Thede Haiti Update. September

We plan our days with the limited knowledge we have at hand and then adjust when changes are needed. This week Kris' Grandmother passed into her heavenly home. Because of this we moved up our trip to the USA one week and plan to leave Haiti on Tuesday in order to arrive in Michigan on Wednesday just before visitation begins. The last few days we arranged the new travel plans and worked on our pre-departure to-do lists. 

Prayer Requests: 

• Praise Missionary Flights International regulatory issues were worked out without disruption of services. Our flight is on Sept. 18th
• Bedonia, daughter of LaGonave hospital administrator Met. Rousvel, is set to return to Haiti Sept. 25th.
• Church leadership-national and local levels: especially LaGonave and Petit Goave
• Clinic financial needs as patient numbers remain low.
• Creole Health books. Second book translation going slowly. Need a good translator for revision of the first book before reprint.
• Thankful to have our trip to New York set up and all Sunday mornings full. Scheduling weekday activities. Return travel now set.
• Soft rains for the gardens but protection from hurricanes and violent wind storms. 
• Missionary health and travel safety.
• Kris' family: Grandmother's funeral next Thursday. That all travel plans come together without delay.

Agriculture: This week Cory traveled to Cap Haitian to receive 1,368 disease resistant banana plants that Starfysh had purchased and shipped in. He paid customs and passed along most of them on to an MAF pilot who flew them to Starfysh on LaGonave, keeping some to cover the customs and other expenses. Cory also sent some breadfruit plants, bamboo, plastic potting bags and seed corn for the Starfysh project on LaGonave. 

The weekend before our leaving Haiti Cory shared with a Wesleyan Women's Meeting an everbearing mullberry tree for each of the 23 attendees.

We also enjoyed an overnight visit from Cathy and Dan. They work with sustainable agriculture training programs that Cory has helped in Central Haiti. 

Medical: Clinic continues to be pracrtically closed due to the road condition and other clinics in the area. Please pray for wisdom for the leadership. They recently worked to get a donated vehicle fixed up to be able to transport serious patient cases for more advanced care.

Books: Cory, Andy and I continue to work on compiling and translating the information for the second health book. We plan to continue to work on this during our time in the USA but the translation part will slow down due to the distance and our schedule. We hope to have the whole book in draft form by our return for final editing. 

MFI: The meeting with MFI, lawyers, and  Department of Transportation went well.  A workable solution was reached that allowed MFI to continue their service without disruption. Part of the solution is a revamping of MFI's website. We remain excited to fly in MFI's DC-3 turbo prop on Tuesday. We wanted to fly with MFI a number of years and are thankful that things finally worked out. 

Travel: Protesters again blocked our local road last Sunday but this time it only lasted one day. They continue to protest the location and timing [slowness] of the road paving. Should this happen on Tuesday we would take public transportation up to the blockade, walk and pick up another driver on the other side. Also last weekend we received a prayer request about a sudden announcement of the closing of the Cap Haitian airport for 5 weeks to repair the runway. Thank you for those who saw this request on Facebook or the blog. Currently the morning flights continue to arrive but need to leave by 1 p.m. and then the repair crews spend the afternoon working on the runway. Keep Praying!

USA Trip: We hope to visit with many of you during church visits or our open house on Oct. 20th at Allegan Wesleyan church,  1-4 p.m. If you can't make a scheduled time of sharing and live in Western Michigan area feel free to contact us about a visit.

You can find our schedule for sharing in the USA here… Thede's Schedule 2012

We will update it as additional information about the events become available. 

Serving the Lord with your help,

Cory, Kris, Eli and Anna Thede