November Trip

Hi everyone,

I’m writing to share a brief overview on what we are expecting from our fall trip to Haiti.

1. What we plan to do:

      Just wanted to get a quick note out to everyone and let you know/remind you all that Mercy League Haiti has a Fall trip to Haiti to work in Mme Paul’s orphanage, (specifically me and Larry and my brother Matt).  As you remember, we started a project in July (composting latrines) but we were cut short due to time constraints and some other issues. However, we are going back in just a few days on November the 1^st to finish up, at long last. The situation there at Mme. Paul’s place has always been really ugly in regards to septic facilities and such. In reality, all their bathroom facilities amount to little more than a few holes dug in the ground. The kids all wander in unsupervised and use the facilities but a lot of the fecal matter winds up on the ground because some of the kids are so small and the toilets so crudely formed. Additionally, the latrines are located about 20 or so feet away from the cistern that holds the water for the orphanage. This posed a serious health risk so we relocated the new facilities to the other side of the orphanage grounds and we converted to a composting system so that the soil is not being contaminated by feces-born pathogens. 

1. The Cholera Ourbreak

      As a side note, some of you may have heard the news about the sickness in Haiti in the form of Cholera. We’re still proceeding with our trip as planned because we don’t believe that this health threat will in any way affect us but we do appreciate all your prayers that God would keeps us from being infected with this sickness. This, ironically, is a disease which is contracted by the ingestion of contaminated water and this is exactly the need that we are going to work at meeting. This outbreak brings to light the importance of our project so please pray all the more for us that God would give us good health and great focus for accomplishing this job.

1. Funds

As ever, our funding is tight for this trip so we ask that anyone who might feel the a burden for this project to please feel welcome to make use of our “donate” link on our home page of the Mercy League Haiti website at mercyleaguehaiti.org. We are so grateful to receive any gift no matter how small.

Thanks all and stand by for follow-up reports

Luke

BAM.

Luke and Larry visited Haiti last month. I am generally scared of feelings, so whenever they come back from a trip I find myself making coffee or hiding in the bathroom while the stories roll out. This time, I successfully avoided having to feel anything until I was asked to write this post. BAM.

It seems like I keep hearing the same phrases regarding Haiti over and over again, that “We don’t want to just be another organization on the ground cluttering the airstrips and eating the already scarce food…” and “We just want to support people that are already established in the their work…”. I have heard people say that they think Haiti is “just too hard-core” to be their first developing world experience. I have heard people say they can’t justify spending the airfare when the money could be used in other, more effective ways.

I have heard these arguments again and again, and they are powerful. But when Luke and Larry come back from their little, tiny, modest trip to Haiti and there are 95 children that don’t have to walk through fecal matter anymore to get to the kitchen, I can’t help but think, maybe these arguments are not quite spot on.

While they were there, one very small life gave up her rights here on earth due to the conditions at El Bon Samaritain. Consuming food or water contaminated with fecal matter is the number one cause of disease in Haiti, especially among children. Luke and Larry’s work there will help protect the children of El Bon Samaritain from dying of easily preventable but excruciating diseases. Luke’s letter tells the story…

This July was a great and exciting month for Mercy League Haiti. About a month ago, Shane Mattenley (the founder of Mercy League International) called and asked if I would go to Haiti and lead a group of humanitarian student workers from UNC Charlotte. Of course I said yes, and it turned out to be a very memorable 9-day work trip for us. Our team consisted of the twelve-member team from The UNC at Charlotte, Larry Reeve, and myself.

Our project setting was the Good Samaritan Orphanage in Croix des Bouquet, the home of Madame Paul St. Virlus. Madame Paul is the 63 year-old Haitian lady whom I have spoken of many times, and who runs the home for children and has done so for more that a decade.
Our objective was to build a composting latrine unit that would enable the 90-some-odd children who live with Mme. Paul to have a sanitary place to take care of their “necessaries.” More than just sanitary, we wanted to make it nice, neat, and finished so that it would look like something that should be kept clean. The place they are using at present is very unsanitary in several respects: 1.) it is located entirely too close (about 30 feet) to the cistern which stores the water supply for the orphanage, 2.) its crude design makes it hard to keep clean and rain water frequently washes the contaminants out onto the ground where little bare feet can walk through them exposing children to all manners of illness. When we arrived, the toilets were in horrible shape and the children were walking barefooted through untreated fecal matter. (Mme. Paul is a very devoted caregiver for the children but she is understaffed and was greatly in need of someone to come alongside her and help her with a sustainable solution to this problem.) So, our goal for the week’s work was to totally eliminate the usage of the present facility and endow Mme. Paul with a new composting facility that would be far more sanitary and sustainable.
In the weeks time while we were there, we actually accomplished the following: digging and pouring concrete slabs for the latrine unit and the bath house, digging a small septic tank and drain field that the showers and latrine urinals will drain into, laying block, framing floor, pouring concrete slab for the floor, forming concrete benches which will function as as toilets, plumbing of latrine and bath houses, framing of walls and roofs of bath house and compost storage shack.

Shifting gears a bit, I want to tell all of you about an unexpected event that was a very poignant experience for all of us…Larry and me as well as the whole UNC Charlotte team. On the first several days of our trip, we were privileged to get to meet Manuel and Juani, two wonderful missionaries from Spain. They were living on the grounds of Mme Paul’s orphanage and helping out with any and all work to be done. Manuel and Juani were in the process of adopting two little girls, about 2 years old and the other only 4 months. While we were there, we discovered that the youngest girl was very ill and had three different sicknesses: malaria, anemia, and intestinal parasites. Time will not allow me to give a merited telling of the story but, in short, we arrive one morning and walked onto the scene of the youngest girl, baby Elizabeth, dying from complications of her multiple sicknesses. She passed away within hours. For the rest of the morning the team divided up between making a small casket and digging the grave for baby Elizabeth. The parasites were likely caused by the unsanitary conditions that often present in Haiti. It is precisely because of these conditions that we went to build a new and safer latrine facility for the children.

The trip was a very fruitful one and we accomplished much toward the end of getting the orphanage cleaner facilities but unfortunately, we were stopped short of our goal because we ran out of time. But, we are planning on a follow up trip within the month to finish out the project and train the children how to use the latrine facilities. We would love for you to make a consideration of a one-time donation towards getting this project finished out. Better yet, please consider pledging a monthly gift to partner with us in continually improving the living standard of these little ones.

Thank you all for stopping by and being a part of our work in Haiti, please pray for us.

UPDATE:

Luke Wilkerson, director of MLH, flew out of Knoxville yesterday to lead a team that is doing supply distribution and coordination of volunteers in Port-au-Prince. He will be taking over for Shane Mattenly, the Director of Mercy League International while Shane heads home for a short break. Luke managed to take quite a bit of supplies to distribute with him and will be checking in on Madame Paul, the children, and the rest of our friends in PAP and the surrounding areas. He will be headed back on Friday, February 12th.
Reports have been coming in of many people that were unable to get appropriate medical treatment when it was needed, and are thus in much worse shape than they needed to be. Infection and disease are rampant. Let us pray for both the hurting people and the volunteers, that they will be efficient and that the Lord will be with them. Pray for Luke that he will have strength and wisdom. Thanks guys.

“I’ve been thinking about Haiti…”

We all feel like we cannot do enough. It is often disheartening to think about the seriousness of the need in Haiti. There are times when we want to avoid it, look around it, or over it, anywhere but at it. Because we feel inadequate and weak… but I read a blog today that calls that attitude out, and I love it. We have all been taught by our Father what to do. To do what we find to do with our hands. He multiplies the loaves and fishes…we just stand up, walk over, pick up the few fish, and begin to hand them out. Each one of us by doing the very small things in front of us will participate in the very BIG things God wants to do through his body. Right where we stand…

These excerpts are from one of my favorite blogs:

“I’ve been thinking about Haiti, all the terrible suffering, the physical pain, all the horrible impotence. Mine. I’m impotent to help them, well, with my own hands at least. So when DP called to see if I could help his mother at the hospital, I said yes, because I could. It’s the least, the very least I can do, and I did the very least, moving her from the chair into bed, from bed to the bathroom, lifting and walking slowly and saying things like, “How’re you doing now?” and “You’re doing great.” I want something I do to touch the surface of things, break the tension with a moment of relief, and if we have learned anything, anything, we’ve learned that this happens with the single moment, the one we’re inside, doing the work that we find in our hands. I hope this is right, because I believe it. And I hope to believe it more.”

“I wish I wasn’t so impotent, that I had something better for this woman than Bio-Freeze, or patience. Like I wish I had something for every broken & still un-set bone in Port-au-Prince. I wish for Lucy’s healing cordial, for some touch that uncurls the osteoporatic spine, some anti-cancer that goes crazy knitting and meshing all broken connections and easing pain, strengthening arteries and organs like the riotous swarm of light that takes over the castle at the end of Beauty & the Beast. I keep looking at myself and wondering what power I have, whether it reaches beyond the limits of my skin, or gaze, or knowledge. Maybe I will become powerful someday … somehow, that seems promised, light a part of my future.”

Indeed, it is promised. I would like to encourage us all, as the body of Christ here on the earth, to “arise, shine, for your light has come,” in the power and presence of Jesus himself.

Letter from Kerline Jules Toussaint…

This email is from Kerline, who has been working with MLH to help us get Foundation status in Haiti. It gives a poignant look into life on the ground right now in Haiti, and we ask all you reading this to pray with us for God’s comfort and grace, for Kerline and family, and for the whole nation.

Dear friends,
It’s a moment of great sorrow for us. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we can’t stop crying, at the moment that I email you I can’t stop crying when I hear these people who are still under the collapsed buildings still alive after about four/five days and we are incapable to help them. It’s so hard when you hear people call for help under the building especially children, friends, and you can’t do anything.
My nieces and my nephews by miracle left their schools on time. They saw their friends under the blocks, their schoolmates cried for help, ask for water, one of my nieces tried to find water in vain. Babies, young people, elders we are all traumatized. Thousands of people still sleep in the yard or the public park or on the street where there are many dead people, etc… the situation is out of control for the government. Many people could be saved if only we had adequate equipment and expert to help them. The people that come to help is not enough, and our airport is out of service can’t receive the people who would like to come to help, it really something that we can’t explain.
Nobody wants to stay inside the houses, some of us who had some food and water try to eat once a day, we drink very small amount of water, several families join together and put all their food together. In my backyard, I have 4 families with 32 people that are taking refuge from the devastated neighborhoods. One of this family with about 12 people will not be able to go back home because the house is dangerous. But we are so grateful because we still find some food to eat; we know that so many people do not have any food or water so we feel like we are special. For how many days we will live like that? For how many days we will have food and water, nobody knows?
Still, we will not find the good words to thank God enough because we are not injured. When we hear people who are injured in the hospital since three days crying, suffering, the staffs in the hospitals are insufficient, the doctors and the nurses themselves are also victims, some of them lost their children, spouse, or other family members, so even they try to help the others, and they are suffering in their heart. Many hospitals, banks, businesses, are destroyed, many employees are died, and many business people or entrepreneurs are died. Most of the universities, many many schools (I can’t even count) are falling down with many many students, the situation is catastrophic…
In the same time I mail you, the earth just shake again, we are traumatized.
Port-au-Prince is destroyed. This morning we hear on the news that Leogane, a small city close to Port-au-Prince is destroyed in 90%, Jacmel, Petit Goave are also destroyed, we don’t know yet for Grand Goave etc…
Many people lost all they spend all their lives to build, but they are alive and they are grateful.
For many of you who know that I manage a Foundation that recues Children from poverty, For now I don’t know if all of them are alive however I already knew that many of them are alive, I continue to try to call to have more information and I will give you a report. As you know communication is very difficult and cars are empty of gas. I feel in my heart that all of them are safe. I will keep you informed. God is good all the time.
There are some things that I would like to tell you in this specific moment:
We have some positive points that I would like to highlight
· The sacrifice of Calvary is the biggest things that teach me the meaning of the word “Grace”, but from this experience I can tell that yes Jesus is so compassionate, my family and I are alive today only by grace.
· I call on Jesus time to time, but that very day, I can’t tell you I how many times I call on him and I have to tell you, He came right away and deliver us
· People in Haiti especially those who ignore the existence of our mighty God are now confess there is a God. Everywhere you go in Haiti right now, people Christian or not pray, they are very grateful to God, they share testimonies of this great miracle.
· At last, I think that my family and I have to continue to trust God 100% and live by faith. How will be Haiti in one month, one year, five years …? Who will be the next leader? We definitely need a good leader to manage this devastated country? God knows. All our plans will have to be revised.
· If God accept to deliver us, there is a purpose for that.
I wept when I heard all those help that come from other countries to help us, especially United States of America. I wept when I read all your emails, friends from us, Africa, Europe, Thank you so much for your prayers. I love you all. I feel so special to have you as a family in Christ.
Your sister in Christ,
Kerline

uh-huh

So Luke is headed down in a few days… not sure who else will be going… Madam Paul and kids are all alive, so is Eli and family, and Julio and family. More soon.

All de orphan in de whole world.

Hey folks.

Just learned today, via someone’s facebook status update, that there are an estimated 147 million orphans in the world. So then I got curious… and did a little researching up on our own hood, and I found out some pretty shocking stuff. I don’t know how I missed this before. Out of the 9 million people living in haiti…  current estimates place somewhere near 1 million of those people…     as orphans. Yup. So walking down the street, among the crowds, in the markets… 1 in 9 people is not just a child… it is an orphaned child. No mother. No father. No nothing. Seriously people, that is just ridiculous.  Yet again, we realize that Haiti is not your average poor country.

Bless each one today, oh God, and open our eyes wider still.

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has the eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
Saint Augustine

Under Construction

                       Hello from Mercy League Haiti!  Our permanent website www.mercyleaguehaiti.org is currently under construction, so we thought that a temporary blog might be useful in the meantime.  Here you’ll find information about how we came about and what we’re currently doing.  I don’t expect this blog to cover all the bases, so feel free to contact us with any questions.  And keep checking the website…it will hopefully be up and running soon!