Communiqué #047
TO MY PARTNERS in MINISTRY
to the PEOPLE of HAITI
March 12, 2008
It has been a busy time here in Les Cayes! Mission teams love the cooler temperatures in Haiti during the months of January and February. Thus, we have been blessed with a multitude of teams providing a variety of services to our ministry here. In January, we had an orphanage interaction team, an evangelism team, and a dental clinic. In February, we had a medical & eyeglass team, a handyman team who did repairs for us and constructed a chicken coop for the orphanage, an exploratory team for future mission outreach and a youth interaction team! Not only do mission teams bring people eager to help the Haitian people, but also they are a great source of encouragement for the church community here. For many of the team members it was their first visit to the country of Haiti. We love when this happens as it just adds to the number of ambassadors that we will have who will be talking to friends and family back home about the many needs here!
March, April, May, June and July also will greet us with more teams who have promised to come! Wow! What a blessing these many teams are in the year 2008! With all of the teams that have or will have blessed us with their presence, one might think that they leave no work undone! On the contrary, the tasks here are countless! We are just making a small dent!
In the midst of the teams, other matters continue to need our time and attention. Five of the kids at The Children of Israel Orphanage are in the final (hopefully!) stages of their adoptions to families in the states. Five children, from outlying villages, are in the process of getting medical visas to travel to the United States for surgery that is unavailable here. Almost daily, people continue to come asking for food, medicine, clothes, shoes, school tuition assistance or to take one or more of their children into the orphanage.
Small reminders of the starkness of life in Haiti surface at the least expected times. As I was waiting outside the bank for a ride home, I noticed an old man squatting by the curb. He was reaching into the gutter to wash his hands in the water that contained tadpoles, feces, urine and green slime. Following his hand washing, he crossed the street with a few rags in his hand where he received a few coins to clean someone’s car headlights and windshield. Imagine having to live like that! Imagine how little food he must eat with the few coins that he is able to earn each day.
Some of you have recently read in national newspapers about the cookies that are made from dirt and are being eaten by people in Haiti who do not have enough money for real food. It may seem like an impossibility, but it is very true. One of our medical mission teams was screening a young patient prior to his seeing the doctor. He was complaining of sores in his mouth. He went on to tell the interviewer that he is so hungry that he has been eating dirt – not even dirt cookies, just plain old (contaminated) dirt! Can you imagine a hunger that severe???
How blessed we are! Not only do we have clothes to wear, schools to attend, jobs for employment, but we have an abundance of delicious, nutritious meals! Please pray for the people of the world that do not have any of these luxuries! Please continue to help us make a difference in the lives or the poor and orphaned!
NOTE: Check out the new photo albums where I am beginning to post photos of sponsored school children and
children needing medical treatment in the states!
Nora Léon
Missionary to Haiti & the Dominican Republic Until next time ………….