During this busy Christmas season take some time off to think of those who are hungry.

With some donations we were able to start serving breakfast at school to the younger children.

From our church’s windows, workers in action.

Most pictures of this newsletter were taken by Kari Luhtasaari, a professional photographer. She was part of a team visiting us in November.

Richard Villeneuve is from Gatineau, Quebec. He has been with us since December 15, 2010 as a Volunteer in Mission sent by the PAOC.

He is our construction foreman.

He made the concrete floors for the classrooms and for the latrines and the school yard’s fences.

The walls and the floor of the ravine are nearly completed now.

The latrines are nearly completed.

Chuck and Kari took apart the prefab home that was in our yard.

They rebuilt it and they transformed it into a snack bar.

Pastor Dan who gave direction to the Chapleau team in Ontario alongside with his son Daniel, tiler by trade, tiled the offices floors.

They also tiled the bathroom floor. They did a wonderful job.

Dan fixed a spot light.

Dan repaired the regulators and many other things.

Dot and Noreen sewed the office curtains. Dorothea also brought the word of God to the teenage girls and to the 7 to 12 years olds.

Sheila and Nicole repaired lots of screens.

The Chapleau team in front of the only Christmas tree we have seen in town.

It is so nice to see the children running on the school compound.  Most of them live in small spaces.

Jean-Philippe, third from the left, who was on the Child Care Plus program, is our first university graduated. He studied administration and economics.

We celebrated our first wedding! Our children are growing into young adults now.  Alfred was sponsored by CCP and he is now one of the teachers at our school and a university student in education.  Alexandra was also sponsored.

The other day, while doing some exercises to try to heal of my tendinitis, I was looking through our bedroom window and those words written on the street wall jumped to my eyes: Jésus Guérit (Jesus Heals). I have seen them hundreds of times, but this time, they became more real to me. I hope to have good news next time I write you.

We wish you God’s blessings for the New Year.

We love you and we are grateful for your support.

Every morning, the children gather in the schoolyard.

They salute the flag

While singing the national anthem of Haiti.

Before going to their classrooms, they pray.

The children walk in line into their class.

While some workers work in the ravine with the pick, the children go to their classrooms in rows.

Through the open shutters, we can see some pretty little heads with ribbons.

Mrs Francine Page (left) retired school principal, gave  a precious help to our school.  Through the years, she gave thousands of hours of Volunteers work to ChildCare Plus/Haiti.

Before the school re-entry, Jean-Charles Pelletier, master carpenter from Eglise Vie Abondante in Ste-Foy, Quebec, made some school tables.

He also made school benches for hundreds of students and some classrooms cabinets. Every day, six days a week, he would begin working at 6:30 am to end at 4:00 pm.

Jean-Charles sitting with our team of painters on the benches he made.

With his collaboration and the Disraeli working team’s collaboration, our children will be comfortably seated and they will have a table to write on for years to come. Thank God for that!

In October, a team of 14 people from Church Without Borders in St-Hubert, Quebec, came to visit with us.

They taught us some new songs and they visited some homes. The two nurses that came with them gave medical attention to several children.

Jean-François, their youth pastor brought a good message on Sunday morning.

The team fixed some benches.

Dominique amazed us with his sewing skills.  He made the school curtains within 2-3 hours. He also fixed our truck’s brakes. But his profession is web design.

An important donation from the Pentecostal Evangelical Action in France allowed us to build five classrooms and the school benches and tables for 380 students.  In a country where schooling is a problem, this gift means a lot.

According to an article published on CNN on October 11, 2011, a medication called Peanut Butter Medicine, Medika Mamba in Creole has been created to save babies suffering from malnutrition.  It gives tremendous results.  “You can’t rehabilitate a child who has severe malnutrition with a plate of beans and rice. There’s just no way,” said Thomas Stehl, the non profit’s director of operations.  “Their stomachs are too small and their nutritional requirements are too great to ever be satisfied in that way.”  Babies suffering from malnutrition can die or suffer more effects of malnutrition, including reduced brain development. In the same way, our lack of communion with God may cause damage to our inner being. We must not deprive ourselves of the essential communion with God that we need.

We would like to thank you again for your prayers and for your wonderful support to our ministry.

Blessings.

A team of Haitian carpenters, who work for a factory in town that makes prefab homes, built five classrooms in eight days.

With the classrooms we have at church, we will be able to accommodate 350 students when school starts again in October in Haiti.

Martin Blanchard (left) who owns a billboard company had the idea to write in each of the 26 shutters, one of the alphabet letters with a drawing.

Panoramic of the five classrooms.

Eight men composed the Disraeli and Ste-Foy team.  They made benches and desks for 200 students in six days. Jean-Charles (off white hat) is a master carpenter.

Making of bench feet.

Assembling of bench feet.

Sanding of bench feet.

The result of six days of carpentry work.

At dawn, the team members lifted the church’s gate on our truck to bring it to the site to be installed.

Installation of the gate.

Stonewalls sustaining the recess yard.

Panoramic view of the wall and the recess yard.

School books and school supplies distribution.

Orline and Asou would like to thank you for your generosity towards the children.  Without your support, they would not be able to attend school and they would still have to search for their daily food.  They spend all of their days at our house, but they sleep at their house.  Thanks for supporting Haiti Ministries.

David Adcock, ERDO CEO, has approved our Child CARE Plus school building project. ERDO will provide the funds. A Canadian civil engineer from British Columbia will be available in September to supervise construction of the school. We believe that it will take ten weeks to complete the project.

We plan to start school in September anyway by using prefab homes that we will put up at the new site. Those classrooms will be very helpful even after the school is built because we will need extra classrooms.  We are praying for a primary school director.

Twelve students graduated from CCP /Haiti sponsorship program this year. They completed grade 13.

A young man by the name of Frantz Junior testified that ten years ago, his father lost his job.  It was precisely at this time that he met with us and he has been sponsored ever since.  He will be starting grade 12 in September.

Ten years ago, Jessika’s mother died from AIDS complications.  Her father disappeared.  Jessika lives with her four siblings. She completed grade 12 and will hopefully study education at university either this year or next year.

Ω More than 800 children are enrolled in CCP/Haiti and over 600 are sponsored.

Ω Five of those who graduated from CCP found jobs as school teachers and four of them are studying education at university.

Ω Ten others who graduated from CCP go to university and one of them is graduated!

Ω Our food program allows us to feed 1,500 children and youth twice a week at church where they can hear the Gospel.

With some donated funds, we were able to rebuild the Guerriers’ home, devastated during the earthquake.  Asou is a member of the Guerrier’s family.

Inside the Guerrier’s home.

Francine Pagé and three people working in education from the Montreal area, came to help us with the letters and the pictures to the sponsors.

The team, some of the Guerrier’s children and us.

John and Bridgett Maggs, with their friends Shane and Janis from The Life Centre in Cambridge, came to make a video to promote Child Care Plus/Haiti.

In the month of May, Pascal and Caroline Bergeron who replaced us for one year in 2000-2001, came to visit Haiti and our church.

Thank you for your continuous support. It will bear fruit into eternity.

Very alarming!  According to Alain Boinet, CEO and founder of the NGO Solidarity International, in 2020 half of the planet could lack drinkable water. Currently, one quarter of the world wide population does not have access to clean water. The severity of this crisis is compounded by environmental changes.

In 2020 Haiti could be one of those countries. Our immediate action can help prevent this calamity.

If we add the rapidly growing population, it is feared that this disaster will only be accelerated.

The lack of drinkable water causes 8 millions casualties per year.

Michel Martelly, nicknamed « Tèt kale » (The bald one) is the new elected president of Haiti.  He has a heavy load on his shoulders.

A team from Central Pentecostal Church in Fergus/Elora,  Ontario, visited with us.

Coffering of one of the church’s staircase supported by metal poles.

The re-bars are attached before pouring concrete on the stairs.

The day after having poured concrete on the stairs, Roy and his friend walked on them.

A national worker attaching re-bars for the staircase that goes to the second floor.

Before it dries up, the concrete is flattened with a trowel.

Walls being painted.

Time is even found to decorate the walls with flowers.

Benches are being painted.

A part of the 2 to 6 year-olds classroom.

The children singing with all of their hearts.

Pastor Norrie from Peoples Church, in Hamilton, Ontario preaching.

The Guerriers new home’s walls, floors and ceilings are completed.  The doors, the shutters to the windows and the screens are to be done. Thanks to those who gave for the house. The Guerriers are the family of seven children living without parents. We spoke about them in a previous letter.

Christmas at Easter time! Samaritan’s Purse shoe boxes distribution to our primary school sponsored children.

Pastor Michel greeting people after the service.

On Easter day, thirteen people were water baptized and four were Spirit filled a few days earlier.

We are still looking for a project manager to build our school before September 2011.  The project could last ten weeks and it would provide a salary and free housing.

Thanks for being part of the team. You make a difference.

Some workers attaching re-bars to make the pillars for the Guerriers children’s home.

Yesterday, the Guerriers’ shack was demolished.

On the right, their shack after demolition.

The dirt house behind their shack was also demolished to give more space to their new home.

We are looking for a carpenter for a couple of weeks right now!

Our project funds will provide free room and board for him.

Tasks that need to be done:

1. Build a 3 m X 7 m tin roof with a wooden frame for the Guerriers children’s home.  Their house is made of cement blocks.

2. Make a picnic table with benches.

3. Construct a 3 m X 4 m tin shelter to provide shade for their yard.

4. Make four wooden doors for their house.

If you are interested, please contact us now before purchasing your plane ticket at: mlcharb@haitiministries.com

Thanks.

Almost 80 percent of the world’s population aged 15 years and over is now literate, including more women than ever before, according to new figures from UNESCO.  Encouragingly, the figures also show that although women still make up two thirds of the world’s adult illiterates, in all regions they are gaining access to education and literacy, and at a faster rate than men.

The literacy rate in Haiti is 52,9%.  54,8% of  the men can read and write compared to 51,2% of the women.

We hope to be able to start building our school anytime soon. Meanwhile, classes are being he inld our new building’s dining room.

There are nine children in the Guerriers family. Seven of them live without their parents.  Marica (15) is in charge of the family. Recently, we found sponsors for all of them.  They  have the great privilege of going to school.

During the earthquake, three of the walls of their little house collapsed and the roof came down one or two feet.  To get inside, we have to duck our heads. We have received some donations, which will allow us to start to build part of their new home.

A team from Ontario built them double beds.

To avoid comments from jealous neighbours, we installed the beds at night using flashlights because there is no electricity.  To fit both beds inside, we had to move one of the walls made out of a blanket held by metal bars.

Two brand new mattresses; they used to sleep on a pile of rags covered by a sheet.

“The Good Life”

A team from Alberta led by Pastor Marlo Jenkins visited with us.

They made and painted several benches.

An astronaut costume to do painting. Why not?

On these same benches, the children go to school, they eat and they hear the Word of God.

A team from Cambridge, South Porcupine and Iroquois Falls in Ontario visited with us. Pastor Rick Tozer (extreme left), Pastor Mike Burt ( second row, right) Pastor Scott Corkill (second row, left)

Repairing the greenhouse nets.

Installation of the greenhouse nets at our new site.  Their opacity is 80% and they offer shade to the school yard that will eventually also be used for our feeding program.

Installation of barbed wire behind our new building.

The Taubl family from the USA, who have seven children, came to Haiti to give concerts.  They blessed our assembly with a concert of cello, violins and songs.   The family appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2008 and they have made several CDs.

After sixteen weeks of moving dirt off of our site with picks and shovels, we were pleased to find a backhoe to remove 60 truckloads of dirt.  That mountain we talked about in our last newsletter is surely disappearing.

Thank you with all of our hearts for standing with us in this work that needs more workers.

This mountain that represents sixty trucks of dirt must be moved in order for us to redirect and pave the ravine that goes through our land.  We tried to rent a backhoe but in vain. With all the reconstruction going on in town, all bulldozers are rented for months ahead.

The picks and the shovels are slowly getting a hold of that mountain.

We work at landscaping the church’s driveway in order to install the main gate.

This past January, a team from Beresford, NB, visited with us.

Pastor Luc Poirier from Beresford interpreted by Dr Jean Méhu, Canadian-Haitian psychiatrist, brought the children to cheer when they narrated the story of Jesus who healed the Official’s Son.

The Daughters of Tabitha, group of teenage girls and young women from our church, held a banquet with Diane Dupont as their guest speaker. Mrs Dupont is the director for Women of Vision for the Maritimes District.

Our church’s cooks surprised us by the quality of food they prepared for the banquet.

The ladies of the Beresford team cut and sew the curtains made to regulate the sound in our auditorium.

The men fixed the curtains’s rods in the mezzanine.

The Canadian-Congolese Paediatrician gave medical attention to several children.  She came along with a medical team. They held clinics in town with an American medical assistant.

With the Convoy of Hope’s participation, we can offer a very good quality of water to the children.

Thanks for teaming up with us.  Without your support, we would not be able to accomplish much and there is so much to do. Thanks again and may God richly bless you as you serve Him.

On the New Year’s Eve and on the New Year’s Day, we had the joy to share our “Joumou Soup” with a family of six children of whom Marika (15) is in charge. The “Joumou Soup” is the traditional soup eaten on that day and it is made of pumpkin, yam, meat and lots of vegetables. In fact, that family has nine children, but three of them live somewhere else.  The fathers have disappeared and their mother lives in a town located four hours from Port-au-Prince with a baby that she nurses.   When the baby will be weaned, she will  bring him to Marika for her to take care of him and her five other siblings who live in a ravine in a small house shaken up by last year earthquake. Often times, the neighbours had to feed them with a meal of white rice.

Now that we learned of their condition, we take care of them with a diversity of food. Two of the children are sponsored and on January 4th, two of the middle ones took the school road.  They lived in such a great poverty that several times, they did not have any water and soap to bath.  They attend our church since a long time, but due to a lack of staff, their great needs went unnoticed.  According to World Food Program, there are 925 million undernourished people in the world today. That means one in seven people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. Hunger and malnutrition are in fact the number one risk to the health worldwide.  God’s knowledge, food and education will provide a future to these children.  An educated mother will give a better education to her children and she will find a job more easily.   Who will break the enemy’s yoke on their lives?   Your gifts contribute to give them a brighter future.

We now serve the food with carts.

Bibles’s distribution for our school’s Bible course.

Our school yard’s laying-out.

Once it is paved, it will be covered with a greenhouse net and used as an outdoor dining room to keep our sanctuary and school cleaner.

Richard Villeneuve, on the right who is our site boss arrived on December 15.    He is from Gatineau, Quebec.

At the end of November, a team from Chapleau (Pastor Dan Lee) and Barrie in Ontario and from Edmundston, New-Brunswick (Pastor Robert Lapointe) visited us for two weeks.

Dentist Jalbert pulled out 1,000 teeth.

The dentist assistant was very effective.

Concrete was poured to the last section of the basement floor at church.

As always, when teams visit with us, they bless our ministry with clothing, shoes, sandals, toiletries, pens, pencils and toys.

Junior Taingué, one of our youth, painting coats of arms on our church’s main door.

Souvenirs in Bouthilliers with a view of Port-au-Prince.

On December 23, we became grandparents for the fifth time with an eight months old Thai princess in the name of Sophia.   What a great blessing she is!

May God open the floodgates of heaven and pour out his blessings unto you in this New Year.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning.  Lamentations 2,22-23. (NIV)

Picture taken by Rod Meadth, the high school principal at QCS, from his windows on the Delmas Road and Delmas 75 street corner, five minutes from where we live.

We woke up this morning, December 8, to the sound of riots.  Since this morning, we can hear heavy weapons being shot.  It sounds like we are in the middle of a war.  Last night, some angry men threw broken cement blocks and rocks at our gate.  Last night, they published the results for the presidential election held on November 28. Some foreign observers say that the results are wrong.  There has been fraud.  None of the eighteen candidates obtained the majority. There will be a second round with Mirlande Manigat and Jude Célestin, the two candidates who obtained the most voices. Celestin is accused of fraud.  The third favorite candidate did not get enough votes to be on the ballot for the second tour. He is a popular musician called Sweet Mickey (Michel Martelly).  The mob invested the streets last night, burning tires and erecting barricades to demonstrate against the exclusion of Sweet Mickey, their candidate. Businesses and schools are closed.   There will be more demonstrations in the coming days.  They are trying to evacuate the people living under tents in Petionville who are in the middle of the riots.

For more pictures and videos, please check Rod’s blog at:  http://www.rodandbrit.blogspot.com/  and  www.lenouvelliste.com

Please pray for peace in Haiti.