Winter 

2014

THEDE Newsletter

In October and December we joined teams in Cap Haitian and on LaGonave to help with agricultural education and medical exams. Eli and Anna helped with translation as well as pitching in where ever they could help. 

The Cap Haitian visit focused on school physicals while the LaGonave team traveled to the mountains for home visits to people in Nan Mango.

Both locations will continue to benefit from the information in the Creole health books and plants that were shared. The new improved, expanded edition of the health book [7,500 copies] shipped from the publisher the first week of February, heading to Haiti. 

Right before the LaGonave team we participated in the third annual LaGonave Development Forum which seeks to help organizations work together to improve the lives of those living on LaGonave through medicine, education, agriculture and spiritual heath. 

In November we hosted a team from Friendship Wesleyan who worked with the children as well as painting the school’s dinning hall. Currently a 5 person, His Hands team is working hard to complete tables and benches for the dinning hall as well as other projects. 

Thank you for Partnering with us! Cory, Kris, Eli and Anna

Prayer & Praise

• Haiti’s Adoption Process
• Matching with our children
• Missionary support
• Church ministries and projects
• Kris’ Medical Boards April 23
• Eli’s SAT testing May 3
• Rain for gardens
• Faithful Support Team
• His Hands team February
• Warsaw Team March 18-27
• Haiti’s Youth Ministries
• Nursing School LaGonave
• Medical Ministry
• Creole Health and Plant books
• Anna’s 13th Birthday.

Now four levels of adult literacy, 63 dedicated students meet weekly on the Fauche Campus to work on reading, writing and math skills. One lady shared how she can now lead singing in her church because she can read the song book. Recently three people reluctantly were turned away because the starting class is full and making progress so they will need to wait for the start of the next beginner class. One student travels 1.5 hours to come to class three times a week. They regularly visit any sick local people as a class and pray with them.

Bananas

The photo above is from a neighbor’s yard and is a‘Mysore’ or ‘Raspberry’ banana, the best variety we are distributing. It is very sweet and fruity flavored, multiplies quickly and produces well even where local varieties barely survive. It has good resistance to disease, poor soil and drought. 

  We share most of the campus banana fruits at volleyball practice and Kids Club meetings.

    There are local varieties called “little Samuel” and “little Filo” so some people are calling this banana “little Cory”

Peach Palms

The Peach Palm trees on campus continue to grow very fast and could be an important crop here since it yields more food than corn on low fertility soil. Cory is considering a trip to Costa Rica this spring to get a good supply of seeds of the best varieties. A research center there has a large variety collection and sells the seeds. A trip in April for Kris to take medical boards exams in Santo Domingo will allow for exploring the Dominican Republic and any peach palm plantings that can be found during our travels. Dominican internet news articles have titles like "The massive planting of peach palm is urgent". They go on to say they "shouldn't be importing peach palm when we have the right environment to grow it here".

Cory recently met with the local Department of Agriculture official. They look forward to working together getting the promising new crops that are growing on the mission campus to gardens and farms in North Haiti. 

Agriculture Update

1. Fauche’s first egg fruit harvest 

A small 5 year old tree produced about 45 fruits. Cory’s gardeners were impressed. They are sweet, starchy and good fresh, cooked, or can be frozen for creamy, orange, nutritious shakes.

2. Breadfruit

Exciting news from one of the churches near Cap Haitian. One of the small breadfruit trees we brought in a carry-on in 2011 produced its first fruit!

3. Nut: Sacha Inchi

In less than nine months the planted seeds produced vines with mature nuts. High in protein, oil and omega 3. Plain roasted they don’t taste as good as peanuts but provide a similar nutritional value and are easy to grow. We plan to try them in some new recipes.

4. Chocolate Pudding Fruit.

This green skin, black fruit is related to, and tastes like the big orange Japanese persimmons. Some people are afraid to try this good sweet fruit.

Kid’s Club

Last week the children enjoyed activities based on the Eternity Express train book that we translated into Creole. The author, Carol Clark, visited in November with the Friendship team. Not only does the book share the plan of salvation but crafts to make “tickets” help to enforce the message and help the children to share with their friends and family.  With the positive influence of Kid’s Club the church youth group has expanded as children age out but continue to attend church.