Mosquito Free Rooms!

Greetings to all of our friends, family and partners.  Jenny is writing you from a very cold - 20 degree Manitoba winter that doesn't want to go away, and she is bringing you news of the House of Hope that is experiencing incredibly hot nights that make sleeping almost impossible.  

At least they are now able to sleep without the buzz of mosquitoes flying about their heads as the new screens have arrived and been installed in all the rooms at the HOH.  Over their annual Carnival (Mardi Gras) break, the young men at the HOH worked hard to replace all the old, rusting and rotting screens we had in place.  As you can see, they desperately needed replacing...

Now they are nice and useful again; and we are so grateful to all of you who participated in this project.  Some people gave financially for us to purchase the materials, others helped order and ship them to us, still others paid for the shipping.  It was a team effort utilizing our partners from all over North America.  Thank you to those of you who helped out.  Here are some pictures of the new screens and the HOH boys installing them...

and here's a look at a window with the finished product...

After much counsel from various sources, we purchased both bug screen and a slightly larger and stronger wired cloth in order to give the bug screen more strength.  It is our hope that these screens last a long time, and give our kids many mosquito free nights (as long as they remember to close the doors!!).

Since returning to school after the break, most of our students have been busy with exams.  As you can imagine it's a stressful time for them, and their days out of school are consumed with studying for the next exam.  They'd sure appreciate your prayers as they finish up.  While we are talking about exams you can already be in prayer for those who have already started to prepare for the difficult government exams coming up in June/July.  Linda is one of those who will be taking these difficult exams, please pray for all of them as they will be working long hours to prepare for this.  

Linda's health continues to be another reason for prayer.  While she did not undergo surgery at this time for her fibroid, the doctors continue to monitor her and are trying other methods in the meantime.  Her blood sugar continues to be an issue as she struggles to get it stabilized, and I know she'd appreciate your prayers for that as well.

We were recently blessed with a visit from a church in Oklahoma.  Among the many things they brought to help out the HOH and cheer up the kids were new cups and spoons.  

In a similar way to the new chairs, the young leaders at the HOH have come up with clever ways to make sure each child at the HOH takes care of his own cup and spoon.  It may seem like small things, but I am pleased with their efforts to include more and more of the kids in taking responsibility for things in the HOH. 

Brother David continues to hold Bible studies with our young people, and several of them have also started helping him with various activities in his church plant in our little town.  It is exciting to see them getting involved in these activities.  

Please continue to pray for the various needs we have at the HOH.  I hope to get a needs page set up on our blog soon that will give you up to date information on the needs we have.  If you are interested in helping us out in any way, just let us know.  A big thanks to all of you who do already help us out in so many ways.

New, again!

"New" has arrived at the HOH once again; this time it was new chairs!  Yes indeed, the new chairs arrived in February, and as you can imagine brought much joy to everyone.  You heard us talking about them for quite some time now.  It all started in the spring of last year with some research, then came an invitation for you all to be involved in collecting the necessary funds to get them.  Once the funds came in it was time to do the ordering -- a would be nearly impossible feat had it not been for some willing helpers in the Extreme Response home office who helped us pull that off!  That was back in November and then came the wait... Finally, in mid February; after having traveled many many miles, the chairs arrived. Four different colors, and four different sizes.

They will have many uses at the HOH, but two of the biggest ones are for use while the kids are eating at the tables, and for use during church services, Bible studies and school. 

So now this means, of course, no more kneeling or standing while the kids are eating.  Also, no more fights over who gets a chair and who doesn't (I know, I know you thought our kids never fought about anything!).  It also means that the kids do not have to rush to get to church and school first in order to snag a chair.  Hmm, we are going to have to come up with another reason to encourage them to be on time now!

In any case, we are so grateful to all who helped us at every step through this process.  In an effort to preserve the life span of these chairs, our young leaders have come up with a "chair care" plan.  Each child, youth and young adult has been assigned a chair, and their name written on it.  That is their chair to care for, keep clean and keep under surveillance.  It is our hope that these chairs will last a long time and that our kids learn from their responsibility to care for them well.

Our friends in Miami continue to provide us with food goods brought over on the boat on a regular basis.  Their help in this way is of incalculable worth; on the months when our financial donations are low, we are always encouraged to know at least we'll be able to feed all the hungry mouths we have to feed.  If it would interest you to help them out with the purchase and collecting of these food supplies feel free check out their website at:  http://friendsofhumanity4haiti.org/ .

The arrival of food always brings a smile!

This past month has seen several new children being brought to the HOH.  Most of these children have come with severe malnutrition.  These children bring the most work for our staff of nurses, and while they often are the ones who break your heart when they don't make it; they are more often the ones who bring great rejoicing in our home as we see the incredible change just a few weeks of good nutrition can bring to a child.  Along with one family member, these children generally spend a month in our home as the children receive care, and the family members (usually their mothers) are shown the proper food and life choices they need to make in order to maintain the child's level of nutrition and healthy home environment once they leave the HOH and return to their homes. 

Another frequent health concern that brings a child to the HOH is some form of Tuberculosis.  Recently, Marcsony came to the HOH with this very problem. 

He comes from a town a few miles up the road from us.  He has been battling TB in his neck glands for quiet some time.  Unfortunately, he faced a problem many other children face; in fact it is this very problem that originally caused the HOH to come into being.  The treatment for TB takes many many months, and need consistent daily medication throughout the treatment time.  Marcsony started his treatment from his home, but he didn't get very far along when his family started to forget to give him his meds.  Then when the meds ran out, they didn't hurry to get more; thinking they had time before he needed it again.  At first, it didn't seem to make a big difference, but soon he started to get worse again.  When they returned to the hospital this time, the doctor convinced them to allow him to stay at the HOH for the duration of his treatment so he could fully recover.

Kechnaida and Chilienne also came to the HOH with various forms of TB.  Kechnaida had it in her spine and Chilienne in her glands like Marcsony.  They've already been at the HOH for several months at this point, and are well into their treatments.  Kechnaida was unable to sit, stand or walk when she arrived.  Now she can do all of the above.  It's amazing what treatment can do for the physical body, and as you can see on their faces the love and care given at the HOH does a lot for their spirits too.

We appreciate you all and your support of the HOH very much.  There are so many ways you help us out, and each one just makes us better able to care for the needs of the children and youth in our care.  There area a few areas in which we need more help.  Several people and groups of people offered to help us with our need of Baby supplies, thank you so much for each one who participated in that.  We have a list of other supplies we are in need of sending down to Haiti, if you'd be interested in helping out in this way, please just let us know and we'll fit you with one that suits you.  We are also in need of continued monthly financial donations.  We love and appreciate all those who give financially, and if anyone else out there is interested in helping in this way, please let us know.  The easiest way to get in contact with us is at the following e-mail:  houseofhope1@hotmail.com. 

Please continue to pray for Linda, the HOH director's health.  She was scheduled for surgery today or tomorrow, but is not sure that it will happen or not, so pray for wisdom for all those involved in deciding and doing this, and for peace for Linda and the kids as she faces these health needs at this time. Once again, thank you so much for the various ways in which you support our ministry.  May you be blessed and continue to be a blessing.

Oh Baby!!

Last week we were privileged to received a beautiful 5 day old baby boy into our home.  His name is Job, and his mother died in childbirth.  The father brought him to our hospital asking for help.  He said he had no family to take this child, and since he already had 8 children at home, he could not take care of this tiny baby.  It was obvious that the baby was already on his way to becoming severely dehydrated, so the hospital sent him to us. 

5 day old Job

Everyone was excited to have a new baby in the house.  None more than the younger kids.  They marveled about every little thing he did.  In the following picture I found a bunch of them huddled around Linda as she was feeding him...

Unfortunately, our joy of having Job in our home didn't last too long, but we couldn't be sad about the circumstances that took him away from us.  One of the national staff from our partnering hospital has been wanting to adopt a child for some time now and jumped on this opportunity to adopt Job.  We just love it when Haitian families step up to adopt children whose birth families are not able to care for them.  But, we were disappointed to have just had 3 days with him in our care!

One thing we did realize, however, is that we are out of baby supplies here at the HOH!  We have had 5 babies come through our home over the past year, and we've depleted our stock of baby things.  We were able to find a few bottles to feed him, but we are going to need to replace our stock soon to be ready for the next one.  If there is a small group, school, church, family or friends out there who would like to put together a "baby" care package for the HOH, please feel free to get in contact with us and we can give you details about what kinds of things we need, and how you can get them to us. 

We appreciate so much the help you have been to the ministry here at the HOH.  We are blessed to have partners who help us in many different ways.  For those of you who pray for us, here are some requests:

• Jenny will be on her way to Canada soon, please pray for safety in traveling.  You will be hearing from her on how you can be in touch with her there, once she is settled.
• Our students are heavy into studying.  For those in grades 6, 9, 12 and 13 there are government exams coming up in June and July and they are already studying for them.  They are hard exams and they would appreciate you praying for them.  We will get you a list of them closer to the day, but Linda is one of them studying for the grade 12 exams.
• Linda's health is still a concern.  Her diabetes is back under control, and she is much more careful with her diet than before.  But through all of this the doctors have discovered another problem that she is having.  She has 4 fibroid in her abdomen, and the OBGYN doctor feels she will need to have surgery.  She does not want that, so she is trying several other options first.  We ask you to pray for her as she does this, that the medication she is on can dissolve them, or at least reduce them, and that she can avoid having to have surgery to remove them.
• Continue to pray for our financial needs.  We are grateful for generous donations in December.  And ask you to pray that our monthly financial needs would continue to be met.

Many thanks, and Blessings to you all!

Starting the year out with a Bang!

On Jan. 2, 2014, our friends from Miami came to the HOH with the express purpose of hosting a BBQ for the HOH family.  It all started about 6 months ago when they were here on a work project.  They had a BBQ for themselves and some friends in the neighborhood one afternoon, and brought Linda and I some of the leftovers.  There were hotdogs, hamburgers and ribs.  Good stuff.  We shared it all with the kids, and to our friend's amazement the food got split into many many pieces as the kids all wanted to taste this strange food.  They had never tasted anything like it. 

And with that the planning started for a special surprise BBQ just for the HOH so that our kids could enjoy their own hotdogs and hamburgers.  Jan. 2nd was the special day, and our kids had an incredibly good time.  When asked if he wanted a hotdog or hamburger (they called them long or flat meat), one of our older boys said, "Please give ma a hamburger, I've only ever seen them in the movies, I'd like to know what one tastes like".  Here are some pictures of our fun day...

Cooking up a storm, Mikerlange and Rosnel help BBQ the meat.

Renel, the mastermind, behind the BBQ taste tests the food to make sure it's OK for the rest of us.

Waiting for the food to cook, Ivinsky does his best to entertain.

Finally, Hotdogs and Hamburgers for everyone!

An afternoon of games and popcorn.

 

 A late afternoon meal of BBQ chicken, ribs & Steak plus good ole Haitian rice & pikliz (like a very spicy hot coleslaw).

The end result!

Thanks so much to our friends from Miami Shores Presbyterian Church, Central Presbyterian, and Friends of Humanity for a wonderful day.  

Now the partying has finished, and it is back to school.  The books have been dusted off, uniforms washed, and the week is now filled with classes and homework.  Please keep our students in your prayers.  Several:  Siliana, Chedlyn, John Wisly and Ivinsky have such a hard time with school, they could use your prayers as they struggle to keep up with their classes.  A few others have not been putting the effort they need to into their school work and did not get passing marks last semester.  Please pray for their attitudes toward school, and life in general.

Jenny will be traveling starting tomorrow and into next week visiting an Extreme Response ministry in another part of Haiti, so please pray for her as she travels.  Linda has been having some trouble with her diabetes the past couple of days, and has had to start on insulin shots.  Please pray for her that she'd be able to get this under control, and get her numbers back in a normal place.

Many thanks for all your support!

HOH Winter 2014 Newsletter

Here is our new Prayer letter. Please let me know if you have problems reading it and would like me to send it as an e-mail attachment to you.

Winter 2014 Internet by Jenny Reitz

Merry Christmas!

A very Merry Christmas to all of you.  We hope you have a blessed holiday season wherever you may find yourselves.  Ours has been a busy one so far, we are part way through our Christmas program and party schedule with a few more days to go.

The kids got out late for Christmas vacation this year, most of them just finished their exams on Friday.  So they have been enjoying these first few days on vacation.  Yesterday we held our annual Christmas program.  The kids, under the direction of Saingermain, did such a great job.  It was full of songs, skits and full of the message of the gift of Jesus.  There were about 130 guests in attendance, and with our resident count it made it just over 200 people who crowded in our gallery area to enjoy the festivities.  Here's a glimpse of how the day went...

First came the preparation... Snack bags for everyone consisting of a sandwich, cupcake, bag of kettle corn and some candy.

 

Jenny's "helpers" licking out the icing bowl.

 

 

 

All dressed up... 

 

Songs from the heart

 

Dieula delivers a Christmas Poem.  She'll recite it in her school program tomorrow as well.

 

A fun dance to "Feliz Navidad"

 

And Finally... the food!  Rose Nirva tries cupcake and sandwich at the same time!

It's always a fun day at the HOH, and our friends and neighbors always enjoy coming as well.  One lady thanked us for giving a clear message of the true gift of Christmas, Jesus who lived so we could also live.

Speaking of gifts... the Christmas gifts from Grace Baptist Church in York, PA have arrived!  The kids are excited and we look forward to handing them out after our family Christmas meal on the 26th.  All of our staff will be here with us to participate in this meal and it's always nice to spend the day together.  Thanks so much Grace Baptist for once again sending our kids these gifts.  

We appreciate those of you who have prayed for our late president's wife and family during their difficult time.  We ask that you continue to hold up this family in prayer during this holiday season, as it will be tough for them.  

We'd also ask you to pray for the financial situation here at the HOH.  We were blessed by those of you who participated in helping us collect funds for our projects over the summer months (be watching for some pictures as we start to receive some of the items you helped us purchase).  We now really need to concentrate on increasing the amount of financial support that comes in on a monthly basis.  For those of you who give regularly, we thank God for you... Please pray with us that God would bring more people alongside of us to help increase this monthly support.  It costs us roughly $200 per child per month here at the HOH.  This includes everything:  food, clothes, schooling, medical care, daily needs.  If you do not do so already, please consider helping us with these costs.  If you'd like to know more details about this, just let us know at houseofhope1@hotmail.com .  If you are unable to help us out in this way, please pray with us that God would use others to do so.  Be looking in the coming weeks for news about changes we're making at the HOH due to these financial needs...

Until next time, we'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Continuing in the midst of sadness

I know it's been a bit since we've written. Things have been busy and then they were just sad... and it was hard to know how to write you about it all. 

A little over a week ago, the President of the national mission the House of Hope is part of (the Union of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Haiti) was taken from his home in Port-au-Prince and brutally murdered.  His wife survived gunshot wounds, but is still recovering in the hospital. 

You can imagine the shock to everyone, and it's hard to talk about anything else these days.  The funeral is supposed to be this coming weekend, being held in various places across Haiti.  We would ask for your prayers on behalf of the Simon family (they have 3 young adult children who are in the US).  Pray also that those investigating this murder would be able to find those responsible and bring them to justice and keep them from doing this to anyone else. 

Here at the HOH things are going ok.  We have two of our young men who have been sick, and I will be taking them to Port-au-Prince this week to see specialists.  Pray for safety for them as they travel, and that they'd be able to find solutions for these health issues. We will also try to attend the funeral of Pastor Simon while we are there.

We appreciate you, your support and prayers very much.  I will try to get a better update written when I get back from PAP.  Blessings... And thanks for praying.

"New"

The past couple of weeks we've had the chance to receive some new stuff at the HOH.  New stuff is always exciting for us, so we wanted to share some of them with you.

First, was the purchase of some new mattresses, thanks to a very generous gift from a supporter.  Half have been delivered to the HOH, and the other half will come in a week or so.  The kids really enjoyed getting them, here's some pictures: 

Another new was new shoes!  We've been blessed twice now by a young lady in the US who grew up in an orphanage herself in Russia.  She has spent time lately collecting shoes and money for shoes for other children in need around the world.  She helped us get new shoes for the kids for school, and now this past week sent us a suitcase full of shoes.  The kids had so much fun trying on the shoes and picking out ones that fit them...

And perhaps the most fun "new" of all was a new swing set sent to us by some new friends in Florida...

I think the smiles say it all.  We love to have new things around here!  So thank you to everyone who has so kindly given to us these past few weeks, and for those who gave to our other projects.  The screens and chairs have been ordered, and in another month or so we'll have even more new things!

Thank you so much for all the ways you support the House of Hope.  We do have some prayer requests we'd ask you to pray about.  Please keep our students in your prayers as they prepare for upcoming exams.  Also specifically pray for Chedlyn and Siliana as they are having difficulty learning to read.  The school system here doesn't allow for help for students who cannot learn just like everyone else, so we are doing the best we can to help them at home.  We could also use your prayers for Dieujuste who is going through a very difficult time right now.  Pray that we will know how best to help him and that he would make some good choices at this time.

Homework coming out of our ears!

We are into the rhythm of school, and believe it or not, some of our students already wish the tune would change!  Almost every day 6 year old Nani asks if there is school tomorrow; and when the weekend comes and we can finally say "no" she is so happy she just erupts into shouts of joy.  I do not think this is a very good sign... as we are only into week 3 of school!!

One thing that gets harder every year as our students get into higher grades is the amount of homework that is sent home with the students.  It is at least an hour's worth of work for the youngest classes and then it just goes up from there.  Another difficult thing is that most of the homework is not stuff that was taught in school, it's new information that they are supposed to pick up at home while you are helping them.  On one hand, the fact that the curriculum hasn't changed much since Linda was a child in school makes it easier for older kids and adults to help the children learn the new material, but for someone like me who didn't actually attend school in Haiti; boy it all seems complicated!

Thankfully we have a number of our youth and some adults in our local community who are willing to help us with the homework load.  I wanted to show you some of these "study groups" to give you a bit of an idea of what our afternoons and evenings are like.  So here are some of the people helping our students in elementary classes:

Linda studies with Dieula

Manno has a whole group of students he looks after.  

From Left: Dieunika, Manno, Baslet, Carlos, Chedlyn 

Our Neighbor Brother David is helping Valandjina and Nani this year.

 

Herby (in middle) is helping Gachner and Lovedine

They have a lot of proverbs in Haiti, and one of them is similar to our saying, "Many hands make light work".  Sometimes many hands just create a lot of hassle!  But in this case we are thankful for the many hands that help us get through the stacks of homework that come back to the HOH every day.

We have been able to start preparing our Bible Studies and classes to get up and running again.  Brother David is starting a Bible Study in 1 Corinthians with our older youth on Tuesday nights.  Linda and some of our young men will be starting up the Character Clubs with the boys from our local community on Saturdays.  She will also be teaching the Character studies to our younger kids in Sunday School on Sundays.  I am starting to work on translating some books to be used for future studies.

Recently, two of our younger kids expressed a desire to ask Jesus into their hearts.  Linda spent time talking over this decision with both Nani and Micah, and both of them asked Jesus to be their Savior.  As you can imagine this made us all happy and especially as it is two children who have been with us since they were just days old.  Nani will be 7 next month, and Micah is 5.

Thanks everyone for the prayers and support you gave us as we were raising funds for various projects over the summer.  We received enough funds for the first semester of school, funds to replace all the screens in the HOH, and some funds for chairs.   Paint was the least funded project... so we'll hold off on that for a bit.  School for the semester has already been paid.  The screens have been ordered and should be here in a month or so.  We hope to complete the chair money with some other gifts soon to be able to order them as well.  Next on our project list are new mattresses for the babies cribs... we have had these for at least 10 years, and they are really in bad shape.  The only reason they've lasted this long is that our friends from Simcoe made heavy duty mattress covers with rain coat material!  But even these heavy duty covers are coming to an end of their lifespan.  So be praying about this and the paint!

We were blessed with some very generous monthly gifts over the past few months and they've helped us with our finances a lot.  We'd ask you to continue to pray for God's provision of our monthly financial needs.  We appreciate you all and the many ways you support our ministry.  Have a blessed weekend!

Yes, it is!

Some have been wondering if the Rose Nirva seen dancing the Happy Dance below (and also eating the mango) is the same Rose Nirva who almost died of cholera a couple of months back.  The answer is yes!  And isn't she doing great?  Thank you so much for your prayers on her behalf.