Up to this point I have tried to stick to posting on a day by day timetable. I wanted you to give you a sense of how things progressed chronologically. Today is Wednesday morning and rather than detail the specific projects the mission team is working on that specific day I thought I might discuss some of the broader aspects of what is going on around us. Time is the theme, and there never seems to be enough time to do everything here that needs to be done.
I know in my first posts I spoke briefly about the Christian Light School, who are our hosts for this trip. Sherrie Fausey started the school in 2000 and today she has more than 250 Haitian children attending classes on a daily basis.
Students line up before school to salute the Haitian flag and sing the national anthem
Students line up in the courtyard as they prepare to go to their respective classes.
Many of these children would not have had the opportunity to attend school, and the majority of those who did attend would not have continued to complete high school. Sherrie’s mission is to provide a Christian based education to Haitian children so they can become the future leaders who can work to solve the many oppressing issues facing this country. You can learn much more about the Christian Light School and the Christian Light Children’s Home orphanage at http://www.clshaiti.com.
In 2004 Sherrie recognized that the most malnourished children were infants and toddlers too young to attend school. She began the Little Angels Nutrition Program that sends workers out daily to the surrounding community to give these very children food and vitamins as well as weigh them and attend to their medical needs. The workers go the children’s homes, which is a highly compact area of makeshift structures surrounding an area known as the Ravine. Below are some pictures of the surroundings and workers providing food, vitamins and care to the children.
Below are some pictures of the Ravine area where school workers take food
Along with the ever present maintenance projects, several of our team members have had the opportunity to interact with the students, and in some cases actually teach in the classroom.
Here you see Janine Cazell teaching the the 10th grade biology class.
Time has passed quickly while we have been here, and our time here is rapidly coming to an end. Today ends the time the youth group is spending on LaGonove Island. They boarded the 7:00 a.m. ferry to go back across Port-au-Prince Bay and rejoin us here at the school.
Today also marks our last full day in Haiti, and we are hoping we can get the entire group out of the compound for a few hours and visit a few sites up in the mountains just to our southwest. There are several tourist spots there and we are looking forward in seeing some of the beauty of Haiti to contrast the poverty conditions we have been surrounded by since we first arrived.
It will be good to have the youth group back with us again. We have missed having them around and the children here have been asking when they will be back. They should have some great stories about their time on the island, and I hope to get that posted sometime later today along with pictures, and I am anxious to get these stories posted.
Until then, good morning from Haiti.
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