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.