Just a thought...

So I can't really explain why posting on this blog is so difficult to get to. Maybe it has something to do with having kids home for the summer, working a full time job, running my own film business, being a homemaker and caretaker, getting my training runs in...or maybe I am just lazy. I hate to admit it, but I think it's just being lazy. There is nothing more on my mind than the children and people I love in Haiti. Pastor Willio sent me these photos just recently, and my heart was torn into pieces. It's as if Haiti beckons me daily. I just don't know where to go with this call. Ever have a struggle like this?

I have all of these ideas floating around in my head, but no clue how to bring them to reality. I know I want to see a new school built for these children who are currently squashed into the smallest classrooms. There is very little sunlight or overhead light due to the lack of electricity. The children often share a chair with another student. Here is the younger boys class pretty much stacked wall to wall in this tiny room of the orphanage.

The original school the children were placed in was closed down. Thank the Lord! This building was so incredibly unsafe. You could literally see through the floorboards of the 2nd story down to the classrooms below. The bad news is, the school year was still in session when the school closing occurred. Pastor Willio could not dream of sending the children away without completing the school year and so he made a very difficult choice. He assigned the 32 orphans living with him in the orphanage out to different homes in the community. He kept the five youngest boys with him, his wife, and their two children. Everyone else was sent to temporary homes. June 12, 2009 the school year finished and the 32 children moved back into the orphanage. However, when August comes around, the children will be displaced once again. If these homes were permanent, we could celebrate, but unfortunately they are not. Until a new school is built, the children will be moved back and forth between temporary housing and their familiar home in the orphanage. A new school building a school is a huge project and one I feel is far in the future. I am looking for advice from ANYONE who has experience building a school in the 3rd world. Even our current goal which is finding 21 families to support a teachers salary for one year, has been a difficult task. Do you know the cost of one teachers monthly salary? It a mere $70.00 a month. I think our bill from dinner at Chili's the other night was around this amount. Still, it's difficult to explain such a need to people here who have never met the children and teachers we are working so hard to care for. I plan to take another trip back to Haiti this August or September to meet with the teachers, and the banks to put into place a very secure payroll system that keeps the upmost care in accountability. I also hope to bring the personal story of each teacher sponsored a family in the US. I feel it's so important for sponsor families to know exactly who they are supporting as we open the communication between the sponsor and sponsored.

Finally, I ask for prayer for direction, advice, funding and most importantly wisdom in this very slow process. Thank you for following along in my baby steps. If it seems slow, it is. I imagine this is just the direction I am being led through. Finally, as I write this, my husband is in Ethiopia leading 13 students, college kids and adults for 3 weeks of serving and loving the children and people of this community. Please keep his team in your prayers. Here is their photo the morning they left. We have only heard they arrived safely, but do not anticipate hearing much from them while they are gone.