23 April - Schools, Gardens, and an Orphanage



April 23, 2013 – Tuesday – This morning Pastor Tony showed us 3 of his schools. His organization, Mission Evangelique du Nord du Haiti (MENH), has 14 of these free schools, open to any child who is brought. If a child is older, but unschooled, he or she is still welcome. Since there is no free public education, these schools are invaluable in any vision of Haitian progress. All the students looked wonderful, in uniforms of a different colour for each school – the girls even had matching hair ribbons! At one, we saw a sewing school, which is still small. They have treadle machines (good to have where electricity isn’t a given) & charcoal-heated irons. One of the schools will soon he evicted from its premises and we visited the potential new site. Pastor Tony hopes he can put together the financing to purchase the property and build the school in time. Larry trained one of the guys at the school in the care and feeding of the digital camera we brought for them. Since we were nearby, we walked past the Pool of St. Jacques, a voodoo site. It was eerie and appalling. Then back to Pastor Tony’s to meet Evans and go visit several of the G5 gardens to see the African Cooperative Action Trust (ACAT) system, out of Africa. They certainly have a lot of potential for feeding hungry people but the learning and lifestyle changes will not be quick. It seems to be a 7-year process. After leaving the last garden, we stopped for cool drinks – you wouldn’t believe the sweating we do here – then continued to Ebed Paul’s orphanage. There we found 23 well-loved children whose health and nutrition have greatly improved since they’ve been there. They go to school. They seem very happy and social. We had a good time playing with them and taking photos. They love our “stuff” so tried to convince us to give them everything from our earrings to our baggage tags. I gave up my hat, as did Larry who also willingly lost his watch. The children’s clothes were ragged, though clean, and we heard that there isn’t always food for them. It’s hard to think of these beautiful children going hungry! After dinner the group had a long, interesting and difficult conversation about what we saw today, and where we did and did not see God. We realize that we are still far from finding our particular mission here.

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Photo Collection - Schools, Gardens, and an OrphanageSchools Gardens and an Orphage
 

1 comment:

  1. Following you all along as you journey. Love the pictures.

    Susan

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