JOANNA'S WEDDING

Saturday was a special day. Joanna, who is one of our teacher assistants in the kindergarten classes has been attending Pastor Marcelin's church for some time now. Her christian faith has been growing and she wants to participate in doing missions with the church. The problem in Haiti is that many couples don't get married and just live together because they can't afford a wedding. Pastor Marcelin encouraged Joana to get married and Saturday she and her husband David got married. A lot of our Coram Deo family were there to witness this celebration. Now Joana can participate fully in all of the activities of the church. Pray for Amos' father, Pastor Marcelin, as he pastors his congregation. It is good to see the lives of our Coram Deo family strengthening and increasing in service to the Lord.

Coram Deo - Haiti Update - April 23, 2012

“To show partiality in judging is not good; whoever says to the guilty, “You are innocent – people will curse him and nations denounce him. But it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and rich blessing will come upon them.     (Proverbs 24:24, 25)

The political uncertainty caused by a resigning prime minister and political bickering in the senate and parliament in the ratification of a new prime minister, Laurent Lamothe has also brought about an increase in insecurity on the streets. People are getting robbed after exiting a bank and some are killed by thieves riding on motorcycles, which is the most common form of transportation used by the thieves. There have been some incidents where nothing has been stolen but the only purpose of the crime has been an assassination for one reason or other.

Last week, 3 policemen were assassinated on the streets. Walky Calixte, a member of the traffic police was allegedly killed by those close to a Member of Parliament.  A nephew of the parliament member, who also served as his bodyguard was arrested for having a weapon, without the appropriate paperwork. In anger, someone told the policeman that he would be killed for arresting him and last week this happened. Fellow police officers in anger went to where the parliament member was giving a radio interview about the incident and the officers barricaded the street and shot up the parliament members’ vehicle. Nobody was in the vehicle at the time. Roseanne, a friend who lives in Cite Soleil came to the house early Saturday morning to tell us that she heard that over the radio people were being told to stay at home on Monday,  because there were going to be protests over the policeman who was assassinated. Today, we had one teacher who did not come to school and one who walked on foot from the lower Delmas area. We also have fewer students in school today as parents have kept them at home. Pray for protection for the Haitian police as they try to give the country security.

One of our Coram Deo family, Johnny Jean, is a young man whose ambition is to be a member of the Haitian military or police. He registered for both. Yesterday was an examination day for those interested in applying for the police force. Over 28,000 applications are on file for this next round of police training. Yesterday, Johnny arrived at 5:00am at the Lycee testing site. He and the other applicants waited in the sun until 3:00pm, when they were let inside to write the exam. The exam was supervised by UN police as well. The academy will choose from the applicants who passed the written exam to go on to the next stage of the recruitment process.  Pray for Johnny as he pursues his dream of being involved in bringing security to the country.

The increase in crime has also affected our area. On Saturday evening, Reginald came to the house to say that there was a terrible odour coming from a home in the Cite Aux-Cayes area. When we arrived, the police were there and they were waiting for a justice of the peace to arrive before breaking into the home. It looked suspicious because the house was locked from the outside with a padlock. The body was that of a 13-year-old child. He lived with his sister and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend and sister had an argument and things got heated and the sister was able to get away but the boyfriend killed her younger brother. He then shut the door and padlocked it. This incident happened on Thursday evening. What really was terrible is that this all happened and nobody contacted the police until Saturday evening. I don’t know if they were scared of the guy who killed the boy or just didn’t realize what had happened. The house is located in a narrow corridor within Cite Aux-Cayes that people would walk through to get to their homes. The killer is still at large. Pray that he is found and that justice is given for the crime that he committed.

In the Rte. Frere area of the city a young man was buying a pate. While he was waiting, a man walked up to him and shot him in the stomach. The man died and the shooter was arrested. The shooter talked with the father of the young man he killed. He told the father that it was an accident and that he had shot him by mistake. He thought he was somebody else.

There is more going on with insecurity but I don’t want to write the entire Haiti update about violence.

The Timothy Leadership Training Seminars are being held again at the Christian Reformed Missions Centre from May 2-4 . Pastor Pierre and the 7 other pastors/church leaders will now take the 2^nd course in the Timothy Leadership Program.  Another 9 pastors have approached him expressing interest to take part. They will register for the 1^st course in the series of leadership training courses. If they are accepted into the program there will now be 17 pastors/church workers involved. It is great to see their enthusiasm and the growth of the Timothy Leadership Program. Pray for the staff of Christian Reformed Missions who will be teaching the courses, and for those who will be participating.

Haiti just launched a massive vaccination program this weekend for children from infants to 9 years of age. There were health workers on the streets yesterday telling parents to get their children vaccinated against polio, chicken pox, measles, diphtheria, meningitis, pneumonia as well as Vitamin A and albendzole. Their goal is to vaccinate every child in the country against polio with the goal of eradicating polio from the island and a 95% coverage with the polyvalent injection.  This would mean vaccinating over 2.5 million children for 100% coverage.

 Recently, a vaccination program against cholera was launched for 100,000 people in the slum areas of Port-au-Prince where sanitation is poor and also in the Central Plateau area where the cholera was introduced. This vaccine will protect the people against cholera for a 3-year period. With the rainy season starting, cholera has now began increasing again. There is a  Medecins Sans Frontieres Cholera Treatment Center located nearby on Delmas 33. Pray for all the vaccinations that will be given. It is good to see these efforts being made to improve the health of Haitian society.

That’s all the news for today. Have a good week!

 Karen Bultje,

Coram Deo

Visit at Wahoo Bay! - Part 1

It is now time to go back to the beach and the beach photos. We sure had a nice time enjoying the clear aqua color water.

The sea was warm. Manu and Yvens borrowed someone's kick board.

Johnny didn't want to go swimming. He was the lifeguard!

It was fun watching the "blanc" trying to climb on a floating dock.

Men in boats were nearby offering to row out to the reefs. I heard one "blanc" ask how much, and this man replied he would row out to the reefs for snorkeling for $5US.

We were there early in the day and by noon the beach was full of tourists for the most part.

Yvens is writing something in the sand.

 Is says "Coram Deo Forever" :)

This is the "God Bless You" boat :)

I chased after some "blanc" trying to capture  a sand crab. They sure move quickly. They finally caught up with it.

It is a cute sand crab. I think they let go of it later.

Bougainvillea is a beautiful flowering shrub.

Here is Manu sitting on the steps into the pool.

We watched a few motor boats racing on the sea.

 Wahoo Bay is a tropical paradise!

Yvens and Manu did some acrobats to go into the pool. Diving wasn't allowed on the sign board but nothing was written about handsprings :)

Here they are getting ready to do a handstand.

They go up into a handstand....

And push out to land in the water.

Here is a beautiful view of a motor boat passing by in the sea.

This is the "Ak Lafwa Taxi de Mer" (By Faith Sea Taxi). I don't think I would like to board this boat. It makes a person wonder if the boat is seaworthy :)

This is the "Shakira Taxi". The singer Shakira sang a duet with Wyclef Jean, who is a well-known Haitian musician.

These boats are made of wood that somehow all fits together. Some of them come complete with buckets to bail out with :)

This man was hoping to rent snorkeling equipment to make some money.

We even saw a few jet skis passing by in Wahoo Bay.

Sea traffic!

"Chris Kapab" (Christ is able). Another good name for the boat and maybe a prayer needs to be made to keep it afloat on the sea?

The resort has some nice grounds and a walkway to the beach areas.

The coast of Haiti is beautiful.

Everyone is enjoying themselves in the water. More pictures tomorrow :)

"Thames Canal"

The construction of the canal in Yonel's neighborhood is sponsored by the British Red Cross continues to drag on. It hasn't been finished yet. Here is a view of the canal cover being prepared for the cement pour back in August 2011.

It has been a tedious process and the neighborhood is frustrated.

It looks like a truck will be able to drive on the canal.

Notice this section is narrower.

This is Yonel's family proud of their new home. It wouldn't be like that for long.

There will need to be a lot of homes rebuilt in the neighborhood once the canal is done.

In September the Red Cross decided to knock Yonel's new home down to make room for an expanded canal.

Grafitti marks the place.

All down the lines houses were smashed for the canal widening project.

And this is what is left of Yonel's home now. A big contrast from the family photo at the entrance to his home in the Part 1 photos. Yonel just told us this week the next part in the "Thames Canal" saga. The Red Cross now says that it is not necessary to make the canal that wide. All these houses got bashed down for nothing! Pray that one day Yonel gets his house rebuilt. The Red Cross did promise to do that but we don't know which year it will be :)

Coram Deo - Haiti Update - April 20, 2012

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight”   (Proverbs 3:5,6)

Hi! It has been a busy time here at Coram Deo. The yard here is full with students during the week. We are now in our 3^rd semester. The focus of the mission teams who came here has been on building school shelter/classrooms along the walls of the property. We now have 4 separate shelters and we also cemented one side of the yard to create play space for the children. Now that it is rainy season and the rains are frequent, there is no more mud on that side of the yard. We still need one more shelter built along the front wall, and then all the classes will have a shelter to themselves. We currently have 95 students in our program here at Coram Deo. We also had 35 sponsor students who were either in professional/university or secondary school. As is the problem with a difficult world economy, a lot of missions are faced with a reduction in donations, and this has been the case for us as well. Right now we are sort of in emergency mode. I have had to cancel supporting quite a few of the secondary students, because we don’t have the funds to pay for their programs. When the funding increased after the earthquake, I thought it would continue but it didn’t. Pray for funding for the programs here at Coram Deo. We are trying to get through the end of the school year. If funding stays at the same level we will have to make some further changes for the next school year. I told the older students to try and find mission schools where tuition is free or to try to get in to one of the state funded lycees.

While it has been a difficult time here, some of the workers and their families have a much larger burden. Pastor Pierre’s wife recently gave birth to their 8^th child. They have named him Jeff, after my cousin. The baby was born at home and Pastor Pierre was the midwife. For the next couple of weeks when I asked Pastor Pierre how his wife and son were doing he would say that she wasn’t feeling well. Dr. Ed and a medical mission team hosted a clinic that Pastor Pierre hosted in the mountains of Kenscoff. Dr. Ed examined her and he told Pastor Pierre to bring her to the hospital right away, as he suspected that she had an infection that had gone septic, and also eclampsia. When I spoke with Dr. Ed on the phone he thought that she might not survive. She was hospitalized at the Baptist Mission Hospital in Fermathe, and after 2 weeks of hospitalization, medications, and a blood transfusion of 2 pouches of blood, she survived and is back at home. We give the Lord thanks for his healing mercies.

Christmanie Pierre-Paul, who is a sister of Marie and also helps with the cooking for the school meals that are served, is pregnant. She lives in Cite Soleil and her family is very poor. We are helping her out with her pre-natal care. The first abdominal sonogram showed that she had a dangerous complication of pregnancy called “placenta previa”; where the placenta is in the lower part of the womb. Quite often a caesarean section is done. When we got the results of the sonogram we brought her over to the Medecins Sans Frontieres Maternity Hospital on Delmas 33, that is especially for problem pregnancies. They told us they only do deliveries and suggested that so goes to Hopital La Paix for pre-natal care. The doctor at Hopital La Paix ordered another sonogram to be done, but wanted it done at another sonogram place. Christmanie returned to Hopital La Paix with the new sonogram, and yesterday the doctor told her he wanted her to get another sonogram and referred her to yet another sonogram place. He told her that she didn’t have placenta previa. He asked her if she could feel the baby moving in the womb (it is a girl) and she said yes. He told her that he couldn’t detect a heartbeat. She came back to the house and told me that she didn’t like that doctor. I wanted her to get checked out at a different place today but she didn’t want to go. She says the baby can’t be dead if she can feel movement. Pray for Christmanie’s pregnancy.

Yonel Glezile, who is our gatekeeper during the day is faced with some housing difficulties at the present time. After the earthquake, we had helped him to rebuild his home. The neighbourhood where he lives was heavily damaged during the earthquake, causing a lot of fatalities and many destroyed homes. He lives beside a canal whose walls collapsed during the earthquake. The British Red Cross has a major project in that neighbourhood, and they told us that they would rebuild 750 homes and reconstruct the canal. We built the home and then the Red Cross told Yonel that they would have to knock his house down to make the canal. When we rebuilt his home we had built it to the original canal width and raised the foundation to meet the height of the wall for the canal. When it came to the engineering of the canal I tried to get the engineer to maintain what was in place but they replied no. The Mayor of Delmas talked with Yonel and told him he had no choice, but that the Red Cross would provide funds for him to rent a home. The funding was given to the mayor and then a cheque was issued to Yonel. The Red Cross wanted to give Yonel $10,000H ($1,200US), but the cheque from the Mayor’s office was issued for $6,000H ($732US). The mayor’s office kept $4,000H. Yonel’s house was knocked down in September 2011. In October work on the canal was halted, and the Red Cross told Yonel they would start work on the canal in January 2012. It is now April, and last week Yonel was told that the Red Cross had determined that the canal was too wide, and would need to be narrowed. That’s right, Yonel’s home was destroyed for nothing! This is an example of the problems of the NGO’s in Haiti.  Yonel was promised by the Red Cross that his house would be rebuilt in January and as a result he only rented a place for 6 months. His wife is trying to earn money by working as a street vendor, “marchand”. Last week, an armed gunman came to where she was selling, and the other people around her managed to flee. She was too slow. At gunpoint the thief told her that she would have to pay for the others who fled. She only had $25H ($3US) on her. He took that and then told her to run. I am thankful that he didn’t fire at her.

Pray for the people who work here at Coram Deo, for the students and for protection on the streets.

That’s all the news for today. Have a good week-end!

Karen Bultje

Coram Deo

Easter Sunday Service - Pastor Octave's Church

On Easter Sunday we attended Pastor Octave's church. It was a great service. Manu is listening to one of the choirs who sang that day.

This is Pastor Octave. He is one of the first people who settled in  our area of the Delmas 31 neighborhood.

This is his wife who is seen here greeting the church.

These are the "bouncers". They handled anyone who misbehaved during the service :)

They meant business :)

There were special guests invited to provide music accompaniment to the songs that the church and choirs sang. This man plays the trumpet well. With his white suit there was not a speck of dirt on it. I don't know how he can keep so clean.

There was a keyboard musician providing music as well.

And the accordion player was my favorite. He played at the end of the service. Here he is walking up to the front of the church. A choir follows behind him.

The man on the left that is full of enthusiasm is the worship leader. A couple of times through the service he would wake people up and get them to stand up and sing. This is how to get through a 3 1/2 hour service :)

He loves to sing.

This is the church committee. They are a serious bunch :)  Marie is pictured to the right of the photo. She is the treasurer for the church.

Every member of the congregation gave a short greeting to the congregation.

Marie sings in a choir as well. They wore green t-shirts with the words "le sang de jesus " (the blood of Jesus) written on it. Through Christ's blood we have forgiveness and the gift of eternal life.

After the choirs finished their songs they filed out of the church while another group took the stage.

The youth group is walking up to the front of the church.

The girls wore head coverings at the front of the church.

The youth group didn't sing but they recited Bible passages that they had memorized and spoke for about 10 minutes with no notes!

It was an amazing thing to watch. They kept their eyes closed while they spoke.

Pastors from different churches attended this special service. Pastor Octave wanted me to sit up front too with the other delegates but I told him I wanted to sit in the "bleachers" with the congregation :)

After the service there was a congregational meal. I have never been a part of this before. Everyone who was there received a plate of food. Women from the church cooked up big pots of food. The different pastors who spoke brought with them gifts of money from their congregation to Pastor Octave's congregation. These funds helped to buy the food. People also donated food to be prepared.

Each of the pastors had some words of wisdom from the Bible to give to the congregation.

This woman sang a song.

This pastor spoke well.

Each of these pastors/evangelists represented a different congregation at the service.

It was neat to hear the encouraging words that they gave.

The lady on the left side of the group of 4 in the photo is a food/used clothes/articles vendor in front of our house. Every day she stays there hoping to sell something to support herself.

This choir sang a few songs. You can see on their faces how they put everything into their music.

The ladies dressed in blue were part of a church group from the Belle Anse district of Haiti. When the pastor asked the members of the congregation from Belle Anse to stand up, about 40 people stood up.  The church provided a place for them to sleep and also provided food and water during their stay.

Each person had a unique expression as they sang songs. In Haiti singing is a necessary and important part of every service.

This man sang a solo. I took a bunch of videos of the singing but with the slow internet connection and download/upload limits I wasn't able to upload them. One of these days when I visit Canada I will set them up on You Tube or something.