Saturday Thoughts

Sitting here nursing an aching back, is not my idea of what today should hold! For some reason, I've come under this attack and can't shake it although, I'm hanging onto the Word of God. I'm supposed to be on my way to Montrouis to teach in our Bible school but this aching back will not tolerate the jostling and bumping that takes place traveling. It's a half hour to forty minute ride. I was better on Thursday, opted to ride with Gary as he took our El Shaddai school children home and Friday I couldn't move. So, here I am, sitting at the computer, blogging, which is something I've wanted to do for a long time .......perhaps in spite of missing Bible school, there will be a desire accomplished!

I'm not at all sure how this works or who will read what I pen, but I must tell about El Shaddai Learning Center, our English school from pre-school through high school attempt to bring up children who can think and reason. El Shaddai is Christ centered, using ACE curriculum and with 25 students, we rejoice in the family atmosphere. We feed the children breakfast, lunch and bus them home. Originally, we targeted the business sector in Saint Mark, but have taken in six children who are from poor families and have several children who are American citizens. So, it's quite a mix and we are enjoying every minute of it........well, almost every minute. There are those times as in any school when children will be children and conflicts become confusing when listening to both sides. (We cry out for a spirit of discernment and lean heavily on the Holy Spirit a lot). El Shaddai is in it's sixth year, having started with two students. I teach kindergarten and first grade, Pastor Gary was recruited, teaching the largest elementary group and the high schoolers (thank God he is good with Science and Math, but when it comes to English, he calls me). May I take the liberty to insert that we are crying out for North American help at El Shaddai, perhaps someone reading this knows they should be answering the cry. We employ four bi-lingual and two Kreyol speaking Haitians who work with us to get these 25 children through a school day. We also employ a Haitian woman who cooks for the children and a man who cleans the school daily. I can safely say that we have a good staff, everyone except the custodian is Christian and we are enjoying that fact. It's taken us five years to find a good staff!

Two weeks ago we shocked to hear that one of our first graders had been murdered. We dropped him off at his home on Friday at about 12:15 PM (Friday's are shorter days, Monday through Thursday we end school at 1:45PM, Friday ends at noon, a Haitian custom ). On Saturday he was dead. It seems his throat was slit from his ear to the middle of his throat. OH! The pain of this news! Why? No one knows. Who? No one knows. When? No one knows. Steven was the step son of Alix Miot, who has yet to come from Miami where he's been for nearly a year. Madame Miot ran the business in his absence (a disco and money changing business) and word has it that she resented Steven, although, Steven never told me about problems at home. When the UN Special Investigators of high crime questioned me, they asked if there were adoption papers. Not in Haiti. Steven was the son of a very poor, peasant family. Several years ago, Steven was with his father who was selling ice, Alix came by saw the child and asked if he could take him and raise him. There is never a hesitation to a request like that. Of course! In Steven's fathers' eyes, Steven now became a hope. Being raised and educated by a wealthier family meant that someday, Steven would pull the peasant family out of their poverty. No, there are never adoption papers. Steven was six years old, had come to El Shaddai. October 2004, and died October 28, 2006. He loved his teacher and his teacher loved him. He was so smart that he was translating my English into Kreyol. Always smiling, active and ornery. When I figure out how to put pictures on this, there will be pictures. We miss him, I miss him. We gathered the children in the room we use for chapel, telling them that Steven was in heaven and how honored we were to introduce him to Jesus. The Bible has a lot of promises about Heaven, and we read some of them to the kids. Some of them were scared that they too would be murdered. Some of them didn't react. Death is so real and often here, they learn to sweep feelings "under the rug". By the way, Haiti is the most corrupt country in the world according to reports just released. Murder is rampant, seldom is there a conviction. Madame Miot is in the big prison downtown. Everyone seems satisfied that she is the murderer. Who knows? We'd like to hear of a funeral date. Steven's body is at our landlord's morgue, in the freezer. How long will he be there? No one knows.

Gary just left for Montrouis, after having to make copies of the lesson being taught today. My class will join his and miss the test I was giving them, doubt they'll really miss it!

So, we teach school five days a week and on Saturdays teach a Bible school, affliated with International Accelerated Missions out of Bern, New York, Pastor Jay Francis. He recently sent us an email asking that Pastor Gary go to Jamica and teach in that IAM school for a week or two. While that sounded like a lot of fun our schedule will not permit it. On Monday evening, we have a neighborhood Bible study, Tuesday evening we go to a mountain village, Russeau, and disciple a group of new Christians, Friday evening we have a neighborhood Children's Church and on Saturday, IAM Bible school. HELP!! IS THERE ANYONE READING THIS WHO FEELS CALLED TO THE MISSION FIELD. Jesus said it so clearly. The harvest is white, pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send LABORERS into His harvest. It's so true. There is so much to do and two people cannot do it all. Our Haitian staff is in training. None of them have the initiative to move on alone as yet. As a matter of fact, none of our staff are teachers or preachers, they are interpreters. We are training them to become teachers. So, add to our teaching at El Shaddai, a constant teaching of our staff. Sometimes it can get very frustrating.

I haven't told you yet about our band. We have the only music program in Saint Marc. Pastor Petit Homme is a good musician, and after a few arguments he got the message that our music program was going to be done our way and not the Haitian way. The Haitian way was to play the instrument in the student's presence then hand the instrument to the student and say, "Play". Play how? What do you do? For about three weeks, we listened to the teacher playing the instruments and the child doing nothing. It took a nose to nose argument to get him to do it Pastor Gary's way, but now we have a real class and the kids are learning to play, clarinet, saxaphone, trumpet, guitar, harmonica, and recorders. Yes, Pastor Petit Homme can play all those instruments! He's learning to play flute as well. He teaches notes and they learn to read them out of old Methodist hymnals that we acquired a few years ago. When I figure out how to put pictures on here, you will see them. Or maybe even a video! Pray that I understand all the modern techniques of blogging.

This ministry operates out of two rented buildings in a nicer neighborhood just above the city of St Marc. We acquired property on a mountain near here and have just begun to build the wall around it. That's a whole other story which I'll tell at the time I get a picture of what's going on up there. We are building a school and living quarters, eventually, with the hope of having an orphanage as well. We do have a dream of housing El Shaddai children from Monday night through Friday, sending them home on weekends. Some of our kids go into very undesirable environments, such as where Steven lived..........so the buildings we build will take care of needs we see daily. We have a program called COTS, Child of the Street, where we feed about a hundred kids through another missionaries' efforts. Networking like this is unheard of in our circles, but we give Barbara Macloed, several thousand Haitian dollars every month to feed the kids with whom she works. These children, many of which need housing will move into our orphanage once it's built. The wall has begun. We have to wall in the property before any construction can take place so that everything is safe once building the buildings begin. We hope to have a "bare bones" structure to move into by April, thus not having to pay rent here. We are quite comfortable where we are living now, but are willing to rough it for a while so the rent money can be used to continue building. "Bare bones" may be an outdoor toilet, no electricity.......oh dear, how will I blog?

Well, I'm going to hit PUBLISH and see what happens. Then I'll peruse the instructions again as to how to put pictures on this thing. Until next time......Carolyn