La Source Adventure

getting passed by a horse

Picnic by the beach

Back seat of the truck

Wild life


Coconut juice

Village well


Swimming

Sunday morning as I got out of bed everything

seemed to ache. I went into the bathroom and sat down and had pain where I’ve never felt pain before. No I was not sick with some jungle illness. In fact it was self inflicted. You see Saturday we went on a great adventure and 8 of us climbed into a pickup truck and headed off across the Island. We were on the only road on Google Maps found on La Gonave. This is the best road on the Island. Well as most of you know 8 people don’t fit in the front of a pickup truck. So Robin and Maddie sat up front with the driver in the air conditioning. The rest of us sat on benches in the back of the truck. What a great time we had seeing the different parts of the island. We had a picnic by the beach and drank coconut juice and the kids swam in the “Caribbean ocean”. We traveled all the way to La Source which is three quarter of the way to the end of the Island. So that is about 20 miles. It took us 3 hours to get there. At one point a horse passed us. I’ve been on several farms and have driven on many tractor paths, they are like I 95 compared to parts of this road. I have a friend here who went into the mountains he said it took them 5 hours to go 20 miles and they got passed by a man walking. How we take for granted the roads we have even if they do have pot holes. So this was my reason for my pain. 6 hour of bouncing in the back of a truck with 90 degree heat.
So here we are, with it taking us 3 hours to drive 20 mile on “good” road and my friend Caleb 5 hours to drive 20 mile is it any wonder that our Hospital is only accessible to one third of the Island. Caleb got a quote from a civil engineer on building a nice two lane paved road going 60 km across the Island. One million dollars per kilometer of road, times 60 km equals Sixty million dollars. Anybody want to pay for this project? So our emphasis is going into the unreached areas with healthcare and community development. We soon will need to buy a vehicle to help transport medical teams and get training teams to these areas. A good strong 4x4 will cost forty to fifty thousand dollar. That is much better than sixty million.
If you like remote areas and love to help people La Gonave is a great place to come and let God use your skills to bless and bring hope to the poorest of the poor in Haiti.

I have heard a statistic that 7 creatures a day go extinct. That's a lot of "things" to never be seen again. So we have bumper sticker that "save the whales" and buttons for "save the elephants" Since we are continually fund raising I have been trying to think of a way to market a bumper sticker promoting... "make small rodents extinct" or "don't save large bugs". These are the 2 things in all of creation that I really hate and they both want to live with me. Please notice that I am NOT posting a picture that has anything to do with this promotion!!

Friday evening we decide to make pizza pockets to take on our picnic on Saturday. I opened that cupboard door to find ingredients and from behind was buzzed by a VERY large flying roach like thingy. It landed in the cupboard and as I screamed Lowell came running to my rescue. He started pulling out items to search for it. His plan was to chase it out of the kitchen and spray it with bug spray, so he opened the door below the sink to get spray and informed me I might want to leave the room. My mighty hunter found a long stick and "speared" a mouse. It was a very traumatic evening. We did get our food made and finally made it to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night I had to take care of one of my kids and then walked into the bathroom. Something ran across my foot!!! Now I am standing on the toilet yelling for Lowell, who says it is gone by now. I respond that I am not leaving the toilet perch until he turns on the light!!! Now Lance comes running to see what I am screaming about and as Lowell turns on the light a balloon goes rolling by..... I have never seen 2 grown men laugh so hard. I made Lance take my balloon mouse to his room and meekly returned to bed....

Haiti Experiences

Madame Wobenson is a lovely Haitian lady that comes to our home and cleans several days a week. She is a widow with 3 children and this is a way that we can help her take care of her family. She speaks no English and I know very few words in Creole, which makes life difficult but amusing... We laugh a lot, at least that is a common language. Yesterday she cooked a wonderful meal of rice, beans, chicken and fried banana's. Today she cleaned my windows which included the window sills in my bedroom that still had quite a bit of construction dust on them. I was so happy that she did this without me trying to ask, I don't know the Creole word for window :) I walked through my room to take Maddie to the bathroom and saw her "sweeping out" the window sills with my basting brush.... it made perfect sense. It has a nice angle to it for reaching back inside the old challis windows and efficiently cleaned off all the dirt. I just had to laugh, I love the way we get to look at things differently then we ever have seen them. My windows look awesome and fingers or spoons will work wonderfully for basting. I love my life.

Home!!

 

school day for Cassie

 

 

 

First Night in Our House

Last night as I climbed in to bed I commented to Robin, it feels good to be in our own bed in our own house for the first time in 5 months. Then the question came, “Why are we doing this?” Robin was not happy with that question and neither was I, but many times that is the burning question that we are asked by good friends, family and strangers alike. The answer is complex yet simple. It has two parts that are related but different. First is the call. The call of God to do something uncomfortable and sometimes out of character, but is always where we are the most content and happy. The call of God is not about us it is about doing God’s plan and seeing how we fit into that plan. God’s call is the rock that keeps you sure when everything around you is uncertain. It is the part with a promise, Matthew 28:20 “I am with you always.” God is with us because He has called us. God gives us strength because He has called us. God gives us peace and safety because He has called us. God gives us wisdom because He has called us. The second part is the need. Haiti is poor and in desperate need, that was before the earthquake that shattered the country and killed around 260,000 people. The need is not only desperate but complex. Right now, for many the focus is rebuilding, as it should be, but we cannot forget that need existed before the earthquake. The need for healthcare, the need for jobs, the need for education, the need for food, the need for clean salt free water, and the list goes on. I find myself sitting on an Island off of the main Island of Haiti. It is called La Gonave. It is where for the last 50 years the government has ignored except to send unwanted people. It is an Island of 300 square miles and a population of 160,000 people. The influx of people post earthquake has made it almost famine conditions. There are villages on this Island that are nearly unreachable do to the lack of roads. There are villages here that the monthly income is less than 5 dollars per person. This is where I sit and where God has called us. How do we help? How can we make a difference? Again the answer is simple but complex. Through the implementation of CHE or Community Health Evangelism we intend to touch every community and every life on this Island. CHE is a comprehensive development plan that uses local people and local resources to transform lives and communities. In two weeks we plan on starting our first Trainer of Trainers class. This is the beginning to change.
Pray for us as God uses us in this place of need. Remember us in your financial gifts because you are the ones that make it possible for us to be here and do this work.
Lowell