Welcome Father's House Team

The Father's House Team arrived yesterday from Vacaville, California.
They are a great team with lots of young energy.  We are looking forward
to having a good time together!

Fun Friday!

 

This was a week full of projects and fun with some chaos sprinkled in!  The teams held a two day children's program Thursday and Friday.  They had singing, stories, snack and tie dyed shirts.  There were 175 present to do a shirt.  They dyed the shirts on the first day and then the teams had to hang them all to dry on the roof in time to give them to the kids to take home with them on the next day.  It is for times like this that we are glad for the hot sunshine!

We also had some people painting the guest house not far from our campus, some assembled some furniture for the duplex at the Children's Village, while others are repairing the fence around the school.

Roy poured another section of the roof on the new elementary school and the students had a rousing three hour Valentine party at our school!



 

 

 

 

Welcome Teams!

We welcomed two teams this past week.  It has been a busy week with them - thus not getting this posted until now.  These teams have been here together before and chose to come together again.  It is so fun to see people from two parts of Canada become friends.  Bethel Team is from Three Hills, Alberta and Impact Kingston is from Kingston, Ontario.  We are having a great time together.

Bethel Church Team

Impact Kingston Team

Haiti ARISE Buzzing with Activity

We welcome a team that has not been to Haiti ARISE before - except for two of them.  They are an energetic group of 14 of all ages.  They are here to build the bunk beds for the first two homes at the Children's Village, work on the electrical system there and some of them are holding a dental clinic for the elementary school children.  The clinic includes a teeth brushing demonstration and a fluoride treatment for each of them.
Lisa and Kathleen (from Red Deer), have been busy painting murals on the first house that will soon house parents and shortly after that, the first children at the Children's Village.  Check out the pictures.....

Trinity Lutheran Church form Brooks, AB

Sixteen frames for the beds

 

The youngest member of the team sweeping out the
house at the Children's Village

Technical School Kitchen

Pastor Jim, Mike, Ralph, Brad

We are excited to have this team of men from Nelson, BC here for two weeks to complete the kitchen at the Technical School so that food can be made and sold to the students.  Students attend classes as far away as Petit Goave, so it will be convenient for them to be able to eat while attending classes.

Goat Farm

There are a variety of grasses grown for the goats

 

Haiti ARISE has a 2 acre goat farm that is now in operation for the first time since the earthquake of 2010.  A group of very dedicated people who lent their expertise in the various areas of goat husbandry and agriculture have helped the progress of the project.
The goat farm will raise quality goats that can be used for breeding for good goat meat and for teaching how to best raise a goat.  There are 15 goats in it. The administrator for the goat farm and the gardens for Haiti ARISE is Berge, who is a university educated Haitian with a degree in agriculture and goat husbandry.   He was educated in a city west of Grand Goave, but moved here once he was hired.  He is always smiling and always on the move (on his bicycle) between the gardens on this campus and the goat farm.
A goat project will be started as well....a grade 4 girls (that are interested) will take a course on how to raise a goat and if she is interested, will be given two 5 gallon pails and a rope.  The pails will be for water - one for her family and one for her goat.  She will have the responsibility of feeding and watering the goat and hopefully her neighbors will notice that her goat is plump and healthy looking and will want to start doing what she is doing with their goats.

Selling surplus produce from our garden

Haiti  ARISE garden

Berge getting a billy goat to pose for a photo




Wade and Berge with the new babies

Jacmel

This week started with a day trip to Jacmel.  It is a beautiful city on the south coast of Haiti.  To get there, we drove over the mountains--the scenery is breathtaking!  We had a team here from Crossroads Church (Red Deer, AB).  A couple of them were some of the speakers for the Pastor's Conference the previous week.
Jacmel has a very nice French colonial district with many tile murels and shops to buy hand painted souviners.  We enjoyed a great lunch in a hotel that has been standing since 1880.  We then went to another hotel over looking the ocean for coffee and on our way out of town, visited The Olive Tree Project - a maternity clinic that was founded and run by a young woman from Devon, Alberta.  She does great work to help expectant mothers have healthy babies.

Pastor's Conference 2016

Here are some pictures from the Pastor's Conference that is under way this week.....

Working the Registration Table

Francky translating for one of the speakers

Preparing some meat

Volunteers from the church preparing food for 300 in an
outdoor kitchen

Fresh beef and fish for the conference

 

The New Year begins in Haiti 2016

We arrived back safely and with no unexpected travel kinks on Friday the first of January.  It doesn't feel all that hot here, but we well know what it feels like, so it is no surprise.  It is also 'winter' here and the temperatures are cooler and the humidity is lower.  It is very dry and will continue to be until the rainy season starts in March.
We were well welcomed!  It is great to see all of our friends again. 
Yesterday was church and it started at 7:00 a.m.! Sunday School is at 6!  We were out of church at 10:30......Somehow it did not seem that long except that our backs and hips were achy for about the last hour from sitting on a wooden bench.
We haven't made it to the beach yet.  Sunday afternoon would be the usual time to go, but we went to the airport instead to pick up one of the speakers for the Pastor's Conference which started today.
Pastors from all around the area attend - usually there would be 300-400 for the four day conference. The speakers come from North America.  Tomorrow, we pick up two more speakers from the airport.  We are fast getting reacquainted with the trek from here to Port au Prince!  It gives us time to get reacquainted with Ronald who is our driver and Haitian team host.