Monday, March 26, 2018

Vacation!

Spring break has begun!  Our kids are busy getting back into their Rubber Band game.  They have made up this game, kinda like marbles -- only rubber bands are easier to come by in our corner of the world.  The end goal is to collect as many rubber bands as you can -- taking them back and forth from each other as you win or lose the game. 
Here you can see the boys playing -- the rubber bands are on the ground on the lower right hand side of the picture, but they aren't easy to see.  

Here Ivinsky, Mits and Mike show off their collection!
 The sign of a good Rubber Band player!

It's nice they get such joy out of something so small and easy to get to them. They have the week off of school and will be enjoying some down time with their friends. 

We do have a few new faces once again.  The first is a family group:
Nineteen year old Manouchka and her 2 children were a family in crisis.  Manouchka was burned by hot water in her home.  Her family then dropped her off at the hospital with her 2 children and left her without anyone to care for her or the children.  

Touched by her need for some time to heal and someone to help her care for the children, Linda opened our home to her in order to give her a chance to get back on her feet.  It is an unusual story for us, but it is a proactive move on our part.  Without proper care this young mother would not be able to heal properly to care for her children.  The children would have become more and more malnourished and eventually brought to the HOH in worse condition.  This way we can help them all get back on their feet and also share the love of Jesus with them.  Pray for them as they have this time of healing at the House of Hope.

Another little boy could use your prayers as well.  8-year old DestinĂ© just arrived at the HOH.  I think his picture speaks  volumes...
  Such sadness, it just rips at your heart. 

Please pray for Linda and the other kids and staff at the HOH as we seek to help DestinĂ© in every way possible.  He is in such need of love, care and healing.  Pray for wisdom in dealing with him, figuring out his medical needs and helping with the emotional and spiritual ones as well.

Many thanks for each of you and your various ways of supporting this special ministry.  We hope you have a wonderful week.  We look forward to celebrating Easter this coming weekend.  We have an evening community event planned at the HOH on Good Friday.   Then we will have a special Easter service on Sunday celebrating the resurrection of our wonderful Savior.  May you all have a great time remembering Jesus and all He did for us at this special time of the year as well.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

New Faces and Places

Movement would be a word to aptly describe the HOH on any given day.  With 80 resident children and youth to care for, as well as countless neighborhood kids constantly coming and going; there is always something happening at our home.   These past couple of weeks have been no exception...

Since our last update, Judson, the little baby who arrived in our home is coming along splendidly.  
You can see here,
 pictured with one of his many "mom's" - Jessika,
 that he is looking much healthier
We have also added 2 more malnourished children 
to our number over the past weeks:
Lancina is just a year old
and
Djivensky is 2 years old.
These two are both here with a family member who will stay as well to help care for them.  We find it an important part of the healing process of these malnourished children to have a parent or family member stay with them.  The child remains in the care of someone they know, love and trust.  And the family member has a chance to be educated on proper food nutrition and care of the child so they don't fall back into malnutrition when they return to their homes.  Children like Lancine and Djivensky generally remain 3 to 4 weeks at the HOH before returning to their homes with their family.

Of course caring for so many children in need requires a lot of help and supplies and this past week we were blessed to receive both from a large group of our supporters.  There were those who provided financial gifts to help us purchase the things we needed.  There were those who graciously purchased, received and shipped the items to us.  And there were those who helped with all the transition parts in between.  We are very grateful for each person and each part of the process that allowed us to receive much needed.....
Food
 
  Clothing & other supplies
 
 And New Chairs!!!
 
Thank you to everyone who had a part in getting these items to us!

We were able to get some work done on our vehicle these past weeks as well.  We are thankful that it is still limping along, it is such a valuable tool for us to use in this work.  We are trying to start to raise funds in order to be able to get a new (or at least new to us) vehicle at some point in the future.  If you would like to help us pray for this that would be great.  If anyone also wants to help us out financially in that way, gifts can be sent to Extreme Response marked for the House of Hope.  You can find information on how to do this on their website.

Another item we'd love for you to pray with us about is a change of place that has happened over the past couple of weeks for some of our young adults.  Our goal for our young adults has always been to give them the hope of a future through education.  As a result, it is our desire to help them get enough education so that they are able to get a job and take care of themselves.  In Haiti, this means helping them get either a vocational or university training in a subject.  One thing that is helpful in Haiti is that there are lots of higher education schools and they aren't much more expensive than paying for High School for our kids.  So, as long as God provides the means, we want to help our youth with this hope for their futures.  

This year we have several young men who are stepping out into University.  We attempted to allow them to attend a university near our village, which allowed them to also still live at the HOH, but that has proved not a very good choice.  The school is poorly directed and they have not had good results there -- teachers not showing up and classes have been canceled more often than they are held.  

Enter Basketball.  Our boys love to play basketball and over the Christmas break one of them was asked to try out for a university team in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.  Reginald succeeded and was accepted to the university team with a full scholarship for his University education!  The coaches have since asked him if there were any more young men like him from the HOH who also would be interested in scholarships!  This week some more of our young men have gone down and have started classes there as well.  They will be going through some try outs over the next few weeks to see if they can also play on the team and receive scholarships -- please pray for Stevenson, Herby and Dieujuste. Pray also for Linda and our young leaders Junior and Jn Daniel as they work through all the logistics in having the boys in PAP and what will be best for their futures.