NOTE: This post is from August 2008 and was added to bridge the gap between the previous blogs.
Greetings once again from all of us at the HATS-Haiti mission.
We were last in touch at the beginning of June. At that time we told you it was ‘hot and humid’. Well it is much more so these days. It is almost unbearable. This is rainy and hurricane season. We hope daily for rain which helps for a couple of hours, but we hope also for a decrease in hurricanes. Hurricane Gustav has just caused tremendous problems in the southeast of Haiti. Many houses (more than 7000) have been destroyed along with bridges and crops, and 67 confirmed dead, and many more missing and presumed dead. The hurricane, prior to Gustav, also caused a lot of damage with the loss of a lot of lives in the south of Haiti.
The people of Haiti already had far more than their share of problems, i.e., serious hunger, and now with all the crops destroyed things have become a great deal worse. Where does it end?
The students in our school did well in the year end exams and were glad to be free for the summer. We are happy to report that our grade six students, who wrote the governmental exam, did extremely well, this included one of our own kids, Maladette.
For this school year we have added grade eight. This leaves us short a classroom for September so we plan to have one class (perhaps grade five) attend classes on this compound, in our multipurpose room here next to the director’s house/offices.
We are very pleased that there is a plan underway for a workteam from the Yarmouth, NS area to come down in January and construct three more rooms for us – a classroom for grade eight, one for grade nine for next September, and a needed office. The construction will be done with sufficient supports and a cement roof to allow more rooms to be built on top in the future, if needed.
Our school registration is finished although there are always a few more asking to register. We will have approximately 200 students this year. We still have students who need a sponsor, so anyone out there willing to do so, please contact us. Uniform funds have been distributed to parents/guardians of our sponsored students. Some, but not all, uniforms for our own children have returned from the tailor. We will endeavour to include a photo of our kids in their new uniforms in our next update. Purchasing textbooks for all our sponsored students has taken a lot of Luckner’s time. (Here, you don’t walk into a nice book store and put in your order.) Much work, but not yet all, has been done on preparing them to be distributed to the students.
Thank you once again to all who have sponsored a student(s), for those who are continuing, and to our new sponsors. Most sponsors have already paid for this school year. Thank you very much for this. A reminder, however, to those who have forgotten to send in the sponsorship funds, to please do so. Thank you.
As you know last year our school students received a meal twice a week. This year we plan to feed them five days a week. Thanks to the generosity of Canadians we saw this summer, which includes Education Haiti, and to all our student sponsors, we have been able to cover the $8000 US shipping charge for the product called “Feed My Starving Children”. We know that for most of the students the food they will receive daily at our school will be all they will receive that week.
Too, thanks to the Reliv Kalogris Foundation we will be continuing to daily provide all our students with the super-powered nutritional drink “Kids’ Now”.
Thank you very much to all who have participated in making the meals and the nutritional drinks possible for our students. This is a tremendous blessing in the lives of these children.
We, Luckner and Karen, did spend a few weeks in Eastern Canada speaking about the work of HATS, i.e. orphanage and school, in churches and at a Rotary group. We spoke at a nondenominational church, a Wesleyan church, 2 Baptist churches, 2 Salvation Army churches, and a United church. We feel the time spent was very important and valuable. A big thank you to those who gave us the opportunity to share our hearts. Thank you very much to all who helped make our trip possible. Thank you, too, for the gracious hospitality of many that made our time in Canada so very enjoyable. It is greatly appreciated by both of us.
Speaking at a Canadian church
A big thank you to Kim Robinson for coming to the mission regularly and taking care of the essential things so we could actually leave together. It appears that Kim enjoyed her time with the children and that they in turn, along with the employees, enjoyed seeing her arrive and spend some time with them.
Since our trip to Canada, there are good plans underway for workteams to come this year and undertake some projects that we were hoping to see done. There are plans for a group to come from BC on December 4th who plan to work on some swings, etc on the school grounds. As mentioned above, there are plans too for a group from Yarmouth, NS area to come in January to construct three more school rooms. Perhaps others will join them and work on the cement wall enclosure for the remaining piece of our property, at the back of the school grounds. There are plans underfoot, also, for a group to come from Springdale, Newfoundland area to perhaps start some work on a storage depot.
The children are all doing well. Their summer break is soon coming to an end.
We are glad to report that Ti Fi is doing better. She is out playing with the other children more. It is great to see JJ, Moise and Mirlande continuing to walk with her. It is especially good to some days see her stand, and even do a little walking, on her own. This is good progress.
Ti Fi standing without help
You all know that Alex is ‘special needs’ but we do not use that term. We prefer to just say that Alex is ‘special’. Each accomplishment of his is very exciting for us in light of Karen having been told when he was 6-months-old to get rid of him, because he would be like a vegetable all his life.
Recently Karen sent an ‘Alex story’ to some family members and friends and two people suggested it be included in an Update. So here goes.
Alex had some ant bites on his lower legs. One night before putting him to bed, Mama Karen put some anti-itch cream on his bites, and then laid the tube on the sofa. The next morning Karen was busy in the office and heard Germaine exclaiming over some ‘dezod’ (misbehaviour) Alex had done.
Mama Karen hurried to the living room and stood there, enjoying what she was seeing. Alex had taken the tube of cream off the sofa (not an easy task for him). He had then placed it on the floor and held it with one little foot and removed the cap with the other foot. He continued to hold the tube with one foot and squeeze cream out with the other foot unto the cement floor. He followed this by putting one foot into the cream on the floor and useing that foot to rub it on his opposite leg, exactly where the bites were, and where Karen had rubbed it. He then put the opposite foot into the cream on the floor and rubbed it on the bites on the opposite leg. When he saw Mama Karen watching he happily showed her what he had done all by himself. He had used a lot of the cream and was a bit of a mess, but quite proud of himself, and so was his mama.
Alex continues to progress beautifully on what seems like a daily basis. He never ceases to amaze us with his understanding of everything around him, and his responses to it all. Alex has a birthday on October 7th, and will be four. Thus he will join the other students in our preschool program next month. He cannot use his hands to write, but he can learn. He daily talks about going to school. Mama Karen wonders if perhaps he thinks that means he will be with Papa Luckner most of the time. If so, a rude awakening is in store for our little guy. (Alex sat next to Papa Luckner, in the school yard, every morning for a week when school registrations were being done. ‘He went to school with Papa’.)
Alex still uses his gait trainer (walker) a lot and especially outside in the yard. He gets around the house quickly by making his little chair walk. These days he tends to proudly stand in front of his chair.
Look at me everybody!!
Josie is our cutie pitutie active two-year-old. She follows the other children, and often the workers, around the compound. She will not be three until January so she must wait to attend preschool next year.
Cutie Pitutie Josie
Tuesday night, Sept 2nd.
This Update was ready to send, yesterday Monday, Sept 1st, but it could not go out due to lack of satellite internet signal because of the weather problems caused by Hurricane Hannah off the coast of Haiti right now. Last night and today Hannah has caused a tremendous amount of water damage all throughout Haiti. Not a lot of details available at this time from all areas, but one place is not far from us. Also, according to the radio, the St. Marc area has received damage. The Gonaives area – the same area greatly damaged by Hurricane Jeanne four years ago – has been hit. That area is badly flooded again, and as of an hour ago, the water was 12 foot high. Families have been sitting, in the rain, on the roofs of houses for almost 24 hours with no food, no water, no help. The Prime Minister and entourage decided to drive from PaP to Gonaives today to assess the damage, but could not get through the flood water. Upon turning back the two government vehicles travelling together ran into problems. One vehicle was badly damaged and the chauffeur is in bad shape in St. Marc hospital awaiting transportation to a hospital in PaP. Where is the hope for the people of Haiti?
(As this is being finished the rain continues to fall. Karen is keeping a close eye here at home, on the HATS compound. The earth cannot hold more water and thus it is starting to rise. If any flooding should happen here tonight she will take the children to the second level of the director’s house/offices.)
The serious hunger problem that we mentioned in our last Update has gotten worse. Due to the continued damage from the three hurricanes, it will continue to get much worse. Where is the hope for the people of Haiti?
We have spoken before of the importance of ‘hope’.
Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life”. This scripture verse is very prevalent to Haiti, and even more so all the time. Please remember to pray for Haiti and the people who are greatly suffering at this time. They need hope. As Christians, we know that our hope is in Jesus. We know, too, that God uses, and will continue to use, others to help alleviate the suffering.
We daily see children and adults who have very little hope of anything changing for them. But without ‘hope’ the people perish.
Thank you once again for the hope of our children, and our students and their families, due to your support of love, friendship, encouragement, prayer, and finances.
We are all on the same team for the same reason, to help the children and families in need. By continuing to work together, we ‘can’ make a difference.
~Karen
