hour old baby and, boy, was he cute! I was amazed
that the mothers would just let us pick up the babies. I don’t think
that would happen back home!

The whole group visited the Free Methodist Church and the school that
is run by them. It is very different from our facilities. They have
600 kids K-12th grade. Out of that, 200 are sponsored by the International Childcare Program that many of you are a part of.  The really cool
thing is that the money for that sponsors the child but it also runs
the school and allows other children to come to the school at a very
low rate. Last year, the school was named one of best schools in
Haiti. They had 100% of the students pass their exams (something like
a MEAP in Michigan). How awesome is that!

Our next adventure was the Wednesday market. WOW, that was just plain
crazy.  This is something you have to see to believe. I have included
a picture below. The sights and smells are something that I won’t soon
forget….unfortunately : )

The orphanage was next on the list. We brought dresses, shorts, toys
and balls for the kids. When they first came over to us to get their
dress or shorts, they were very shy, but that did not last long. By
the end of the visit, we had to peel the kids off of us. It was a lot
of fun.

The last item on the agenda was to take the water filters to the
church and give them to some of the families. Roger is our filter
expert and he will give the families some training in how to use them.
Needless to say, your donations are doing great things. Randy (the
missionary working with us) is overwhelmed at the amount of work we
have done and items that we brought.

Tomorrow it is back to painting.  We hope to finish it so that when we
leave for Port-au-Prince on Friday, with go with a sense of
accomplishment.


Thanks for your continued prayers!  

Hello to all! We are all safe and doing well.  Last night was interesting. The election results were announced yesterday, and I have never quite experienced hearing a whole town erupting into cheers, screams and everything in between.  It sounded like it was in a stadium watching a football game but instead it was the whole town.

This morning we went back to the nursing housing and continued to paint. It rained last night so it was more hot and humid than yesterday.  We are making good progress and hope to finish before we leave.  We have started taking small groups to the hospital in the mornings and that has been very emotional.  This afternoon the women are going to the church to talk with some of the people. We are trying to make a plan on how to give out the materials and items that we brought with us. Not an easy task.

Thanks for your prayers.  

We started painting today. We are painting a 2 story building that
houses the nurses for the hospital. We have many children around us.
They are very friendly but again, it breaks our hearts. One asked me
if he could have my flip flops.  Of course,  he had nothing. We are
hoping that some of the things we brought will go to them. That will
be cool to watch.

Wow, talk about culture shock. We left Miami at 7:45 and arrived in
Haiti by 8:30 their time. Because Haiti does not do daylight savings
they are an hour behind.  We went through immigration and went to get
our bags. As you leave the airport, there a million men and boys,
trying to take your bag so that you will pay them. It was crazy.
Driving thru the country and seeing the devastation and poverty broke
everyone’s heart. I imagine that is only the beginning. The internet
access is limited here. I can’t put pictures up at this time, but we
will have them available when we get back.

Greetings  from Haiti,
First things first, we are here and everyone is safe. We had a very
uneventful Friday flying out of Detroit and into Miami. I just want
you to know, Miami Airport is not really all that nice.  Detroit is
much nicer. By the time we got into the airport and checked our big
suitcases for the night, it was late. We headed to the hotel and
called it a night.

This blog will be used to communicate what is currently going on with the mission trip. When the team is in country, we will use this site as a journal describing the experiences and happenings of the trip.