Friday in Haiti

by Lisa and Mercy

This morning we painted the trim on the church. Later on during our break, some of us went outside to play soccer and some stayed inside to create God's eyes with the kids. After having lunch some of us painted another small building so that the school administrators can use it as an office. The rest of us re-painted some of the chalkboards in the school. After all the work was done, Frenau's family invited us to their house.  We saw the foundation of their new home that was suppose to have 12 rooms!  Then they invited us into their current house that they built after the earthquake. Frenau explained how they had enough materials to build another house but they built the walls around the house first in order to protect the land.  By the grace of God, they'll be able to move into their new home soon. Inside the house, Frenau's father surprised us with gifts: a creole bible for pastor Jay and Mary Friedman, a wooden carving of a map of Haiti, a creole learning book, two cups with Haiti on them, and bracelets for everyone. Before we left, Frenau's father gave a beautiful prayer thanking God for their home, as well as Jay and Mary's generosity and dedication to bringing youth to Haiti. We all were moved by his words, and hope to see his whole family again.

We had dinner at the home of the Charge de Affairs  in Haiti, Brian Shukan, who grew up in Longmeadow.  He is the deputy ambassador at the US Embassy.  It was a treat to hear is slant on conditions here and tell him a little about CONASPEH.

Contact Through the End of the Trip

I have been asked by Dr. Jay to let everyone know that his phone has malfunctioned and that he is not receiving calls or texts.  If you are trying to reach him, please use Mary Friedman's phone:  413-244-2065.

Parents of participants:  they will contact us as soon as they are able once they arrive at JFK airport tomorrow evening.

I hope you have all been enjoying reading about their trip as much as I have.

Best,
Deb

Finishing the Church and Making God's Eyes

Yesterday we returned to Bon Repos to continue with our painting.  Some of us painted the chalkboards with black chalkboard paint to give them a nice new surface for the teachers.  Some painted the red trim on the windows. Some painted the inside of the storage shed.  We taught two classes how to make God's Eyes with yarn and popsicle sticks.  Even the teachers wanted to make them! At break time for the school Mark, Mary Catherine, and Keating "played"soccer with about 250 kids and three soccer balls ! It was chaotic and fun.  At the end of the day we went to Pastor Dorilien's house for some parting gifts, sharing, and prayer.  A full and blessed day!

-Mary Friedman

Important note from Dr Jay re phone calls and texts

I have apparently had a mal- function with my cellular device-- my phone is no longer getting service for phone calls text messages or email.  No Service-- at all.  This happened after having service for the first three days here-- not clear what has broken.   And none of the technically sophisticated youth can get it to work either....

Anyway I am receiving emails on the iPad.... But I am thinking there is a lesson here for me about disconnecting

A quick comment from Keating

Today I think was a pretty decent day I really have not had the greatest time in Haiti, because I just cannot understand this Creole which makes it hard to understand the Haitians, but I want to be able to talk to them.

A Summary Of The Day 4/22/15

Today began with a 6:00 wake up, which was extremely popular with the kids of the group, but the fulfilling day of hard work was worth the lack of sleep. We ate a delicious breakfast at Walls Guest. House and were on the road by 7:30. We arrived at Pastor Rene's school, dropped off the school supplies which we brought for the children, and were given a tour by Pastor Rene's son, Frenaud. The children were very enthusiastic about our visit and once they discovered that my sister and I spoke French, chattered away in French at a ridiculous pace that made me exhausted! But it was nice for the group to connect to the children on a personal level.

After the tour, we spent long, demanding hours in the sun painting the outside of the church, located directly next to the school, the exact same shade of pale yellow that it was before. It was "hot as Hades or rather Haiti" in Dr. Jay's words, we were constantly stared at and swarmed by children, and by the end everyone was completely covered in paint. In other words, at home I would have been miserable and taking breaks every other second to escape the heat. Yet, here in Haiti every single person, American and Haitian, worked until coaxed into lunch by our concerned chaperones. It's a different environment, one where working on a project like this is a way of communication that shows that we are here not for charity but for sharing. I didn't want to stop and was having fun talking in my broken French to our driver, "James", about Haitian culture and Creole.

Inside the church for lunch, we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (pre-made in the morning at Walls) and cold soda brought to us by Frenaud. During lunch I finally got to play soccer, which is something I've been itching to do since I saw (extremely good) Haitian kids playing on Monday. A juggling exchange started between James and myself,  which led to half the youth, who were supposed to be working on painting, to start a juggling circle as well. The break may not have been relaxing, but I enjoyed it all the same.

Afterwards, we re-painted the inside walls of the church. It was demanding work, which left us all exhausted and paint splattered (Aaron was especially covered in dense, white flecks), but the new brightness of the church was work every minute of work. We spent a enjoyable, hard day of work filled with wonderful people, fascinating conversations, and amusement.

Upon our return to Walls, we enjoyed the comforts of the hotel with new appreciation, a nice dinner (complete with two adorable cats at my feet), card games and a refreshing swim in the pool. We finished the day with a closing circle and talk as well as blog posts by Noelle and myself!

Thanks to all who made this trip possible,
Mary Cate

4/22/15 - Observations of the day

Hello, Mary Cate is writing the summery of today so I get to write about our observations of the day. Today we left Port-Au-Prince and traveled to Bon-Repo (please excuse my spelling). We passed over a bridge with a brown river surrounded by trash. There are huge pigs milling around in the trash. We have all been a little surprised about the trash. There is no trash pick up Or recycling system in place here. Abbie commented that maybe taking care of the Earth is a privilege. We were driving during before school time so we saw many students walking to school in their uniforms. One boy walked right in front of our van and held up his hand motioning don't run me over. One thing we all have noticed is the hundreds of. Brightly painted lottery stores. The Haitians are strong believers in dreams and the lottery is a way to get enough money to leave Haiti. Carla said that the real Haitian dream is to move to the US. The lottery is not run by the government but is a huge business. Once we arrived, we were given a tour of the school. The kindergarten took up a third of the building and had three small classes. Their ages ranged from 3 to 7. They all sang us welcome and proudly counted to fifteen in French. We have noticed the difference between creole and the language they learn in school, French. All Haitians speak creole but only those who go to school speak French. No where else I. The world is creol a national language so it is useful to learn French however French is used a a class barrier here.
        In the school we were welcomed warmly. All the teachers allowed us to speak to their classes. The grades 1-6 were all in one room separated by blackboards. The schools are so different from in the states but everyone wants to be in school and have an education.
   As normal, Monica found a child to entertain, Emily used her French. Mary Cate finally was able to play soccer, juggling with our bus rider, James. Painting g was fun. We decided to do the outside first. Next time anyone needs something painted just invite 22 people over. There was so many of us that we finished the walls on the inside and outside of the church. Painting was nice because we were working together, it was not us standing around, or us doing something for us. After the teachers passed out the school kits we brought the dynamic changed slightly. The kids realized we had brought the kits, even though we did not pass them out, and asked if we had more. The painting supplies that we had brought was not enough to do both the outside and inside if everyone had something to paint with. We use most if our rollers and all the trays on the outside so I had fun scrubbing rollers and trays clean in the empty paint buckets now filled with water. It had never occurred to me how simple it was to scrub the disposable roller and let it dry to reuse. Everyone that we worked with was so incredible. We criss-crossed paths never managing to accidentally paint each other. We were however covered in paint. Our sunburns are spotted because tiny spots of paint were on our skin. Another thing we saw a lot of were the colorful pick-up trucks and school buses that serve as the taxis and buses for the city( aka tap-taps). They are often painted with slogans about Jesus and religious sayings. On one I saw a picture of Messi.  It is amazing people manage to hop on to the right one and never fall off. We have seen people standing clinging on with one arm who look like if they hit one if the larger bumps in the road they will fly off.We all had a great day and enjoyed rewinding in the pool and playing cards.  See you all in a few days- Noelle

Traveling in Haiti

Here are some of our kids making "God's Eyes"with popsicle sticks and yarn with their Haitian "twins" at N a Sonje.  When we left the countryside yesterday we had a long , dusty and hair-raising trip in two open trucks down to Port-au-Prince!  The road was under construction and had steep ledges and bumps . . .quite an obstacle course, but a trip none of us will soon forget. It is typical of Haitians that total strangers stopped in the street to help our drivers navigate the steep pitches and direct them to the safest route. So now we are at Walls' Guest House.

CONASPEH And the Reason For Mission In Haiti

Today started with a trip to CONASPEH, a name many of us have been familiar with for a while, and to be able to go ourselves (or return, as was the case for two of our chaperones) was an honor to us all. We were able to visit the classrooms, meet students and teachers, and introduce ourselves and our mission to a multitude of individuals; this became quite an adventure with raucous cheering, singing and clapping, and interrogations of members from our youth group. After seeing the school, which has been completely reconstructed since the earthquake, the youth had the opportunity to socialize with Haitian students and grow our limited Creole and our knowledge of Haitian education and culture. Meeting the students was fun and talking with them helped us as we form our ideas about what it's like to live in Haiti and what it means to be Haitian. We then went, after sadly departing from our new friends (who we hope to see again on Friday) to the National History Museum, which is an interesting sight, as it resides underground. This museum was truly amazing, not only because for the first time I saw a king's actual crown in person, but because it widened our perspective and helped us fully understand what the history of Haiti is, for which I'm incredibly grateful especially because of how relevant their history remains in the situation of the country. We left the museum to visit a statue not far away commemorating the Hatian revolution. It was then that one of us ventured to bargain with a kind, and quite persistent (seeing as he'd followed us from the museum) art vendor. Next we returned to Walls Guest House, where we spent most of the remainder of the day having fun and bonding with each other, while swimming, playing cards, and singing in the rain.
Overall today was extremely fun, as has been a lot of our time on the mission trip, which made me wonder if there was more we could be doing, more ways to help than just to be there and learn, but I realized that meaningful mission comes through learning and sharing and understanding, not just physical labor, which doesn't provide real relief for the situation in Haiti or the Haitians. I don't believe Haiti's problems are something we can fix in a mission trip. Haiti will change at the hands of Haitians and in order to serve the purpose of positive change in Haiti we have to do what we can to support these people and their idea for Haiti. The first step in doing that is learning about Haiti and the Haitians and allowing them to learn from and about us. Today one of the bishops remarked that true mission is sharing, not charity, and that is exactly what I've found to be true. We could give all we want, our time, energy, money, but we could never give Haiti a lasting solution to any problem.
-Abigail

Getting ready for a project

The youth are wrapping yarn for an art project they will be doing tomorrow with the children of one of the schools that CONASPEH sponsors.  They will be making God's Eyes.

General Feelings/Reflections-Aaron Richardson

After my second night in Haiti, I've finally collected my general feelings toward Haiti. Arriving alone was hard due to the sweltering heat and because I could not speak Creole. We first went on a car ride to Walls International Guest House and from there to Na Sonje, a cultural and educational non profit organization. Throughout that ride we observed the markets, and the housing, and small businesses run by the Haitian people. Dealing with the heat along with the extremely bumpy ride, I had no time to reflect upon how I felt from simply seeing everything during the car ride.

The interesting thing about that was that I essentially put all of those feelings off, mentally, until they affected me directly. Specifically when I realized that where I'd be sleeping was extremely hot, and did not provide much privacy. Of course it was then, when I thought about everyone else who had to live in Haiti, who had to deal with this constantly. This didn't stay on my mind for too long, I knew I could deal. It wasn't until the morning when I actually got hit with such an awareness. I went to take a shower and as Mark said, the water would be cold. I showered but for me, the water was too cold, I was shivering and couldn't quite guess how I'd be doing that for about a week straight. Now I wasn't upset after thoroughly thinking about this situation, or any other extremely uncomfortable situation for that matter. Instead, it made me feel more full-filled, having the more mentally/physically straining experiences are greater for me.

 Every time I'm in a situation I'm upset with while I'm here, whether it's climbing hills or having to eat something I don't like the taste/smell of, I say to myself "good". This is because I believe that we should not be sheltered in any way from the life of the Haitians. The fact alone that we have filtered water to drink from is a bit unsettling to me because there are kids here who I've met who should just as well have clean water to drink from. I don't believe we should put our lives in danger purposely, but given the comforts we have even here in Haiti, restrict us from fully acknowledging the problems both in Haiti and within ourselves. This, of course also applies to the feelings we had when making a decision to come to Haiti. I'm not completely sure but I feel as if many people and or their parents instantly decided not to go on this trip after just hearing about the medication we'd have to take, or the conditions in Haiti. If trying to make some sort of positive change, I believe you can't have this sheltered mindset we're so used to having. If there's something you do or eat that doesn't match your normal life, that's the point, I believe, and I'm glad this group is so good at embracing this concept.

Dancing, Coffee and Cassava Making

Some pictures from today.

Dancing!

Keating and his twin Tipapi and Tipapi's mother.

Coffee making - stirring beans and adding sugar - then drying the mix before grinding.

Making Cassava.  A form of bread with flour from a root and coconut and sugar.  Cooked over an open fire.  Delicious!

Haiti Day 2

After church, we had some down time (which included much singing) and then ate lunch. The homemade peanut butter here is incredible! Then we had a Creole language and culture lesson with our twins and had a chance to practice what we learned by going to our twins' houses and meeting their families. Communication was a little rough at first, but we've figured out a mix of Spanish, English, French, and Creole that functions well enough to describe instructions for games, which were crazy fun. The smaller kids loved duck duck goose, though they just said duck duck DUCK! and then took off. They're the most intense, athletic duck duck goose players that I've ever seen in action. They're also hardcore hot-potato players.
The play that N A Sange performed later in the evening was a drastic shift into the serious history of Haiti; the performers acted out the colonization and abuse of Haiti, its indigenous people, and the imported slaves. My twin was quick to question me on what I knew of Haiti's long history of violent oppression and she filled in gaps that the play left. It was interesting and quite touching to see how much she wanted us to not only understand, but care.
After the play, our twins went home and we had the pleasure of listening to Mona and Carla's band. They were absolutely amazing and I plan on buying their CD :) Music is central to the culture here. There is loud music at what seems like all times here, even as I write this draft at 11:45 PM. Today has been an eye opening experience, especially seeing our twins' homes.

Our sleeping space doubled as a stage for the band!

Emily Carroll

Church School in Haiti

Sunday Report from Mary Friedman:

We are way up in the countryside above Port-au-Prince in a very small village where some of us were kept up half the night by barking dogs and the neighbor's loud music. The kids met their Haitian "twins" last night and we all had fun sharing songs and dancing together! This morning we loaded into two vans to make the bumpy hour-long trip to the little church where we worshipped with our Haitian fellow Christians. Dr. Jay preached this morning about Christian unity amid many "amens". We gave the necklaces which our church school made to the church school children at Legliz Evangelique Baptiste Bethesda!

This afternoon we had a long hot dusty walk with our youth and their Haitian twins. We met their families and saw their homes. It was an experience unlike any I have had before.

All are well and busy absorbing this new, rich, and challenging experience.

Sunday from Haiti

Here's the Sunday report from Haiti from Dr Jay:

This morning we awoke to the first full day in this wonderful and troubled land.   I continue to be startled by the contrasts:  extreme poverty and passionate faith, horrible living conditions and deep gratitude, very little according to my consumer mindset and yet great joy.

We arose early to go to worship at one of the church's that Pastor Rene Dorilien leads.   Amidst crowded conditions in several small adjoining spaces some 60 worshipers sat on benches singing praise to God.   I had the amazing experience of preaching to the attendees--and being translated into Creole by Frenaud who is the Pastor's son.  Quite an adventure to speak a sentence or thought at a time....and I had lots of "amen" and spoken approvals of what I was saying--after the translation!!

I spoke on John 17: 20-23 part of Jesus' prayer for his followers that they may be 'one' living united in love for one another and God.   I said that our unity must be visible and real--in two circumstances in particular:  when life is desperate and we don't know whether we can cope and when we find we are disagreeing with someone in the church.  In both of these circumstances we have the opportunity to demonstrate loving unity.

Our youth were "upstairs" partly because of no space, and partly to be with the children who were having church school:   singing and lessons.   We gave out the necklaces that the children of First Church made and taught them the song:  Send Me, Jesus.

We will have some of the youth blog later today!   Hold us in your prayers!

Arrival

The group has arrived safely in Port-au-Prince.  They will be spending their first days at the N a Sonje Foundation, an organization that specializes in hosting visitors, groups, volunteers, researchers, and journalists to share in the history, language and culture of Haiti.

Off They Go

After months of planning and packing, the group has set off on their way to Haiti.  They will stay over tonight at a motel near the airport and be at the airport bright and early tomorrow for their 9am flight to Port-au-Prince.  Along with our prayers for safe travels, they take with them many bags of supplies for CONASPEH, including school supplies packaged by YUP and a large donation of soccer balls, uniforms and socks from the Longmeadow Soccer Association. 

Thank you to Dan and Karen Glick for lending then the Glickmobile for the trip to the airport!

Haiti Trip Dedication

The group was dedicated for their trip during the worship service on Sunday, April 12.
Shown (l-r):  Mary Kate & Emily Carroll, Mary Friedman, Mercy Togba, Noelle Peluso, Lisa Garrity, Aaron Richardson, Mark Garrity, Dr. Jay, Abigail Glick, and Mary Ellen & Keating Flaherty.  Not shown:  Monica Torpey.

Getting Ready for the Trip

On April 18, 8 members of YES along with 5 chaperones will be traveling to Haiti on a service/mission trip to visit our friends at CONASPEH.  They will be dedicated for their trip on Sunday, April 12.