C3 Food Container

The food container from C3 arrived this morning and had to be off-loaded, the container placed on the foundation and then reloaded. This took nine hours for all kinds of reasons. This was not one of our best days.

Visitors from Cross International

Tony Barbieri, Father Rich White and Mike Henry

We were visited twice by our friends at Cross International in two weeks. Above is the second group. Tony works with the Food Project, Father White preaches for Cross and Mike heads up the AIDS PEPFAR-NPI Project.

Mea Culpa

Sorry about my absence but we have been swamped with work lately and then I caught a bug. Will get back in the swing of things very shortly.

FM

Jorghens Dorlus

While I was visiting Sitwon, Jorghens asked that I photograph him so I complied. He is 18 and works hard but he's not academically inclined. Jorghens hopes to be a carpenter someday.

Finishing touches

Scoobie standing by the new mini-African toilet facility in the northern village known as Sitwon.

Wilkens and Martin painting the showers for Sitwon.

Both of the above were made possible by a grant from Rotary International. We are indebted to them for their faithful support.

Jiles Samson

Samson is 14 and he loves riding a bicycle. He is also crazy about little cars and has made several from empty juice bottles and trash. Guess what? He wants to be a mechanic when he grows up.

Janelle and Sonsonn

Janelle practices on the chimes which we use at every Mass.

Sonsonn is 12 and loves going to school.  He is vivacious and real curious.

C3 foundation

C3, a Christian non-profit, provided us the funds to build this foundation just behind our food warehouse.  We will be putting two 40' containers on this elevated foundation which will serve C3 as a food storage depot for their missions in southern Haiti.  It took our guys only a week and a half to create this.  Bravo!

Susan's swim

Susan Midgett did as she promised and swam the open waters from Alcatraz to the mainland.  She has raised just over $80,000 and needs your help to make it to her goal of $100,000 that will go to help build a medical-dental clinic for our children and poor neighbors.  We are very grateful to Susan and her family for this exemplary devotion.  See this article in her hometown paper:

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/09/13/article/woman_swims_from_alcatraz_to_raise_money_for_orphanage_in_haiti

Patience

There will be some time before I can post anything as my computer is ill.  Please bear with me.  

Last "t" crossed.

You might recall a few months back I posted about our finally getting non-profit status here in Haiti. Well, there was one more thing we needed before we could actually use our tax free status: the government had to publish our name in the official newspaper which happened this week, a year after our certificate was signed by the proper authorities.  It took us just over five years to work through the bureaucracy and here we are.  Phew!!!

First timers

The above three people visited us for the first time but they say they'll be back.  From left: Lori Lampert is a Methodist minister from Missouri, Stephanie and Neil Cohen come from just outside Chicago.  It was a pleasure to have you here and we look forward to your return visits.

Claire DeSoi

Claire is our Medical Director's daughter.  She just graduated college and has decided to join us for the next four months.  She's working on putting all our medical records in a database.  Thank you, Cynthia, for sharing her with us.

Meet Natalie

This is Natalie Amyotte who will be with us for six weeks.  Natalie comes from Ontario and is bilingual.  She's working with our accounting staff.  Pleasure to have you here, Natalie.

Chris Stout

Chris is here to help us write up a Strategic Plan that should guide us for the next few years.  It's a comprehensive project and quite a challenge.  A Strategic Plan is essential in determining what projects get priority, which programs to reinforce or cut back...

Thanks for your time and energy, Chris.

Dental Clinic

Doctor David Littlefield with Judex and patient

Dcotor Fred Haight with Misterline and his son with patient

Doctor Chuck Tozzer and Alan, his assistant, with a patient.

We have been graced with the presence of three dedicated dentists this week.  Alan set up all the equipment and did triage this week so the docs could come in and they did at full force!  What a gift they have been to us!  Most of our children have never seen a dentist so imagine the work that was done.  This is just the beginning!  To Doctor Tozzer who has made this happen:  THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH !!

Dentist's work?

After thirteen stitches, this is what Dickenson's foot looked like.

Linda offers some TLC.

Doctor Fred as he sutures Dickenson's foot.

Late this afternoon Dickenson was brought to the Quad after injuring himself playing soccer.  Thank goodness Doctor Fred was here to attend to him.  Doc. Fred may be a dentist but he is first and foremost a physician who cares for the patient.  He cleaned the wound and sutured Mickenson's foot.  Thank you, Doctor Fred, for Mickenson and for the children who benefitted from your care.

Portland, Maine

Portland resident and Theo's Work board member, Rob Morris has organized a fundraiser to allow Forbes Magazine's Most Livable City in America, to help support the growth of another wonderful place, Hope Village in Haiti. He selected Labor Day, the date when our nation celebrates the hard-earned rights of the United States workforce, in order to contrast Haiti's restavek system, the current slavery situation many Haitian children are living.

Named for the Creole term meaning to "stay with" the practice at its best provides children, food, clothing and schooling in exchange for completing light chores. Unfortunately, it rarely operates at its best and often means that children work from morning to night with only scraps from their owner's table to eat and a floor to rest on.

Gulnara Shahinan, author of a special study commissioned by the United Nations, estimates that 300,000 children are trapped in this system that subjects them to multiple forms of abuse. Unfortunately the conditions in Haiti are so dire that many parents must select the restavek system as an alternative to watching their children perish before their eyes.

I copied the above from our website, freethekids.org, so that you can see what is happening up in Maine this weekend.  We are grateful to Rob and his wife, Nancy, for organizing this event from which we will benefit.  What good friends we have!