Cory's Haiti Trip..Part 2

Monday I headed back to Delice / Blessing after getting some pvc pipe and supplies in Port au Prince.

Hard cement layer over soft, rough cement floor

Resurfacing the floor is about half done, will take a few more days this fall to finish.

 Plumbing is mostly done and now a toilet works.

Planting macadamia trees

A few fruit trees, macadamias, potatoes, yacon and ornamentals are planted.

Pepino dulce/sweet cucumber has produced well the past year, along with some tomatoes that sprouted in the neighbor's yard and produced well on their own.

Plumbing challenge

Pepino dulce or "sweet cucumber"

Macadamia trees

Jackfruit at Fauche

The next Monday I returned to Fauche.

Peach palms from Costa Rica 3 years after planting & good grazing

We checked out all the gardens and most are growing well.

We spent part of two mornings weeding and trimming the tree nursery. 

Malay apple tree

On the way to the airport Friday, we stopped at Deep River Mission to deliver a few fruit trees, coconuts and see how the trees we provided a year or two ago are growing.

Many have grown fast and should start fruiting soon. 

Starfruit is already producing and had good flavor.

Tree Planting Trip

Earlier this week, we  loaded up the truck with an assortment of trees, plants, and cuttings.

Then we bumped our way two hours east, out to The Children of the Promise Campus where we introduced my folks to friends and made some new friends.

Cory looked over the campus to decide where the different trees could be placed depending on the size of the tree and how much flooding it may need to tolerate.

Wednesday morning we played with some of the children, talked to various house parents/staff about the types of fruits or trees they preferred around the homes, and Cory placed the potted trees/plants around the grounds.

Following lunch, Cory directed the planting and watering of the trees, including: egg fruit, malay apple, mango, mulberry, starfruit, face roselle, chaya, edible hibiscus, aloe, miracle fruit, bilimbi, biriba, black sapote, jack fruit, dragon fruit, and Barbados cherry.

Ma'afala breadfruit in background to the right of the gentleman.

Cory, Dad, and a staff member also made a delivery to a local Pastor of some trees and plants. Because they happened to be leaving the COTP campus at shift change, they also gave a ride to some of the staff going their direction.

The church/school yard had a good size breadfruit that Cory brought a few years ago and people are asking for more to plant.

The photo is a 4 acre field that the pastor bought to plant and help the community. the former owner had planted one of the new breadfruit and a few local fruit trees. It is good to see the new varieties growing well and starting to produce.

Back at COTP we enjoyed our time learning about the staff and ministry.

After a few more chats and planting on Thursday morning we packed up and headed further east to see the Trou de Nord Wesleyan church and drop off the remaining fruit trees.

Since the phase-one dedication that my family attended a couple of years ago, the church building continues with most of the windows containing nice iron work.

Additional buildings in the church yard include the start of a parsonage and completed bathroom. The banana plants and garden on the property look productive.

Although Pastor Rigo could not meet with us, he reported that the church family now includes 200 new families in need of Konsey books.

Brother Eli met with us and told us that between 600-700 people attend weekly services and occasionally the church is full.

Turning the truck back west to head home, we did stop for one more agricultural visit at Helping Haitian Angels.

Parsonage under construction

Cory and the guys planted some trees at their location almost a year ago and this Wednesday received an email about giving some advice about planting a large garden including fruit trees.

So we stopped in to see how the first trees fared and talk a bit about the new plans. Last year's trees suffered during the dry season due to staff leaving but many of the trees were recovering from the past few months of abundant rain.

 Cory will continue to advise by emails and phone calls and hopefully get them some additional trees to bless the children and families.

We enjoyed some hamburgers and hot dogs in Cap Haitian on our ride back home.

We pray that the trees and plants will grow big and strong and be a blessing to many people as they produce fruit, and seeds for planting.

Week between 'teams'

Sparkly shoe strings + a fake rose in the hair...but smiling because they won!

Last week at this time we were heading home after the medical clinics. Tomorrow we will be running errands in Cap Haitian before heading to the airport to pick up my folks.



In between we: worked on school, visited the gardens, weeded, cleaned, worked on lessons, completed office work, read books, wrote thank-you notes, praticed volleyball, experimented with cooking,  communicated by e-mails and instant-message on Facebook, attended church, and lived life.

This week's winner of the most productive fruit tree is the Malay apple.

So some experimenting occurred.

Winners include: warm oatmeal malay apple crisp dessert with milk, malay apple sauce, and baked oatmeal with malay apples.

Second place goes to Malay apple chutney, mashed peach palm fruit and pickled palm heart.

Losers: pickled Malay apple and pickled mix of Malay apple and palm heart - using the same recipe as pickled beets.

The best Malay apples were saved to share with neighbors and friends. The skin is very tender so they are easily damaged by bugs, birds and rodents.

Baby goat is now tied up as her adventurous, ever expanding, curious appetite lead her to start eating the flowers and nibbling fruit trees.

The last few bunches of peach palm are ripening so it will be at least four months until the next harvest. A few trees look fat where blooms could emerge any time now.

The gardens are growing well, days are sunny now and a few light rains keep the area well watered.

Steamed Malay apple

Stovetop baked oatmeal with Malay apple

February fruits, first row left to right: Jujube (bird ate one to the pit) loquat,
'Ross' canister/egg fruit, cupusau seed and jam. 2nd row: Biriba, sapodilla,
3rd row: Malay apple, peach palm. Birds are eating the mulberries.

On the road again....

Two trips to southern Haiti in October; one to LaGonave + two to Délice in November; December and January travel to and from the USA and today we had to Cap Haitian for our 5th medical team with the Holy Cross Lutheran team.

Back in 2013, we joined the medical team for the first trip not dreaming we would continue to do so once a year. We look forward to serving with this team, joining old friends and meeting new ones.

We spent yesterday packing, as well as working in the gardens/plant nursery, school, and office.

Praying for good weather as in the past rain prevented a clinic as well as complicating travel on the dirt roads. Following a windy night we've had a few light sprinkles so far today.

If things go as planned, we will hold medical clinics at the same four locations as last year.

Eli will be finishing up his January class today with a 2 minute good-bye speech before heading to Allegan for the rest of the week. He plans to visit a business on Thursday that may be a site for his summer internship. Thank you for praying.

peach palm and a Malay apple

Once we return we will only be one week from my folks coming for a two-week visit; and the week following their visit we will head down for missionary meetings and hopefully a trip up to Délice.

Thank you for your prayers for our travels. Some parts of the road reduce our speeds to less than 10 miles an hour making for very long, bumpy hours in the truck.

Will try to blog during this week but in part it depends on the internet in Cap Haitian where we stay.

If not I'll catch you up on our adventures next week.

Trip planning...& trees for sale.

It looks like early next week we will be making a trip to Southern Haiti where the hurricane destroyed the fruit trees and gardens.

Will try to post a few details and a list of prayer requests before we leave.

This week Cory's guys started digging breadfruit root cuttings of the quick bearing Ma'afala variety to build up a good supply to ship or deliver to Southern Haiti. The existing breadfruit variety in the damaged area will sprout many root suckers for regrowing or transplanting so there shouldn't be a need for that variety.

Cory checked what types of coconuts would be strongest in high winds, disease resistant and produce well. He was surprised to find that the strange mutant looking short coconut trees near our favorite beach must be 'Fiji Dwarf' coconuts, one of the top recommended varieties now in Florida due to high disease resistance. He plans to start buying coconuts to use as seeds for new trees. We've also started to save more seeds from various fruits now in season to send south.

For some places the complete destruction will allow for improvement on what was once there. Maybe the trees and corps will be more diverse as the areas get replanted.

A good lesson that both missions and homeschool taught me and remind me of often... to take the time to occasionally check out what is working and what is not and adjust procedure as needed.

This week Cory and I created a new section in the plant nursery for 'sales' .

As more people learn about Cory's trees they tend to drop in to pick up a few trees without notice. Cory and the guys try to head across the river about once a week to check the gardens there and work on them....leaving the non-plant expert here to sell trees.

Last time a man didn't really care that he could be buying a black sapote or and egg fruit, [Cory thinks maybe he got an avocado as one is now missing from that area].

Yes, I do know and recognize some of the trees....but Cory has lots of trees in the nursery and when they are little some have very similar leaves...if you are not an expert on rare tropical fruits.

another nursery area

Another issue we're hoping this helps with is that before when people came for plants, because different trees were scattered here and there-they would see other trees they wanted to buy but some trees Cory has plans for or are experimental and he's not ready to distribute them.

Now with a nice area with trees for sale I can sell without worrying about letting some special tree of Cory's go accidentally. The trees are organized by row and I hold a list of names so I don't sell the wrong type of tree.

Trees in a plastic bag 25 Haitian gouds or 50 for a tree in a plastic pot. Grafted trees cost more. Return the pot for a 25 goud refund. We may add a 50 goud section for rarer trees or decorative plants that Cory doesn't like to spend as much time on. [64.76 goud to a USA dollar-as of this morning.]

So currently selling: egg fruit, black sapote, malay apple, breadfruit, starfruit, mulberry, bilimbi, jackfruit, grafted mangoes, cupuasu and biriba. Grafted avocados in a month or two.

Women's conference completed.

Getting trees

Cory loaded our pickup truck at 4am with 10 passengers and a heap of luggage to head to Limbée so that the ladies on the national committee could catch the bus heading south.

They were very grateful for the ride as well as the help given during the conference.

They shared food, like pumpkin soup (Sunday breakfast),  throughout the week with us in gratitude.

Pumpkin soup beats most American breakfasts!

Or maybe because I've been pointing to Cory's skinny body as being healthier than being over weight, they are trying to put some pounds on him! ha...not that easy, even though he likes all the food.

We were just a handful of people short of 400 blood pressure checks during the week.

Cory sold about 75 fruit trees with star fruit and malay apples being favorites.

Papers about chaya and chaya branches were also handed out to plant as a vegetable bush.

We greatly appreciate the chance to see leaders working very hard to advance the Lord's kingdom.

All 25 of the northern district churches sent representatives to the conference.

Only one afternoon saw heavy rains and the tarps didn't blow away, allowing the new church site to serve as the main meeting site.

Leaders brining in offering with song and praise!

Tomorrow, the district pastors and national church committee members will come to campus for the last week of conferences for 2016.

We were able to share 6 buckets of starfruit at the conference despite some theft by several groups of thieves.

 Twice this weekend during the day, some of the guys stealing starfruits from the nursery attempted to take the trail camera but a loud keychain alarm attached to it scared them off and notified Cory.

Praying for them to get their lives on track. It will be interesting to see if the photographed people will be receptive to dealing with this in a positive way or if it will be up to the Lord to deal with them if we can't.

Police type options are very limited in a revenge culture where we don't even have local police.

Kris was able to message with Eli a bit on Saturday. He's busy experiencing and learning a lot. Both classes are hard...no easy over-seas fluff.

Still need a roof!

 Keep praying. Eli blogged 'first week down' followed by 'sad' his thoughts on visiting the Sacksenhausen concentration camp here.

They are in Berlin, more than 5 hours by train from the recent attacks in Germany. 

Anna finished up her second week of school and played one afternoon with some of the younger children attending the conference. 

Kids Club field trip and Malay apple, by Cory

The Kids Club took a day trip on Tuesday to visit Vertiers, Blue Hills Wesleyan Church, and the Cap Haitian Cathedral.

Roll call was taken here at the school, then after a group photo they loaded into two buses.

Vertiers is the site near Cap Haitian where the slaves drove back the French Army in the battle for independence.

This is an old photo but we should be able to post a few photos of the outing after JeanPierre returns later today from a trip to Port au Prince.

Next the group stopped at the Blue Hills Church for a rest, snack and kids program.

Then off to downtown Cap Haitian to see the Cathedral and park downtown.

Haitians don't travel much so this was the first time most of the kids had seen these places. Vertiers Park is right on the main road into Cap Haitian.

The malay apple trees have a light crop now, with small fruit due to the dry weather.

After 3 hot sunny weeks with only a few night sprinkles, we are thankful for a 3 1/4" rain last night.

Since I need the malay apple seeds for planting, we are enjoying most of the apples ourselves, only sharing with a few who won't let the neighbor kids know they are fruiting.

There are a few neighbors with kids that tend to steal any fruit they find, even before it is ready for picking.

This has been a problem for years so prayers are appreciated about dealing with it in the best way.

Gener's Garden, by Cory

On Monday Cory, Gener and Yvon went up the mountain in back of the mission for a 3rd planting of fruit trees. [Cory doesn't carry any on his head so can't carry as many!]

They can only carry about 16 potted trees plus tools each trip.

The walk takes about 15 minutes, the path is steep and has a great view of the Port Margot valley.


The garden is next to forest that grew up on former garden land at the top of the small mountain.


Since the garden is on the northwest slope of a hill, the sun doesn't dry the ground much this time of year.

The planting was mostly egg fruit and peach palm, with a few jackfruit, malay apple, and black sapote.

On Tuesday Cory and Jean Pierre went to Cap Haitian to deliver more fruit trees to the Deep River Mission guest house.

He also brought Konsey II and Konsey for Kids books that will go to 5 Lutheran churches and schools.

A truck with 4 police met Cory on the road near the guest house and thought Cory lived there.

We are thankful to have had good relations with the police in Port Margot. The Cap Haitian police were out getting to know the community.

There are a few young mango trees to graft new varieties.

There are many new houses being built in the area.

Cory offered to translate for the owner so they all went into the yard and they did introductions.

They were friendly and asked if anyone in the area was causing problems.

Cory gave them each a Konsey II book.

The guest house now has a wide variety of Haitian and introduced fruit trees that guests will be able to learn about and taste.

After unloading the truck, Cory and three others from the guest house went to a town about 20 minutes west of Cap Haitian to visit a doctor they are working with doing the "Garden of Eden" farming method with mulch and no-till.

The mayor of a nearby town was also there and they were both very interested in planting new fruit trees. They were given several varieties of fruit trees to plant.

The photo of Dominican Republic goats on the Kids Konsey book cover led to some enthusiastic discussion of goats and dairy goats. Haitians are amazed that a large dairy goat can give a gallon of milk per day, which is considered a lot for a milk cow here to give.

Post by Cory. Sorry no pictures from Tuesday, which was also the 6th anniversary of Haiti's most recent big earthquake. Today marks two years since our adoption chart entered IBESR...praying to exit.