Jeremie - Land of Motorcycles

Hi all,

Just got back from Jeremie three days ago. I was there from Friday until Tuesday helping a team from Washington state get started on the Jeremie church and orphanage. Jeremie is a small town right on the ocean near the southwest end of Haiti. You may not know this but New Hope Diamond Head church donated the money to purchase the land for the Jeremie church and orphanage in late 2009. We are now finally able to start developing the property and hope to have the orphanage and church move in there in a couple months. The Jeremie orphanage is run by the pastor of the Jeremie church - Pastor Casamajor. He is a wonderful dedicated man with such a heart for his people. Currently the 50 orphanage children live in a house with the pastor and his wife that is smaller than our Hospitality Tent on Sunday mornings (about 20' x 40') !! You can't imagine how crowded it is when they all lay down for bed ! And the existing orphanage has a tiny yard with very little room for the children to play. The new orphanage will be upstairs from the new church and will be almost three times it's current size. But with the church downstairs and a large area outside that is still on the property, it will be such a tremendous blessing for those kids and with plenty of room to play. When we went to visit them in the existing orphanage they all sang us a song - made my cry (as usual !!) I hope to be there in a month or two when they move in !

The heart of the town of Jeremie looks so much like an old wild west town with wooden buildings, some wooden sidewalks and the "feel" of that old west. The only real difference is that the horses of the 1800's have been replaced by small motorcycles. EVERYONE in Jeremie seems to drive a motorcycle. They even have "taxis" that are motorcycles. I had to take a moto-taxi from the church site to downtown Jeremie on Tuesday when I went to the airport to go home (Port-au-Prince "home" !) I gave my bag to the driver who put it on top of the gas tank. I got on the back and off we went. It was about two miles through very crowded, bumpy and steep roads to get to where I had to catch the "shuttle" (a beat up old van to take all the passengers out to the airport). The cost for that moto-taxi ride was 15 gourdes (pronounced "gude") which equals about 38 cents !! Pretty good deal !

Two other teams are currently here in Haiti but they are also out in outlying areas. One team went to help set up the church in Los Cahobas. A church from the west coast bought that property and we just set up the first actual new "structure" for the church - a huge tent, kind of like the tents at New Hope Diamond Head. The property is up a very long trail that you have to walk to so the entire church walks to church - and sometimes they stay all day and over night at the church if a team is in town !! Imagine doing that in Honolulu !!

Aaron Harris went with another team this past week out to Les Cayes - another remote church site we are developing. They are preparing for us to install the "self sufficiency" projects on the property there and eventually build another church. Currently the church meets in thatched sided "building" with a tin roof that I sent everyone a picture of back in January. Aaron is having fun "camping out" there with the team with no water, no electricity and no facilities other than a concrete building to sleep in. I am sure you'll hear about his travels on facebook when he returns this Saturday.

The other very exciting thing to report is that Jara (from New Hope Diamond Head) finally arrived here early last week to help us for the next few months. For now she is helping with the administration and assisting Debbie Booker (our director's wife) teach the English class. Aaron and I were the substitute teachers while Debbie was away but now she is back and Jara is helping. Jara will also be instrumental in getting our bakery started. That is a dream of our local pastor Guy Tomas. He wants to have a bakery in each church facility to make bread for the congregation and to also sell to raise money for the churches. Pastor Guy's dream comes out of the need for food here. He tells us that so many of his people come to church hungry and he wants to be able to provide some food for their stomach while he provides some "food for the soul" !! We are supposed to visit a local bakery soon to start getting familiar with how they do baking here and the equipment they use. Should be a great time as this dream develops !

God is moving here in many ways, and with so many other organizations as well. We met some wonderful people from Love a Child recently who are advising us on the talapia fish self sufficiency project and Samaritan's Purse (Franklin Graham organization) who are heavily involved in Haiti.

Blessings to you all !

Mark

Jeremie church & orphanage - the first floor is almost framed !!

The Jeremie property that New Hope Diamond Head bought - thank you NHDH !!!!

Jeremie orphanage water storage tank - with little friend !

Jeremie base camp kitchen with our cooks. What you don't realize is that there is no light in here at all and they are seeing by candle light - (candle next to the woman with the plastic bag). Tough to see what you're doing making dinner !!

The Jeremie "international " airport about four miles outside of town. The path in the foreground is someone's long "sidewalk" to their property which is on the other side of the gravel runway (behind me).