Bohoc Training Institute's First Day Devotions

September 12, 2005 was the first day of school at BTI and was also the first day with devotions. Fr Sol Louis was the guest devotions leader. He is a teaching elder at the local Maranatha Baptist church in Bohoc. He spoke to the students about centering their lives on God and having all their activities flow from that.

After devotions, Met Phanes, the headmaster, spoke to the students at length about what would be expected of them for the year. Then the students were sent home and there was a teachers' meeting to plan for the coming school year.  

Fr Sol's devotions talked about where our lives should be centered. He said there were 5 things -- one at the center of our lives and then 4 flowing from that. The drawing he put on the board has number 1 in the center of the square with Matthew 6:33, Psalm 37:4 and Hebrews 11:6 which talk about seeking God first, delighting in Him and coming to Him in faith.
Number 2 is "Live each day" Genesis 3:17 and Psalm 60:14 (vs 12 in English Bibles). We must work hard, due to the sin of Adam and Eve, but, with God working with us, we will be victorious.
Number 3 is Education Proverbs 4: 7 - 9. This talks about education (wisdom in English Bibles) being worth giving your all to get and how it will reward those who seek it.
Number 4 is health and number 5 is "Insurance for old age" 1 Thessalonians 4:11 and 12, John 21:18 and Ecclesiastes 6:3. These talk about living in a way that we don't need to be a burden to others. 

Bohoc Training Institute Teachers

Monday September 12 was the first day of school at BTI. It was also a teachers' meeting. I took the opportunity to take pictures of all the teachers who were able to come to the meeting. There were only a few missing. I must appologise for the photos. The meeting was in BTI's new gazebo and that meant everything was backlit. That means it is hard to get detail on the faces without washing everything out with light! But I think you will be able to see everyone fairly well.

This is BTI's headmaster, Met Phanes Charles. Met is the Creole form of the French Maitre which means master or teacher. Met Phanes is the only teacher who has been teaching at BTI longer than I have been! There are 2 other teachers who were at BTI before I came, but they were here as students. More about them below.

In addition to caring for all the administrative and government work for BTI, Met Phanes records and calculates the grades and fills out the report cards. He also teaches Social Sciences to the 2 upper grades and is overseeing and counseling the newest teachers. He works with another teacher and with Greg and me to assure discipline in the school. I have worked with Met Phanes for almost 20 years now and I can't quite imagine BTI witout him! He is married and has 5 children -- 3 daughters and 2 sons. His oldest daughter came to BTI for her first year of secondary school. He and his family live in Hinche, but he spends the week in Bohoc. 

Here are four of the BTI teachers. They are, left to right, Met Elois Joseph, Met Hermann Joseph, Met Maccene Limpreux and Met Vernio Joseph. The name Joseph in Haiti is like Smith or Jones in the United States! So, all the Josephs we have working at HAFF are not necessarily related to each other.

Met Elois is a former BTI student who has come back to teach. He is from a mountain village, Cerca Di, about a 45 minute walk to the east of HAFF. He is the official substitute teacher as well as teaching Math to the 3rd grade (see previous post) and the two remedial Science classes that I developed, but no longer teach. Met Hermann lives in a larger town, La Victoire just another half hour or so walk beyond Met Elois. He teaches Spanish for all the classes.

Met Maccene was the first former student to come back and teach at BTI. When I first came to Haiti, Met Maccene was in 4th grade (see previous post). He was in my science class the first year that I had my own classes. My second year teaching was Met Maccene's first year teaching typing for us. He has since finished his education and is teaching French and Haitian Literature for the upper grades. He is married and has 5 sons and is a teaching elder at his church. This is Met Vernio's second year teaching for BTI. He is also a former student. He teaches Math for the lower grades. He is from the same village as Met Hermann, though he stays in Bohoc during the week. 

These 3 teachers, all former BTI students, are, left to right, Se Mikerlande (Keket) Docteur, Se Youseline Pierre and Met Eribert Etienne. Se Keket teaches English in the middle grades -- 8th Fundamental year through 2nd grade (see the previous post). Se Youseline just started with BTI this year. She teaches French in the early grades. Met Eribert teaches Latin and Creole to the first 3 grades. None of these teachers is married yet. 

This is Met Dieugrande Major and Met Ernest Joseph. Met Dieugrande is a former BTI student and is teaching the Haitian Curriculum Sciences -- mostly the biological sciences. Met Ernest teaches Physics and Chemistry to the upper classes. He is married and has a daughter. His wife was in the Bon Fanm Tout Bon class 2 years ago. 

This is not a terribly good photograph -- it has too much light in the background, but this is one of our newest teachers. Met Bill Docteur. He also is a former student from BTI. He is married and has a son. His wife was in the Bon Fanm Tout Bon class 2 years ago. When we were studying conflict resolution and I messages and she was asked to say a sentance starting with I like (or love), she said, "I love Bill!" Met Bill teaches Social Sciences.

There are several other teachers not pictured here. Barb Van Schoyck was in the States. I was behind the camera. Met Gabriel Mompremier was checking on something. Pastor Phanord Velius did not get the message about the meeting in time. I do not know where Se Anthiode (Mme Gredel Desrosier) was. Se Anthiode and Met Maccene started as students at BTI the same year.

Why are these students grinning so hard?

These are last year's Rheto class. And they have just gotten the news that HAFF had received money for a scholarship fund for them to go on to Philo. Let me explain what that means.
When I first came to Haiti, the National school system was broken down into grades in the following way. Primary school started for a few children at age 3 with Kindergarten or Preschool. It then continued for 8 more years with grades called Infants 1 and 2, Preparatory 1 and 2, Elementary 1 and 2 and finally Middle 1 and 2. After the Middle 2 year, all primary school children must take an official National exam for a certificate that determines if they may go on to secondary school. For the last 2 years HAFF has hosted this exam for the primary schools in the area.
If a student passes the National certificate exam, he or she may go on to secondary school. And for HAFF, that means they come and take our entrance exam. Sixty of those who pass both the certificate exam and our entrance exam may come to BTI. We choose the students on a first come, first served basis as long as they have passed both exams. Up to this point, this is still the system in place today.
Now it gets a bit tricky! When I first came, Secondary school started with grade 6 then went to grade 5, 4, 3, 2 and then 1, which was also called Rhetorique, or just Rheto. After Rheto, there was another National exam, called the Baccalaureate 1 exam. If the student passed the Bacc 1 exam, he or she could go on to the final year of secondary school, Philosophe, also called Philo. At the end of the Philo year, another exam is taken, the Bacc 2. When a student has both the Bacc 1 and the Bacc 2 diplomas, they are done with secondary school and may go on to university or trade school.
Now, though the results are the same, for the most part, and most people call everything the same things, officially, things are a bit different. Grades 6, 5 and 4 of secondary school are now called the Fundamental Years 7, 8 and 9 respectively! After the 9th Fundamental Year (the former 4th grade) students now take yet another official National exam. If they pass this exam, they may go on to, not the 10th year, but, the old designation, 3rd grade!!! And the rest finishes as stated above.
So, the students pictured above have passed all the tests and finished all but their Philo year at their local primary schools and then at BTI. But BTI does not offer Philo. So, these young people were obliged to seek a new school for their last year. For most, this represented a real financial hardship. HAFF charges a laughably low tuition compared to all the other schools in the area, though the actual cost of their education is much higher. HAFF was blessed to have a donor offer money to be used for scholarships for former BTI students who want to continue their education. There was enough to offer all these students 3/4 of their year's tuition at their new school! Thanks be to God!!! 

Wilma's Aftermath

Thanks everyone who has been praying. Wilma was a terrible storm. And Alpha didn't help. Here in Bohoc, we got off fairly easily. We got several days of rain (no wind) from Wilma before she became a hurricane. I don't know what the totals were, but it was several inches over the several days.

Then, last Sunday, here came Tropical Storm Alpha. We got 3 inches of rain (again, no wind) from Alpha. We had no ill effects here at HAFF. But Dr Jerry got stuck in the mud on the way home from church south of the Bohoc river and had to wait a while for the river to go down before he could cross it. That is a first in my 20 years in Haiti! And National Route 3 was a river in front of the HAFF campus. We had all kinds of mini lakes all over the place.

But the people who live or garden near the larger rivers had a harder time. I have heard that some houses were damaged by flood waters. And I guess everytime the rivers are high and sweeping things away, there are people down stream who make hay while the rain falls, salvaging things from the rivers. One of our night guards was by the Bouyaha river (flows by St Raphael, north of Pignon, and then flows west of HAFF) with some of the salvagers and saw one get swept away by the waters. He was trying to salvage a board and it got caught between his legs and he couldn't get untangled. The other salvagers and the spectators were caring for another man who had been exhausted by his attempts to salvage some charcoal, and they did not see the man with the board until it was too late to help him. A young man was swept away by the Gouap river that flows by Pignon. He was "playing" in the high waters of the river and was swept away. Someone else jumped in to help him and that person was swept away too. They only found one of those bodies.

Late Sunday and early Monday, Wilma went and hammered Florida. I have finally heard from most of my Florida family and friends. My Aunt in Naples was without electricity for 3 days, but had running water, food and drink, thankfully. My Aunt in Leesburg had no trouble. My cousin in Fort Lauderdale I don't know about yet, nor my cousin in Lake Worth. I did, however hear from the folks at MFI today. Here is a copy of the e-mail they sent us from Lake Worth today.
"Hurricane Wilma crossed right over West Palm Beach on Monday and was much stronger than we all expected. We arrived safely back in Palm Beach with the planes Tuesday afternoon. The staff all went home to no electricity, damaged roofs and fences. We started putting the office and computers back together yesterday. The office is running on generator power and we have just now been able to access the internet for e-mails. The south side of Palm Beach International Airport still has no power and US Customs and Immigration will be closed until the power is restored. UPS has not officially resumed deliveries yet, (although we did receive a couple of packages yesterday). Gas is hard to find and when a station has gas you'll wait in line for hours. We hope to be able to fly next Tuesday to Cap Haitien, Port-au-Prince and Santiago (in the Dominican Republic). We will keep you posted. Please keep all of us Floridians in your prayers."

Our board members and friends in Fort Myers and Cape Coral are fine. Their yards are a mess and some have roof damage. But the power was restored quickly for some and things were not as bad a Charlie last year. Tim and the interns had their Wednesday flight canceled -- Miami airport was closed! But they are in Port-au-Prince now and, Lord willing, will be flying tomorrow afternoon from Port to JFK to Miami and then renting a car and driving to North Fort Myers. Keep them in your prayers. They have only an hour at JFK to get their luggage, go through immigration and customs and get to the Miami flight.

A Bit of HAFF History

This is Lila Clark, HAFF's founder and field director from founding through 1993. She and her husband Ruben were the first missionaries to the northern Central Plateau, Pignon area in the mid 1940's. When they arrived, they found 300 believers already organized into 8 groups. These people had experienced a life changing encounter with "the Great One", had a French Bible and had been praying for 12 years for a teacher. Ruben and Lila worked with the churches until 1951 when Ruben died. Lila continued to work with the Missionary Church Association in the area from 1952 till 1959.

Lila continued to visit the Plateau as often as she could get Haitian governmental permission to travel there. In the early 1970's Lila got a call from the Haitian Consulate in Los Angeles. They asked her to start a secondary technical school on the Plateau. At that time, she gathered her Christian Educator friends together and formed HAFF. The first class of 70 6th graders started meeting under trees in 1981 or 1982. The first classroom building was completed in 1983. By the time I got to HAFF in 1986, there were 6 classroom buildings, a garage and 3 shop buildings, only 3 of them with roofs and doors. There were 4 houses and one being built and a storage building.

Now there are 7 classroom buildings and the same 4 shop buildings. But there is also a school kitchen and now a gazebo. There is also a generator house. Out by the main gate, there is an administration building and fenced separately there is a clinic and another house. There are now 7 houses on the property and a dormatory for visitors. There is still one storage building and a pump house.

There are 2 photos below. One is of the first classroom building and one of the classes standing after flag raising with the head master and one of the teachers. The second is of the original site plan for HAFF. If you right click on any of the photos in this blog, a menu will pop up and you can choose to open the photo in a separate window. That will make it larger so you can see it better. I'll be posting more history later. Enjoy. 

This is a photo of one of the first classes at BTI. I am not sure when this was taken -- a number of years before I came. The second man from the right was the head master at the time. I do not know his name. But the man on the right is Iliobert Berson. He was the BTI muxic teacher when I came. He is now the head pastor of an association of churches based in Hinche. The church across the street from HAFF is one of the churches in that association. It is also the church in which Pastor Iliobert was raised.

Two other young men of note in this photo are 5th and 6th from the left. Maccene Limpreux is the skinny kid in the back under the second window. He is now married and father of 5 boys, he is a teaching elder for his church and he is French and Haitian Literature teacher for BTI. Just to the right of Maccene and slightly infront of him is Acene Jean-Pierre. Acene is now Dr Acene. He got his medical degree in the Dominican Republic and is now in Cuba studying anesthesiology. He has been, and presumably will be working at the hospital in Pignon. 

This is a photo of the original plans for the buildings at HAFF. The main road, National Route 3 is not apparant on the plan, but the point of the plan on the upper right is the main gate which is at the main road. Following back from the main gate the road splits at the first school building. That building is aproximately parallel with the main road. The clump of buildings like a sickle is the school. The other clump of buildings on the lower right was the originally planned housing, I believe. That never happened. Instead, more land was purchased directly behind the Haitian homes on the main road and the houses were built to the left of and in front of the school. The land for the housing clump shown here is currently in pasture for goats and a donkey. 

When I stopped in Fort Myers before coming back to Haiti this time, I learned about this film. I saw a documentary called Beyond the Gates which is the true story behind this film, End of the Spear. It was amazing and moving, encouraging and challenging. I expect this movie will be as well. I wish I was going to be in the States January 20th to go to the opening weekend. I wish I could see it in the theater. But, Lord willing, I'll be in Haiti. If you think what I am doing is tough, go see this movie. There is more information at the websites listed in my links to the right. 

How does Connie get from Florida to Haiti and back?

West Palm Beach Florida based Missionary Flights International (MFI -- see their link to the right) has been serving missions in Haiti and the Caribbean for more years than I have been in Haiti! This DC3 is one of several in their fleet. MFI flies from West Palm to Cap Haitien Haiti on the north coast usually twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. They also fly to Port-au-Prince once a week or so and they have periodic flights to the Dominican Republic. They even fly into Pignon once in a while! They also do relief work and fly work teams to areas in need like the Bahamas and, most recently, the Gulf Coast.

For the missions in the North of Haiti and many in other parts as well, MFI can be a life line. In addition to flying missinaries back and forth to the States, they fly teams of visitors for the missions they serve. They also fly in mail and cargo from the US. So, if you've always wondered why I work in Haiti, but my mailing address is West Palm Beach, Florida, MFI is why. You mail my things to MFI and they bring them to me the next Tuesday! It's a nice system. MFI will even do purchasing for me and for HAFF. If I fill out a purchase order this Tuesday and enclose a check, I will most likely have the items shipped in the next Tuesday.

We have chosen to only get mail and cargo once a week, even though MFI comes to Haiti twice. That is because it is a 44 mile, 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hour drive to Cap Haitien on the north coast to meet the plane. And that is a drive over muddy roads (see the earlier post about mud!) and through rivers. We love it when MFI flies into Pignon!!! since Pignon's airport is a grass strip, MFI can not fly up too often. They have to do more maintenance and purchase extra insurance when they come to Pignon.

If you do check out the MFI website, be sure to look at the pictures of what MFI does. There is a photo of a person wearing a silly hat and a big grin as she holds up a mail bag prominantly marked HAFF. That is me!!!

 

Storm clouds are brewing in the Caribbean with hurricane Wilma. Thankfully she poses no threat to Haiti. Florida is another thing. HAFF's board is based in Fort Myers. ECHO is based in Fort Myers. I have an Aunt in Naples and one in Leesburg. I have a cousin in Fort Lauderdale. Wilma is aiming for many of them, if not all. MFI, even though they are in West Palm Beach, on the east coast of Florida, is evacuating their planes Saturday. There will be no mail and no cargo Tuesday this week. When there will be depends on what Wilma does. Tim Motis and the ECHO interns are also concerned about flying American Airlines back to Miami Wednesday. Pray for all involved that they would make wise decisions and that Wilma would go away before she causes any more damage in areas already so badly devastated by the hurricanes last year and this year. 

The Final Choices have been made!!!

The final six women have been chosen for the Klas Bon Fanm Tout Bon -- the Godly Woman Class. Here are their photos and names and where they are from. Thanks to all who prayed us through this process. The chioces were hard, but we believe that God led us to the women He wanted in the class.

This is Se (sister) Micheline St Loius. She is from Jean Brile (which means Jean is burning or burned John!). Jean Brile is back off National Route 3 (see the 3rd map posted October 17th for all the locations) north and east of Bohoc. It is near Pignon, but still east of Pignon. 

This is Madame Jean Jille Medard from Bohoc. She is another who wanted so much to be in the class that this was her third or fourth time taking the entrance exam. She made it! 

Meet Se Rosette Orelus from Monac. Monac is about an hour and a half walk west of Bohoc out on the rolling grasslands. Until recently, the only way to get there was by foot or animal back or motorcycle.  

Se Rosenie Docteur is from right here in Bohoc. When asked how long it would take her to come to HAFF from home, she said 12 minutes!!! 

Meet Se Emanie Cherfils. She is from just up the road in LaJeune. She is also Madame Edmond Cherfils -- Edmond is a former student of mine! She wanted very badly to be in the class since she has already seen in her own life the benefits of the material. She and Fr Edmond were having a problem in their marriage and went to Mme Gesson for advice. Her advice was helpful and since then, Edmond and Emanie have wanted her to be in the class.

Here is Se Taline Olibris from LaJeune. That is the next rural area north of Bohoc on National Route 3.

Meet the first six members of the Godly Woman class.

Meet Se (sister) Roseline Dorlean from Colladere. Colladere is where the road to Cerca Carvajal meets National Route 3 (check out the 3rd map posted October 17th for places mentioned). She, like most of the women chosen so far for the class, is married. I hope you enjoy the rest of the photos of the women.

Se Judeline Lucien is a neighbor here in Bohoc! Her father, former HAFF employee Fr Paulius now runs the orphanage that abuts HAFF on the north. So far she is the youngest woman chosen for the class this year! She and the other women at the orphanage have wanted HAFF to do a Bon Fanm Tout Bon class at the orphanage for several years now. Now Se Judeline can pass on what she is learning, as she learns it.

Se Enive Metelus is also Madame Claude Aneas. Many of the women gave us their maden names. Claude Aneas is the pastor of a church in Colladere where the road to Cerca Carvajal meets National Route 3. I think Se Enive and Pastor Claude live most of the week in Hinche, about 16 miles south of Bohoc on National Route 3.

This is Se Dieudonne Jean Louis. She so wants to be in the class that this was her third year taking the entrance exam. This year she made it! She is from Lapila which is a mile or two north of Bohoc on National Route 3 on the way to Pignon.

Meet Michelene Amicy Germaine from Pignon, about 6 miles north of Bohoc on National Route 3.