Day 10 Already??? Busy Day!

Okay, so we're sitting around having Omlette, sausage and mango for breakfast, and we're thinking, you know what would go good with this?  A banana.  So, we walk over to where a whole rack? ensemble? stack? branch? of bananas have been strung-up from the ficus tree and grab one.  This is the way to get fruit!!!

This has been a very busy day.  Yesterday Jean (the tent city head honcho) distributed 250 tickets to his community which were redeemed at the church for "Manna Packs."  These are full meals for one family; incuding rice beens and soy protein.  Apparently they're not overly tasty until you add some spices.  Each bag that we handed out had 5 Manna Packs, so that was about 1250 family meals.

Distribution is only done every once and a while and supplies are running low.  There's a fine line down here between keeping families fed and avoiding reliance on hand-outs.  Foursquare knows the line and works with the local community in a very compassionate manor.

As you can see we had the assistance of a couple of the locals who work for the church.  I had a great discussion with Pastor John this morning about how we are revered by the Hatians and our willingness to be with them means a lot.  It also builds the confidence and self esteem of the Hatian staff to work along side us.

After that we quickly returned to the Big House and then back to tent-city for a visit to a very special place.  I know we have problems in our public school system, but they don't compare to what Jonas has to put up with.

He doesn't get any funding from anybody, his class-size is about 36, his classroom doesn't have windows nor air conditioning, he has no teachers aids, no Smartboard, no counceller and one of his benches are broken, so the kids sit about 6 abreast.  What he does have is a giving heart, a love for these children, a desire to see them have a better future, and a great big warm smile.  Without him these kids would not necessarily be home-schooled, and they certainly wouldn't afford tuition at one of the paid schools.  He is nothing short of an angel with street clothes on.  He even makes sure they're fed.  It's summer, so he's even running the school 3 days per week.

These guys sang a few songs for us, and I shared a bit about Canada.  They asked a few questions, but mostly they gawked and wanted to hang-out with us.

We would later return to the classroom to use it as a distribution point for donated clothing.  The crazy thing about the clothing was that  we had two suitcases full of pants and almost none of them fit any of these men.  They're pretty fit in general, but none are what you would call overweight nor hefty.  We had nice neat piles of size 31,32,33,34,36,40 and 42 inch waisted slacks and jeans.  I don't think we had one fellow with more than a 30 or 32 waist; in fact they were probably 28s and 30s.  We apologized that they were "twop gwo" (too big) and suggested they use a belt and roll up the cuffs.

Across the right hand side of the schoolroom, the Beaverton Church group built a community centre in March while our crew was here; which is a covered area for people to gather in the shade.  The men enjoy sitting there laughing and playing dominos.  You can hear them playing as they often slam the pieces down when they've made a particularily crafty move. 

While we were doing that, Aaron, Mark Olsen (full-time missionary) and some staff and local residents helped erect 3 new tents.  After the clothing distribution, we wondered off to find and help them with a whole bunch of kids in tow.  Jana got to paint some fingernails, and we got to spend more time with these people who are starting to talk with us.

I also had two girls touching my hair because they marvel at long straight hair.  Take a look at this picture.  Does my hair look marvelous in any way shape or form???

This photo is of one of the families who are benefiting from the donation of the Shelter Box and our efforts to erect it for them.  We prayed for them and wished them well in their new home.  That's Mark Olsen with the high-polished hair-do.

After a long rewarding day where we got to not only feed and clothe, and shelter but also helped educate the kids in Jonas' school, we enjoyed a nice cool ride back to base camp.

Only two more days to go, and then we begin our voyage home on Thursday.  Thank you all for your prayers and support.  We feel the energy coming from somewhere and it's not totally in our own strenth. Yvette is still coughing and Jana's tummy is feeling a bit better, but we got everything done, and had a great time today.