We are all sunburned and exhausted,
telltale signs of a great day in Haiti. After spending yesterday serving and
delivering water in the slums of Cite Solei, today we drove up to Titanyen and
Grace Village, where hope abounds.
We met up with live-in
missionaries, Don and Carolyn Pugh, at Grace Village for a tour of the
facilities there. School was in session, so we saw the classrooms, feeding
center, playground, and pavilion all near max capacity with students, all in
their formal purple school uniform attire. Students at Grace School come from
both the on-site orphan care program and the surrounding Titanyen community. We
overlooked the garden, which supplies much of the produce for Grace Village and
Fleri Restaurant, and we peeked in the door of one of the family-style homes
where children who have not been able to be reunited with their biological families
live.
Before leaving the school, we got
to see a fully functioning IT lab, a rare and beautiful opportunity to expand
the students’ education! A company in Minneapolis has donated and set up over
40 new IPads, along with some other necessary technological upgrades for Grace
Village, which are already making a big impact. We looked down at Grace Church
and Fleri Restaurant from the waiting area of Grace Clinic, which now serves
several hundred people from the community each month, offering reasonable rates
for medical and dental care.
Along with our translators, Brune
and Emmanuel, we visited three women in the Titanyen community who are part of
the elder care program. Some of our group dropped to their knees in washing
feet and applying lotion, a beautiful service and connection with these sisters
of ours. Others prayed over each one, sang worship songs, and played with neighbor
children who came running with “Hey-you”s and every other English phrase they have
learned as soon as they saw the Healing Haiti tap-tap.
After those joyful encounters, we
headed back for a tour of Fleri Restaurant and Bakery, led by another live-in
missionary, Jake Stebbing. The job creation program is flourishing, living up
to its name. Now employing 25 Haitians, both from the Titanyen area and older students
from Grace Village’s transition program, the bakery makes bread that is
distributed by local vendors, boosting the local economy, and the restaurant
serves pizza and other delicacies, largely to international groups working in
the area.
Our last stop of the day was a
visit to the mass graves and memorial, commemorating the January 12, 2010
earthquake. It is a sobering experience to hear first-hand stories, realize the
magnitude of what it was like on that day and the days following, and consider
all the people that Haiti lost that day.
We wrapped up our day with a cool
break at the local hotel pool, an amazing dinner of Haitian food, and rooftop
worship. We are sunburned, exhausted, and excited for tomorrow.
-Katie
-Katie
