Haiti Mission Trip
E-mail Saturday, July 19, 2003
Greetings, Family and Friends,
Today was full of meetings and preparations for the 3 teams coming,
starting
tomorrow:
- Met with Bob and Carol Stufflebeam, fulltime missionaries here currently
acting as interim directors of Notre Maison, the orphanage for handicapped
children.
Learned more about their progress, support they needed, and
challenges they face.
- Met with Franceli, Kalipso, Achka, and Antoine to go
over the schedule in detail for the week. We are planning transportation,
money, translators, coordination with local partners, etc. Everything
is looking good at this
point.
- Met with Jehu Metellus about the plans for conducting Bible School
for his 14 kids this week, and also our plans about painting a mural in
his house.
He was very pleased. Also, we talked about the August plans to bring the good
people from World Help and Pilot Mountain Baptist Association
(Winston-Salem, NC) down to see his program and - in particular - to see the Promised
Land, our property where we hope to build an orphanage allowing Jehu to expand
his ministry to up to 200 former street kids.
- Met with Pastor Dieusel Estivene
and his wife, the pastor who does such
incredible work in Cite Soleil, to plan for the Miami team coming in this
Thursday to work with him on children's program (350 kids enrolled), feeding
program (same 350 for 3-day experimental program we hope can later be sustained
permanently), and a medical clinic (we plan to see 100 a day). On
the medical clinic, we planned in detail in hopes of preventing fights or
riots if people wait all day and can't be seen. We plan to issue tickets in
advance... basically, a reservation system. In addition to the American doctor
and nurse coming, there will be 2 Haitian doctors and 3 Haitian
nurses, including Magda, Diuesel's wife.
- Met with Serge Alvares to plan his services as transportation and
translation for 2 different teams this week.
- Bought 2 kerosene lanterns for
Calipso and Achka so they can see. The city
power is almost never on anymore, and a gallon of kerosene ($1.40 US) will
keep them "seeing" for a long, long time. This was the deal of
the day:
$US-5 for both lamps together!
The sights and sounds of Haiti remain amazing and almost surreal sometimes.
We've been out all over the place today, driving in this crazy traffic and,
even worse, getting through it on foot sometimes.
Sights:
- A guy on the street with a chicken under his arm, head cut off. Dinner,
I
guess.
- Franceli stopping to buy 2 windshield wipers from a guy on the street.
His old ones were nubs. Cost for 2 wiper assemblies: $US-3.50.
- Saw I guess my
first ever girl street kid. There are literally hundreds (thousands)
of boys. I wish I could have loaded her up and taken her home.
Where?
- Took my guys to lunch at a pretty decent place. They had a TV in there
(rare). My guys were transfixed for about an hour, watching some Bruce Lee
thing on TV, while I was in a meeting.
- TiJon was swimming in the pool. He can't swim, but people were holding him
up and giving him a good time. Later, I saw him with his daily big silver
bowl of candy on his head, going out to the street to make his hoped-for $1.50-or-so
US per day to help feed his family. I'm planning to take him
with us to participate in the bible schools each day.
- There is a Pastors Conference
going on here at the Guest House for 3 days. Many of these men apparently
have never stayed in a place like this. There
was water running out under the bathroom door all out in the hall,
because they apparently don't know how to use a shower curtain.
All for now. Everything is great. It is hot and humid, 90 degrees today on
my portable thermom. Last night I was way HOT with no fan. That's all fixed
for tonight!
Teams
- Tomorrow, 11 come in (6 youth) to do bible schools, soccer camp,
evangelism, and more.
- Wed, 5 more come in for 3 days of elem school teacher training
- Thurs, 5 more come in for medical clinic, feeding program, and children's
work -all in Cite Soleil.
Wishing you all the best.
Your partner in missions,
Wes Morgan