Back to the Daily Grind

Well, it has been a great two weeks being back in Haiti.  I am feeling like an entire different person.  Pain is completely gone, praise the Lord!  I have energy and feel good.  Such a blessing!  However, as to not push it too hard, my team put me on mountain restriction for two weeks, so I’ve spent a lot of time on the compound. 

Meanwhile, every week day Paul has been hitting the mountains, visiting the schools we work with, making sure the students are showing up, teachers don’t have 45 kids in their class, and directors are not putting extra money in their pocket.  The area that we are in Haiti has major corruption in the school system.  Students can pay for their grades, directors are crooked as the day is long, the teachers get their job based on being family members of the directors – not necessarily on merit, some probably cannot pass the grades they teach.  Many of our youth boys are victims of this corrupt system.  One of them is 19 and in the 6^th grade, however his reading level is that of one in the 1^st grade.  How is it possible that he is in the 5^th grade and he can barely read?  Well, he’s a nice kid so he’s been passed through.  But that is until this year where he has to take standardized government tests to pass the 6^th grade.  So, without help he’ll be stuck in the 6^th grade forever and would probably just end up leaving school.  Paul and Pam are working very hard with the schools we’ve partnered with to show them a better way.  There is one school that has responded positively, so we feel grateful for that.  But there is a lot of work to be done.  In working with the other schools, it confirms how great it will be to have the new school open next year, a fresh start is needed somewhere.

We have been going on over three weeks without much city power what so ever.  Fortunately, we have an inverter system in our house so we can have power when we need it.  But one consequence of not having much city power at all is issues with our tilapia aquaculture we have on the compound.  There has been little water circulating and we were overpopulated anyways, the fish were all up at the top of the water gulping air.  We needed to get rid of a bunch of fish and change out about 50% of our water.  This was going to be a huge task.  While we had a team of Haitians pulling fish and bailing water, we heard a lot of discussion about how they don’t like tilapia and don’t really want the fish, etc.  A program is not going to survive if the nationals don’t buy into it.  Once we were done, we were ready to pull the plug on the whole program.  That is until Jean Louis (the guy who does most of the maintenance of the system) told us that people went ballistic with the fish he left the compound with, saying how big they are, and how good they tasted.  So... our tilapia is in demand now.   Now its’ a matter of changing the system to meet the needs of the community.  We went from 4 tanks to 2 the other day, having some of our youth boys help empty the concrete tanks.  The problem was, these tanks were pretty much breeding frogs.  In Haiti, some people consider frogs to be evil; it’s thought that demons live in them.  The boys would jump around and shriek if one skimmed by their foot.  It was pretty entertaining.

Other than that, life on the compound has been good.  Our team from the states is getting along well; every one is very encouraging.  It has been extremely hot here and the mosquitos are something fierce.  Since school has started, the compound has been pretty quiet in the mornings, then in the afternoons we are encouraging our youth boys to study on the compound instead of playing checkers with bottle caps. 

Please continue to pray for us as we continue on in this journey.  Pray for unity and truth with the Haitian and American team here. 

By the way, put many new pictures up in the gallery so check them out!  We love you all.  Thank you for your continued prayer and interest in our story.