New Tool for Eye Clinic

Two weeks ago, Saturday February 6th, I was privileged to spend part of the morning with the eye surgery team from Des Moines Iowa who were working at the Pignon hospital. They had graciously allowed me to refer about 40 people to them for cataract surgery and other consultation and treatment that is beyond me. And now they had offered to train me to use a Tono-pen – a portable, simple-to-use instrument for measuring intra-ocular pressure to see if someone might possibly have glaucoma.
Virgil and Linda were my teachers and explained the care and use of the Tono-pen and showed how to use it

and then coached me as I learned. They were kind enough to say that I did a very good job. If they were not being just kind, it is as simple to use as was advertised.

One of the most poignant parts of the morning was that I got to test a young woman who had lost part of her left arm in the earthquake. She needed help walking to the place we were working and her face had a very frozen aspect the whole time we worked with her. After I checked her pressure, I asked if I could pray with her. After she was seen at the next exam station, they called us over to pray with her again. It was good to see her later in the snack bar after she had gotten a pair of glasses. She had an energy drink mixed with evaporated milk and was talking and smiling and animated. Please keep Carline Pierre and other earthquake victims in your prayers.

The team was working with 2 Tono-pens and when they left they gave HAFF one of them as well as a supply of glaucoma medication. So now Becky and I will be able to offer another service to the people coming to the HAFF eye clinic. Please pray that I would use the instrument properly, that I interpret the results wisely and that it would be a blessing to the folks who come.

School is Back in Session

Monday school opened. While the students did not come in uniform, and there were only about a third of the them at devotions, school has started. Met Phanes said in devotions that morning that the next day the students could come in uniform – always a good thing since it lends official authorization to the opening and lets everyone know that things are getting back to normal.

Please continue to pray for the schools throughout Haiti, including HAFF's Bohoc Training Institute. The Ministry of Eduction has yet to determine how to help those students whose schools have been destroyed by the quake. The local inspector for this area seems to think that our headmaster will be able to submit a form for those students transferring into our school. Pray that it is so. Also there are still questions about how the national exams will be done, if the school year will be extended, and, if so, will the time be taken from the Easter break, other national holidays or added on in June and July or some of each.

Continue to pray also for those people who were in Port-au-Prince during the earthquake. Many of them still have the tendency to run when they hear sudden noises and they are still having trouble sleeping. Pray that the Lord, the Father of all comfort, would lay His healing hand on each of these people.

A Busy Week

Well, it has over a week since I have posted anything! I am so sorry. But it has been a week busy with meetings and details. I spent 2 days getting letters out to 41 people as “passports” to see the Des Moines eye surgery team that is coming to Pignon Thursday. And, since last night, I have had a struggle to get photos to up load to the blog site, so, I will only be able to post two of the photos!


There were also many meetings during the week with the CRC – Community Leaders' Committee – and the young people. The CRC provided 133 families with a box, tote, bucket or bag of clothing, toiletries and other items yesterday from 6 locations. The distribution was very well organized. The committee had lists of families for each location and a representative of each family was invited to be present at a certain time. Each family had a card, and as their names were called, they came, presented their card and received their box.

The young people's meetings have been about mobilizing the youth of the area to help those around them. In the second meeting, there were over 120 youth present. There was a very moving moment when all the young people were asked to stand up who were in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake. As you can see in the upper right part of the collage, it was about half the group of young people. The two photos of the young men, Pastor Jean Claude and Louine, are just 2 of those spared to us. At the third meeting, the youth committed to inviting people to a 3 day evangelistic crusade and to planning a VBS for the children. Some also volunteered to visit homes with refugees to pray with them. And they organized themselves by areas to motivate the young people in their area to become involved in the community activities to help others.

Met Claude, HAFF's Project Healthy Family coordinator has also been busy. Each time the HAFF generator is running, he gets out his wonderful machine, mixes salt and water and pours the salt water through the machine 7 times for the electrical charge to convert the salt water to a chlorine solution suitable for purifying water. He is making more of the solution than usual these days to provide for the increased needs of local families for clean drinking water for the additional people at their home. Met Claude said that a regular sized box of salt will make one gallon of solution which will be able to treat many many gallons of water.

And finally, on a light note, you have heard of farm fresh eggs, but have you ever heard of office fresh eggs? A couple of weeks ago, Colin walked into the office and found things on the desk to be in a bit of disarray. Then, as he was straightening things up, he discovered an egg on the desk! He brought it home for breakfast. A few days later, he was rummaging in the trash can looking for something he had mistakenly thrown away and found 3 eggs! I am not sure how many eggs the office chicken has laid at this point, but right now, she is sitting on 2 in the trash basket. Friday Colin and Greg and Met Telius and I were all working in the office and she was sitting on her eggs. Each time someone moved, or someone new walked in or Greg's dog got too close, she would squawk! We have had a good time and some lightened days with the office chicken.

Cape Coral Florida Shipments

There's been a whole lot of sorting going on at HAFF. And more will be done!

This photo collage shows three boxes of medical supplies being sent to doctors in Hinche and many boxes of clothing, shoes, toiletries and other items being readied by Gabi, Barb, Mme Destorel, Carla and Rachel with two of Rachel's friends. There were 41 boxes and counting when I was last at the depot! These supplies were sent in by small private plane yesterday directly to Pignon from Cape Coral Florida. They are the gift of at least 2 of HAFF's supporting churches in the area. And this was only half the shipment! The other half was given to Jean Jean and Kristie at UCI. The boxes will be made available to the families who have received refugees.


But wait! There's more! Another plane came in today. And another will come tomorrow. Colin was sorting boxes in the back of the truck while Carla and Rachel's friends Evens and Wilnot start sorting more medical supplies and toiletries.

These items will be a huge blessing to the refugees who have often come with a small back pack or even just the clothes on their back. This is the start of normalcy for so many. Thank you all who helped and thank you all who are helping in similar ways in other areas.

In the mean time I have been working on getting over 30 letters out to the people that we are sending to see the eye surgery team at the Pignon hospital in February. The letters will single out the people we have made prior arrangements for from the people who have just walked in that day. This is a great privilege the Des Moines eye team has given us and a great blessing to the people in the communities we serve.

Money for Market

Thank you everyone for your generosity. It is being put to good use and this is just the beginning!

Exciting things are again happening in Bohoc area. With the trucks that we have reports on, there are now over 1000 people who have been brought back from Port-au-Prince to the area. This morning and afternoon the 67 members of the HAFF ministry team each received 1000 gourdes ($28.57 US) as a small gift to give them a bit of money to take to market tomorrow to help their families. Two of the folks who received the money made a special effort to ask me to tell everyone who had helped, thank you. They are grateful. Their thanks were all out of proportion to the amount they received. For some people that 1000 gourdes was about the same as 2 weeks salary for them. For other people, it was 3 times their 2 weeks salary and for some of our teachers it was just about a quarter or fifth of their half month salaries. But they are thankful for the gesture. And Haitians can make 1000 gourdes go farther than we can!

Also, as of 5:30 this evening, cash is being distributed directly to the homes of those 263 families who have the 887 refugees staying with them. The community leaders themselves are taking the money to the homes. The money will be given directly to the woman of the house before all the members of the household, so that all is done with complete transparency. The families are receiving anywhere from 200 – 2500 gourdes ($5.00 – $71.00 US) depending on the number of people who have been received into the home. Pignon market will be busy tomorrow!

It's a Big Job

Yesterday I had 5 meetings. Barb had 6! So there was no time for blogging and precious little for email. But a lot of planning got done.

The results of the survey the young people did is in. As of Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, there were 887 people who had returned from Port-au-Prince to 263 households. Those households are in several communities from Grand Latanier 3 or 4 miles south of HAFF to LaPila about 2 or 3 miles north of HAFF. I don't know how far off National Route 3 the survey takers went. Of those communities, Bohoc had the largest influx with 320 people. And those numbers were not including the people coming in on the 5 trucks that were in Port-au-Prince picking people up yesterday.

Those trucks needed lots of prayer. I don't know the details, but our management team meeting was interrupted several times yesterday morning by Met Gabriel's voice sounding very stressed as he talked by cell phone to the men with the trucks in Port. Barb got a call from one of the men in charge of the truck we sent and he sounded pretty stressed too. But we did get a report last night that the truck we sent arrived safely with 61 people. That puts the number received in the area over 900. And that doesn't even count the other 4 trucks.

So, we are realizing we are facing a huge refugee population and many families who will be needing help, as they were already struggling to make ends meet even before this. When the community leaders' finance commission met yesterday to talk about distributing the cash already received at that time (not the pledges, just the actual cash on hand), it quickly became apparent that there was nowhere near enough to make any kind of a difference. And this is just the beginning.

Another area of need is the emotional and spiritual well being of the folks returning and of the people receiving them. Several of the survivors have mentioned that they still see the bodies they had to climb over to get out of their buildings and that they still hear the noise of the quake and the buildings falling. Some can't sleep unless they are between 3 or 4 other people. And others still start and want to run each time the wind shakes the metal roofing on the house.

The young people's meeting yesterday brought out an idea of possibly having a week long evangelistic crusade combined with a Vacation Bible School for the younger children. And this morning, the students and teachers of BTI gathered for a service of prayer and worship and then divided into 3 groups to go visit and encourage the families of our 3 former students lost in the quake. All these activities bring healing and comfort in these uncertain and difficult times.

We are excited about how the communities and missions are working together. Keep us all in prayer for unity and wisdom and transparency and that we would do what is best.

Good things are happening in the greater Bohoc LaJeune area. The photo below is of the group of young people who met at HAFF yesterday.



But community leaders have met and the heads of missions have met and folks from the rural areas have met with the folks from the town of Pignon. And we are working together hand in hand, Haitian with American, town with country to meet this crisis together.

The following things are being accomplished as I write this:

• The equivalent of 7 trucks are being sent to Port-au-Prince to get more people out of the city.
• Surveys are being done of each house in various areas to see what the needs are – how many people used to live there, how many more have come, what is needed in the way of food and medical care. (Just a note – HAFF's Young Leaders for God are heading up the survey teams!)
• Committees and commissions have been set up to compile the information and get the money or food or clothing out to the various families according to their needs.
  Funds and food have been pledged and will start being distributed tomorrow and Friday. An effort is being made to get money into the hands of the families so they can go to market on Saturday.
• All the other local missions are supporting Dr Germinal in the clinic at LaJeune with medicines on hand and making contacts for him for more meds. The community leaders' committee will make funds available to cover his costs for treating victims of the quake, even if they are not able to pay.

We are Fine

We are fine. The 6.1 “aftershock” this morning shook the house and rattled the roof agian, but not as badly as last week and for not as long. I had just decided to get up at 6:30 rather than 6:00 when I started feeling it. And I was just thinking I should get out of bed and stand in a door, when it subsided. Greg and Colin didn't feel it and thankfully, a couple of the survivors who are back in the area didn't feel it either.

I am sorry about being so late with this post, but I had eye clinic this morning and our internet service is very slow since we were sanctioned last night for no apparent reason – we did not have usage over the bandwidth that would normally cause the sanction. So please bear with us.

Yesterday I was all set to post some good news, but the day got busy. Monday, Fon Koze was able to change money for us, finally. Interestingly enough, the exchange rate is down from 42 gourdes to the US dollar to 30 gourdes to the dollar. We were still able to get enough money, so yesterday Colin and I prepared the pay for the teachers and the dorm cooks and then we paid those who came between 1 and 2 in the afternoon.

Then at 2 we had a meeting with several of the youth in the area. It was a good meeting about forming a committee to get the youth active in participating in the activities in the area to help the refugee situation. They will coordinate with the community leaders and the missions in the area for a unified response to this crisis.

All the meetings with community leaders and youth and other missions have come up with the same priority – get people out of Port-au-Prince. That has become even more critical now with the strong shock this morning. So, the Matthew 28 orphanage, HAFF and UCI are collaborating to get 3 big trucks to 2 predetermined locations in Port to pick up people who have been contacted to be in those places. Those trucks have also been offered to the HIM ministry in Pignon to help carry relief supplies down to Port-au-Prince.

It has also come to our attention that while it didn't seem that there was any damage to homes in this area, some damage is now becoming apparent. So the committees are talking about how best to assess the damage and then help people repair their homes. In all this, the community is taking the lead and the missions are coming along side to participate at the request of the community.

Please keep all these endeavors in prayer.

• Pray that we would be able to get people out of Port safely – we hear the situation is getting quite dangerous there now.
• Pray that the community leaders and the missions and the committees can remain unified and present an efficient,, wise, Godly and calm help to the people in need.
• Pray for security in Port-au-Prince as well as in the provinces, since some folks who are from Port-au-Prince and have no where else to go are following neighbors back to areas they have never been and some folks are just getting on any truck they can to get out of town. With the prisoners from the destroyed prison and other people who are not law abiding moving out into the provinces, that raises security issues for everyone. Our area has always been proactive about security and the leaders are already aware of the potential problems.
  

Once again, thank you all for your prayers and concern and desire to help. You are precious to us and your encouragement means the world to us.

Send your tax-deductible gift to:
HAFF
P.O. Box 3421
North Fort Myers, FL 33918 (mark your check “Use Where Most Urgently Needed”)

Or go to the DONATE NOW page of the HAFF website:
https://www.eservicepayments.com/cgi-bin/specialwebapp.vps?appid=40a27221f816144b21e9f2e0d81891b8a68820b814b79fc6caf83c6a4fcf06b22f288aa4a34fa442a76b20a4eb1041b06ddf55143812b2d24b732bb1061ec667

Haitian American Friendship Foundation
P.O. Box 3421 North Fort Myers, Florida 33918-3421
Haiti cell 011.509.3726.2017 email: USOffice@HAFF.org www.HAFF.org
La Fondation de l’Amitie Haitiano-Americaine






18 January, 2010 HAFF Haiti Earthquake Response Plan


Dear friends of HAFF,
So many of you have emailed or called us over the past few days, expressing your sadness for Haiti’s situation and your prayers for the people here. This has been such an encouragement to all of us and to our Haitian friends and neighbors. Thank you for reaching out and enveloping us with your support.

Many of you have also asked us how specifically you can help with the situation down here. We apologize for being so late in getting back to you, but because so many of our community’s young people were in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake, our primary focus was finding them and getting them back home. We also have been focusing on helping the local community find information about the situation in Port-au-Prince and the status of their loved ones, as well as helping them grieve during this initial shock.

We are now prayerfully considering, as a staff, which specific course of action HAFF should next take as an organization in the coming days, weeks, and months. There is so much need and so much devastation that we want to help in the wisest way possible – in the way that God wants us to respond. After discussing and praying together, we feel that we should focus our efforts on our local community, in helping the refugees and displaced victims who will be moving here from the city. There are many relief and aid agencies that are better equipped to address the needs in Port-au-Prince. And while the majority of the devastation happened in Port-au-Prince, this is profoundly impacting people and communities all over the country – include our own community. There is in progress a steady stream of refugees who are leaving Port-au-Prince and returning home to their families in the provinces. Many of our Haitian colleagues, for example, have multiple displaced family members coming to stay with them, since their houses in Port-au-Prince were destroyed. And it is only beginning. Many native Port-au-Prince residents don’t have anywhere else to go, and many could eventually begin coming to our area looking to start a new life. With this new influx of people to our community, many local people are going to be facing more financial challenges, when they didn’t have enough funds to begin with, at a time when food and gas prices are soaring as a result of the quake. We feel strongly that God is leading us to help our local community members as they open their arms to those who have been displaced.

When a disaster strikes a nation, relief is done so that there can be rehabilitation, and then eventually development. While there are many, many areas of Haiti that desperately need pure relief, we feel that our community is in a unique position. It has been actively developing for years, and this means that our period of relief can be shorter than other areas of Haiti might need. It will be applied within the context of a community that has been growing stronger and more stable throughout the years. HAFF’s long-term goal has always been to train up leaders for tomorrow’s Haiti, and we know that God has been preparing and equipping this generation to rise up and help their fellow Haitians. We believe that in this time of immense crisis and need, God is calling HAFF to stand alongside and support our Haitian community.

HAFF has spent over 25 years in the Bohoc/La Jeune community, playing a role in its development and the equipping of its local leaders. Over the past few months, several of us on the HAFF staff have remarked to each other how truly special this community is compared to many other Haitian rural communities. There is much poverty to be sure, but there is a certain stability and together-ness here that is not seen in many other places. God is clearly and visibly at work in this area. Over the past few days of this crisis, the community has demonstrated that they are strong enough to survive this hardship. Many, many families have personally affected by the earthquake (having friends and relatives unaccounted for in Port-au-Prince), yet they have banded together to support each other – in both spiritual and practical ways – and it has been beautiful to see. And many community members – young and old – have taken the initiative by beginning to organize themselves to act. Just this afternoon, for example, two of our former students approached some of the staff with an idea for starting a disaster-response committee, the majority of which would be composed of young university students from our area. And this is just one example of the leadership within our community.

We have been so encouraged by this, and feel that as HAFF responds to this crisis, we do it in a way that gives the community ownership from the very beginning. In the next day or so, we hope to sit down with wise and respected community members, both young and old, to ask them how we as a community can respond and the role that HAFF can play. We hope to follow their lead and support them in tangible, practical ways. For example, as funds become available, we would like to help local families host refugees by providing resources such as bags of food, tarps and blankets, gallons of kerosene, and other much-needed supplies. We also would like to supplement our employees’ salaries to help cover the added costs that they will incur by housing these refugees. We also foresee that there may be a need to transport refugees into the community. When the immediate crisis is over, Haiti is facing months and even years of recovery. We know that relief money doesn’t always last as long as the need is there. But long after this earthquake disappears from the news, the country will be fighting to recover. We hope that by trusting and empowering our Haitian neighbors to rally together and help their countrymen, we will be establishing a good foundation for long-term, sustainable progress in this area.

So here is how you can get involved: if you feel led to donate, please mark your gift to be used as it is most urgently needed, both to meet immediate needs in the community and also to continue to help HAFF support the community in the future. Funds will be used to assist the community’s own efforts to help refugees and those who have lost loved ones, and to continue to invest in the development of the community in the future. Bohoc/La Jeune will still exist long after the relief and aid agencies pull out. We’ve been so encouraged this week as we’ve seen how this community is determined and capable of taking action to help those who have been most affected by the earthquake by welcoming them with the love of Christ. We want to help them do that and hope to support them in whatever ways we can. We hope that you will catch this same vision.

Finally, many of you have expressed the desire to come down to HAFF and help. We are so appreciative of your willingness to drop everything and serve. However, we all feel strongly that, for the moment, in these first few weeks, it is critical that our Haitian brothers and sisters feel empowered to take the lead. Once they have figured out how they as a community want to respond – knowing that we are there to help – there may be some tangible ways that some of you can be of assistance on the ground. And we will let you know when we sense that it is the right time for that. But until that time, please PRAY and GIVE as you are able, to allow us to have resources to pull from as we help the community through this crisis.

Thank you again for your outpouring of love, support, and prayers. We all feel truly blessed by your encouragement, and are passing your encouragement on to everyone that we see.
God bless you,

The HAFF staff
Bohoc, Haiti, W.I.