Haiti update
As Charles mentioned on the blog a few weeks ago, Carson Hale and I had the opportunity to travel to Haiti to check out the progress of the home for girls with disabilities. As you may know for the last 5 years or so Wright’s Chapel has been in a partnership with the home in Les Cayes, Haiti. We have sent several teams of volunteers mainly to work on construction of the home. The home is really a school where young women with physical disabilities live and learn some new skills that will hopefully help them in the future. They learn sowing, crocheting, and other skills. They also participate in Bible studies. They live in the home for four years.
Not only has Wright’s Chapel been sending teams but they have also been sending money, along with other US churches, to help with the construction of the new home. We were pleased to see when we arrived in Haiti a few weeks ago that there were 11 girls living in the home. They had a teacher and a cook who helped take care of them. They had been in the home for about a month when we arrived.
The home itself still has work that needs to be done. Part of it had a temporary roof and the kitchen was just covered in tarps. The house had plumbing, but no running water (they had to carry buckets of water from the well for bathing and toilets). The electricity did not work either. What is interesting though is that the girls had chosen to live there with the hopes of a better life. I think that kind of gives you an idea of what their home life must be like.
The main reasons we traveled to Haiti was to see the progress of the home and to find out what are the ways we can continue to support from afar. We were able to talk to Janot, who leads the home, and praying pelicans mission staff. Together these are the next steps for us a church:
We found a donor to donate enough money to install solar panels on the home that will allow them to have electricity and running water in the home. It costs about $700 a month to run the home. That includes food, paying a teacher and cook, and other necessities. We are looking for partners willing to donate each month to help with that. That ends up being about $70 a month per girl in the program.We hope to return to Haiti next summer (2020) to continue working on the home.
Will you consider making a monthly donation? You can click here to go to our online giving and choose Haiti home support as the fund. Other ideas to raise funds would be to go in with your Sunday school class or Bible study to sponsor a girl each month. A couple friends could go together and sponsor a girl. Any amount helps. I believe if we all give what we can we can cover the $700 a month so that they are able to focus on teaching these young women and not worry if they are able to continue another month.
Thank you so much for all the support you have given over the years to this mission. It’s making a difference! Below is the video we showed in church of our time in Haiti.