Guards, Gazebos, Weather and Baby Birds

This is what you see as you enter the front gate of HAFF. This view is in the process of changing very quickly. Just beyond the tree on the left will be the new gazebo for the guards.
This is Poles the day-time gate guard sitting in the middle of the new gazebo yesterday afternoon! The footers are being dug even more today. If you want more details about this job, you can find them at www.haffdetails.blogspot.com. Click on this link or on the link on the sidebar to take you there.
Yesterday was the third day of me providing a new service for the community of Bohoc. Thanks to Accu-Weather (based in State College, PA), I can check the weather forecast for Pignon and Hinche and reproduce a 15 day chart showing what days will have rain, clouds, clear skies, wind or will be hot or cold! Fr Poles posts the charts on the brick post by the front gate. And Genius, who carries water for the houses, is always eager to see the new chart for the day! I think I am creating some weather junkies!!!

By the way, you can check out the weather forcast for Pignon for yourself -- I have added an Accu-Weather forcast box to the sidebar of this blog!
One of the joys of being a homeschool student is the flexibility of the schedule. This morning Carla Wilson mentioned that today would be a weird homeschool day. While she and Rachel were out doing some morning Agriculture work, they found 2 baby birds fallen out of their nest. We are not sure what kind of birds they are. The Haitians call them katdje (cat-djay). We are told they eat all kinds of fruit, so the Wilsons will try to raise these babies at home. But first they will have to find a way to protect them from Belle and Beni, the cats. Both cats recently had kittens (Belle 4 and Beni 2) and might think Mom and Rachel brought them a nice lunch!

Long Time No Post

It has been a couple weeks since I posted anything to the blog. Since the second Michigan team left we have been busy getting ready for the HAFF board meeting that took place last Saturday (5 May). The time between when the team left and then Greg and Barb left to attend the meeting was spent in meetings here in Haiti to get a proposed busget and other information ready for the board. Even the week Greg was gone (Barb comes back Tuesday), Colin and I were working on finding more information to email to the Van Schoycks and the board treasurer as they worked on the financial report for the meeting. Now we are busy again gearing up for 2 back to back teams from Long Island and working toward new teacher contracts for the coming school year.

New Christian Curriculum

This year has been an exciting one for Justin Mompremier's Primary School Teacher Training Program -- PALP (see 7 February 2006 post). There is an organization in Haiti called the Consortium for the Reinforcement of Christian Education in Haiti (CRECH). For a number of years they have been working on a Christian curriculum for the Primary Schools in Haiti.

That curriculum is now complete and CRECH and HAFF are partnering in a pilot program through the schools in HAFF's PALP program. Through generous donations, HAFF has been able to obtain enough books for 25 of the 46 PALP schools to start using the CRECH curriculum

Met Ostel, the local CRECH representative, has trained the teachers in the use of the books and he and Met Justin are following up with the schools.

The books are beautiful and address a different aspect of Christianity each school year giving students scripture to memorize, activities and a Bible story all relating to specific Christian character traits.

1st grade is "On the Road Toward the Father"

2nd grade is "The Love of Jesus"

3rd grade is "Living as a Christian"

4th grade is "The Holy Spirit and Us"
5th grade is "Living in Brotherhood"

Met Justin says that if this curriculum could be in all the primary schools in Haiti, it could change Haiti in 10 years. Please pray for this important program.

Guards' Gazebo

HAFF has undertaken yet another construction project! Beginning today, a small gazebo will be rising near the front gate. It will be a place where the guards can sit out of the sun and the rain and still have a good view of the front gate. It will have a palm frond roof so they can still hear during Haiti's torrential rainy season rains!

This morning Greg and Colin met with construction boss Elicien Etienne to discuss the plans.


While they were talking, the "demolition boss" was removing the last stump to clear the land for the foundation.

Michigan Team's Last Full Day at HAFF

The team's last full day started with devotions for the school. The group fell in love with the round "May the Glory of the Lord" (Psalm 104) and sang it in 4 parts for the students. The students loved it too! Then David shared about Samuel anointing David as king of Israel and encouraged the students that in spite of their youth, the Lord wants to use them.

The BTI students took it all in and with a final prayer, they were sent on to their school day.

The team then went to several elementary schools to distribute the chalkboards they had made -- some of the schools were more difficult than others to get to! But the team made friends wherever they went.

In the early afternoon, there was a trip to the Bohoc market (see previous posts) which included crossing the Bohoc river twice!
In the few spare moments during the week, there was time for a game of chess.

The afternoon was full with David teaching the 3rd day of Bible Study for the young men in BTI's upper grades. Smith did the translating once again.

The young men thanked David for his studies, noting that they needed it to grow.
While David was teaching, the rest of the team was on their final day of home visitations. Some of the visits were fun, some were inspirational and some were hard. The Americans brought a blessing to each house with song, Scripture and prayer.

The final event of the evening was the women of the team and Amy Gilbaugh modeling the wedding dresses the team brought to be given to churches for the use of brides who can not afford dresses of their own. A clothing store going out of business donated the brand new, never worn dresses. They will be a blessing to many churches and many brides. These are just about a third of the dresses the team brought.


Tomorrow the team leaves HAFF early to catch the small airplane at the Pignon airport to take them to Port-au-Prince to get the airliner to the United States. They will be travelling most of the day. Please pray for their safe passage.

Sunday with the Michigan Team

Today, Sunday the team split into 2 groups.
Most of them went with Greg and Barb and Amy to the Missionary Church Association campus in LaJeune (about a 20 minute or so walk north on the main road).

There Eric preached -- in English and Creole! And the team really enjoyed the singing.

Dave and Beth Nicol went with me and Derold Mompremier to Monac about 30 minutes drive out onto the savannah west of HAFF. There Dave preached and Derold translated.

The church was having their harvest festival. The festival is a big event starting on a Sunday evening with a week of revival meetings. It culminates on the following Sunday with a Harvest Service -- a time when they baptise new believers and youth and bring in their tithes for the year.

Other churches are invited to send singing groups so there is LOTS of special music. There were at least 14 separate groups that sang at this fete! Afterward, there is a meal. Dave and Beth and Derold and I were invited into the church leader's home to have our meal. The food was delicious, but with so many people needing to eat, it was hard to take much.

We got back to the HAFF campus in time to join the rest of the team for lunch

Then it was time to relax and ride HAFF's 40 year old donkey, Patience. Then it was off to the caves to see the quartz and the bats and maybe the pre-columbian carvings, if they have not been obliterated by graffiti.

Four Church Team (from MI & IA) at HAFF

Tuesday morning a work study team from 3 churches in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area and one church in Iowa, City Iowa arrived at HAFF.

The team brought wonderful camp chairs for the newly expanded dorm porch! These chairs make sitting and visiting on the porch much more comfortable. The straight chairs at the table get hard and old after a few days! Thanks team for the comfy chairs!

This photo has Amy Nicholson, David Nicol and Emily Van Dyke.
Here are Beth Nicol, Brandi Leep and Christine Postma.

Finally, this photo is Eric Hausler, Melanie Dawe, Mike Leep and Daniel Hausler.