Hi all! This morning we embarked on a trek to Grace Village,
which included a detour due to a bridge collapse- which, in turn, was due to
the nuts and bolts being stolen from the bridge
Seeing Grace Village, and all Healing Haiti is doing through
Grace Village, was SO hopeful: 400 children attending the Grace Village school;
4 family-style homes for orphans who as a result, no longer consider themselves
such; 26 orphans with a place to live until Healing Haiti can reunite them with
their families; a medical clinic; plans for a dental clinic on the way; a
church; and a soon-to-open bakery and restaurant to continue creating jobs in
the area. Currently, over 120 Haitians work at and run Grace Village. It is
amazing to see the work that is being done here to empower the Haitian people,
create jobs, and provide a stable environment and education for kids.
Over the past few days, I’ve been working through trying to
understand our role here; in light of the extreme level of poverty, what does
our visit here really accomplish? I’m a “doer”- I like tasks, I like projects,
I like to see results, and I like measurable outcomes. I’ve struggled with the
parts of this trip that are “just” holding kids and helping carry buckets. When
faced with such complex and seemingly insurmountable issues such as the extreme
poverty in Haiti, I’m still learning to be more like Jesus (willing to serve
and love the individual) and less like the disciples (“when will we overthrow
the Romans already?!”).
But what I starting coming to realize when I was at Grace
Village is that it’s not about our individual team and what we do in our
minimal time here; rather, it’s the culmination of ALL groups that come here to
learn and to serve, and it’s the underlying fact that these visiting groups
provide funding that helps Healing Haiti create these opportunities for
education and job creation. And that cumulative work is generating
incredible results with measurable outcomes.
-Jessi
Today at Grace Village while the rest of the team took the
tour, I was advised that my original 2 hours for the CPR class got shrunk down
to 1 hour…prep work needed to be done before it started then! I updated the AED at the Clinic and the one
in the Guard Shack. Jason who works at
the clinic front desk was extremely helpful and awesome to work with!! The
clinic had 6 staff members attend the class, one of whom was Dr. Gregory. This was such a fun class and I can say that
not only did we complete a Healthcare Provider course in an hours time, but we
did all of that with translating everything…God is amazing and it was His will
that the class happened and by His grace I was able to teach it successfully
with everyone feeling good about what they learned!! This was my favorite part
of the trip so far and I really am looking forward to hosting another class for
the staff on Monday here at Guest House 2. Thank you Healing Haiti for allowing
me to help and be helpful, my heart is happy!!
-Matt
Marcia, Lori and Caron also had the opportunity to utilize
their work knowledge at Grace Village today.
A few days before flying out we were notified that the lab needed
assistance with setting up a new urinalysis and chemistry analyzer. It was a great experience and we were
blessed to work alongside the laboratory tech.
She did a wonderful job while we overwhelmed her with much information
in just a couple hours!! It was a fun
experience to see how a Haiti lab functions!!
-Caron
