Alix and Mike Going to Haiti

Alix and Mike will visit our adopted village, Boileau to discuss their new priorities for projects following the earthquakes and the February flooding.  Despite valiant efforts at email and telephone contact, our communication is always incomplete.  Personal visits provide a chance to get a more detailed understanding of their situation so we can bring back an updated picture for the Haitian Pilgrim group.

Also, this will serve as our annual “stewardship trip” during which we inspect all of the projects and talk with project members to confirm we have a clear understanding of progress.  Periodic visits are a good policy both to improve our understanding of their current needs and to validate that funds are being used as promised.

Update on Help – food, water , books, and benches

Update notes: The villagers in Boileau are working to recover from the quake and flooding rains.The water has started to abate and they are trying to salvage what they can from the flooded gardens.Some is recoverable; much was destroyed by the floods.

Since we had help in the pipeline, we’ve been able to get them some food and medicine. Thanks to help from you, even the families hit hardest are still able to have a little food.

The initial reports were that all the wells had survived the quake and floods.It turned out that three wells were actually damaged. Again, thanks to your sacrifices we could respond quickly to repair the three, damaged wells; they now have clean water again.

Kids are returning to school. Again, because of your generous donations, the refugee children will soon have benches and books.

Donations to the garage sale–and the hard work of volunteers–produced a huge impact: the two weekends generated $1,900.00. Despite the snow and cold, the first weekend earned $500The second weekend almost tripled that – $1,400. This money will help repair homes. We are planning a third garage sale on April 17.

We are working with a group in New Jersey to use the Boileau clinic as the treatment center for a medical mission in late April.  They will have 10 to 15 doctors and nurses there for a week.  The buildings in Cavaillon they planned to use were damaged by the earthquake. This is an exciting opportunity to collaborate with another group.  We are hoping to build some on-going collaboration for expanded medical care.

Thanks for everyone’s help!!