Hi, Karen here,
Greetings and Merry Christmas to all our supporters, friends, and family, who cover us with prayer, encouragement, and finances. May God richly bless each and every one of you this Christmas season and in 2025.
I am starting this newsletter update with excerpts from a newsletter I wrote in December 2006. We are taking a quick look back, then looking at the present and onward.
December 2006
Once again it is time to take a few minutes to catch you up with all of us at HATS-Haiti. Oh my, oh my, oh my. Can it really be the middle of December in Haiti? Christmas is upon us and one would never know it around here. We have been much too busy with school construction and keeping everything else running which made it easy to forget the date. I will have to get busy in a hurry, as we have children looking forward to Christmas.
I pray you all have a very Merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour. Jesus is the reason for this season. I pray, too, for a Blessed 2007 for all of you.
We have lots going on here at the mission as usual. Never a dull moment is a daily understatement here. The main activity once again has been school construction. What joy it is to see the foundation being built for the other four rooms. There is a feeling of excitement in the air because people can see that the plan to have the school finished is very real. An 11 person work-team will arrive from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on January 9th for two weeks to try to finish the work. Despite the increased danger in our area, that we felt obligated to tell them about, they are still keen to come. They have been planning, meeting and praying for several months and reported they are coming in confidence that they will be protected.
(Our children carrying rocks for construction.)
(Working hard to pour the concrete.)
When the work team arrives it will be a busy time but hopefully also a good experience for the group. Some of them are first timers to the country of Haiti, and only one of the 11 have been to our mission prior.
I normally try not to talk too much about the kidnapping and other dangers here but it is real and we have people coming. I feel I should be honest about what is happening all around us.
There is definitely an increased danger in our area and so we are being even more cautious than ever. Many kidnappings have happened in our area in the past 3-4 weeks. It is no longer just in the Port au Prince area but we are in the midst of it now. Kidnappings have taken place in towns all around us, and recently on the road just outside our mission, a lady was kidnapped. Some people have been held in houses in our town of Deschapelles and in Liancourt (five minutes from us). Much prayer is needed for this very serious problem.
This week not too far from us, a vehicle with 25 people was attacked and all were kidnapped. Everything possible was taken from them. Eventually the bus driver and 17 passengers were released but 8 were taken as hostages for ransom. Then, even more upsetting news – this morning a vehicle, very shortly after passing our mission, was stopped and people were kidnapped. This is hitting extremely close to home. Needless to say, I am not leaving the compound unnecessarily. The country is definitely in need of prayer support and changes need to come.
Recently, I gave you the good news about us receiving approval for our school expansion due to Luckner’s timely work. We have, however, been informed that we must choose another name for our school. They, apparently, have too many schools with the same name.
We want to say a very big thank you for the help that we have received due to our being honest about the financial situation at HATS-Haiti. There is nothing more difficult for me than to let people know that the mission needs funds. A donation was made to cover a month’s salaries for all staff. The employees will receive these funds tomorrow as their December yearly bonus, which must be given at this time of the year.
We’ve also received funds for food for the Children’s Home and for Christmas gifts for the children. As well, a girl in Canada asked people, in lieu of gifts for her 16th birthday, to donate to HATS-Haiti mission. This brought us more than $700. Thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to one and all. May you all be blessed in return.
Also, a huge Thank you to all our regular supporters – for your prayers and encouragement, and finances. The HATS-Haiti mission would not be here without you.
This year 2006 has seen pain and frustration, laughter and fun, staff changes, and construction. It has been a difficult but also important year for HATS-Haiti. Things are continuing to move along nicely due to all of you who stand with us. Without your encouragement, things would have been much more difficult for me this past year. Thank you!
1 Thes 5:11 – “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
Again, from all of us at the HATS-Haiti mission to all of you – A very Happy and Blessed Christmas and New Year. May you all be greatly blessed as we continue on this journey – working together for Him.
IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN
Serving Him in Haiti
Karen
November 30, 2024
You can see from what I wrote in 2006 that things were starting to get dangerous in Haiti back then. The danger in Haiti has continued to get worse and now gangs have become quite powerful with huge numbers of large guns which are being smuggled in from the US. The gang members are continuing to kidnap, kill, rape women and girls, and force boys to join the gangs.
Many of the people now have no food, and I can honestly say “many people are starving,” literally starving! Not as a North American might say “I’m starving” when they are hungry. In fact, I personally can never let those words leave my lips, as I truly have been a witness to starving. I have sat on dirt floors trying to feed people who were starving. I know what starving is like, not in my own body, but from being with and trying to help precious Haitian people in serious need. I saw it and now the gangs have caused it to be a lot worse for millions of their own people.
The following information is from an article posted a couple of days ago called “The number of children recruited by gangs in Haiti soars by 70% UNICEF says.”
Gangs in Haiti are recruiting children at unprecedented levels, with the number of minors targeted soaring by 70% in the past year, according to a report released recently by UNICEF. Currently, between 30 to 50% of all gang members are children, according to the U.N.
Young boys are often used as informers ‘because they’re invisible and not seen as a threat’. Some are given weapons and forced to participate in attacks.
Girls, some quite young, are forced to cook, clean and are used as so-called ‘wives’ for gang members. They are not doing any of this voluntarily. “Even when they are armed with weapons, the child is the victim.”
In this country where more than 60% of the population lives on less than $4 a day and hundreds of thousands of Haitians ‘are starving or nearing starvation’, recruiting children is easier. The promise of food for the person and for their family has a great pull on a child.
If children refuse to join a gang, gunmen often threaten them or their families or simply abduct them.
Usually, new recruits are ordered to buy food and are given money to ‘buy friends’ as gangs observe them. Then, they participate in confrontations and are promoted if they kill someone, for example.
With people who are starving or nearing starvation, recruiting children is often the easiest way to build a gang. They are promised food for themselves and their families. And it’s always too late when these children find out that these promises are All lies!!!
The mission I founded and directed for the last 30 years is being beautifully directed now by both myself here in Canada and the man who was my assistant and partner when I was there in Haiti. He, Director Luckner, is doing an amazing job in an extremely difficult situation. As well as running the mission and continuing as the Director of our IMKH school (Institution Mixte Karen Huxter), he and his wife are taking care of our children from the Children’s Home along with their own children. Often they quickly have to leave our area and go into hiding for days when word comes that a gang is headed to our area.
I, along with a strong supporter of HATS-Haiti, Beate Rufft, am diligently trying to raise some badly needed funds to help put Love Gifts of Food through our HATS-Haiti Mercy Ministry. These Gifts of Food will be presented to some desperately needy families before Christmas who are at the edge of starvation.
(A few years ago: families picking up their Gifts of Food)
Luckner has calculated that for $53 Canadian dollars, we can provide food for approximately 10 days for a family of 4 or 5. This Gift of Food would consist of rice, cornmeal, beans and oil. Being able to gift starving families in our area this amount of food will be a tremendous blessing and literally a lifesaver.
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