May 1st Agriculture Day, and a Voodoo temple, by Cory

Two big moringa trees at center and right were planted from tree seedlings in disposable cups we brought
for students years ago.

May 1st is celebrated as agriculture day at many schools in Haiti.

Peach palm offshoots for in front of church by the road.
Big enough to be goat resistant.

Friday we delivered about 330 chaya cuttings to Port Margot Wesleyan School for their Monday May Day program.

Also 330+ half page papers with instructions on planting and using the chaya bush/tree as a vegetable.

We continued to a school on the other side of Port Margot whose director would like to plant some fruit trees on the grounds.

 There is only room for a few trees but it is nearby so we plan to return on Tuesday with the trees.

Then on to another Wesleyan Church and school just over a hill into the Limbe valley to plant more trees.

 It is built next to colonial French plantation ruins.

There is an underground irrigation canal that still carries water from about 5 miles up the valley near Limbe and turns into a river where it exits the ground not far from the church.

 The canal probably hasn't been used or maintained since independence more than 200 years ago.

Last Wednesday we were in the same area, planting 100 fruit trees in a garden for a pastor.

The 100 trees filled the back of the truck and was a good amount for the size of the garden.

A few other pastors came to help.

After the planting, I was asked if I knew about the Voodoo  place nearby.

We had driven by several times in the past when visiting the Wesleyan Church, but hadn't really noticed.

 I had noticed there was a building next to the garden while we were planting, but could only see part of the roof.

From the road it could be seen better. "Funeral Chapel Park (of the) Holy Trinity".

I was told by the pastors that the owner has purchased a lot of land in the area, is well known in other parts of Haiti and has, or at least had under Aristide, friends in the government.

Visitors come from many countries. He also has a small hotel near the main temple and the funeral building but the road requires 4 wheel drive after rains to get there.

"Haitian Vodou Church, Gougoun Temple" The area is called Ba Limbe

The owner wasn't there but someone from the hotel opened the gate for us to see the big rock and sacrifice areas of the temple.

Years ago the rock had been pushed into the ravine when the road was made.

Some people were buried alive in an accident during the road construction and were left there.

Port Margot's police station was burned down several years ago and hasn't reopened since.

This makes the problem of theft and other crimes in the Port Margot area harder to deal with.

Some people have curses put on their gardens to protect from thieves. Some go to the voodoo priest to have the thief punished.

We wouldn't take entering this place lightly, only under the protection of God. As we said while there, "Jesus is King of ALL"

We have been praying more this year for God to protect his people and their gardens from harm from illness, theft, and free-range livestock, especially as the mission has experienced some of this oppression over the years.

It just adds to Haiti's hunger, malnutrition, and poverty when people get discouraged from gardening or manage land in an inefficient way because more productive use would just be stolen or grazed away.

The temple is only 4 miles away from the mission and there are dozens of voodoo leaders even closer.

The area churches have plenty of work to do to set people free from oppression and help them understand that God can and wants to protect them from the spirits if they, with a good church, will serve only Him. Not self, not the spirits.

We have heard many stories about supernatural events in Haiti that the average North American probably wouldn't begin to believe.

God is working here and much progress has been made but much remains to be done and many prayers are needed.

Colored flags represent various spirits, knives are stuck in the back pillar, small coffin under the red sheet.

Church Celebration

Over three inches of rain last night. While the rains have fallen most nights this week the days have been at least partly sunny. Typical 'winter' weather for us.

Sunday we enjoyed the Fauche church's 'Harvest Festival' celebration, with three singing groups and Pastor Dieuce's sermon on 'God is Calling You'.

We continue to wait for news about our adoption paperwork: that the judge received the medical reports; that the judgement is done; that the papers have been turned into the social service office.

Missionary women singing their offerings to the front. 

Anna is working on school this week, while Eli will spend his spring break visiting both sets of grandparents. Very thankful that Eli can spend time with our families and that they are close by.

Bit by bit we are going though our household items: sorting, packing, evaluating, prioritizing, giving some away....in preparation for our eventual move to the mountain.

With rainy days and soggy land it makes sense for us to take the time now, and feels like a small step in faith each time we pack a box for Délice. We actually have bare bookshelves! Which folks who know us recognize as being rare. We know that the Lord opened the doors for us to move and His plan will come together in His way and His timing so we will pray and prepare.

Yesterday we agreed to buy a Yamaha Grizzley 4x4 that a missionary family we know put up for sale. It should be a big help with construction and transport at the top of the mountain.

Yesterday a few folks dropped in to chat with Cory about trees and gardens. They work in Port Margot and several other locations in north Haiti doing school gardening projects and education. Cory shared chaya and edible hibiscus cuttings. They plan to return when they are ready to plant some fruit trees.

Each May 1st many schools and groups distribute trees to plant. We have an order for 320 chaya cuttings for Port Margot Wesleyan School. The leaves of this large bush or small tree when cooked are similar to collard greens and very high in nutrition. We eat them about once a week almost all year.

Every year I complete my required 'continuing medical education' requirements for my family pratice boards. I read a bunch of medical journals and do a short quiz as well as complete one on-line unit a year. Last week when I went to sign up for my unit study I found that they are now requiring a 'national provider number' which I don't have. Sent in an email to the help-desk but have not heard back. Please pray that we hear soon. Thank you.

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.

H. Matthew .....Trip 1

Flood damage at Pitite Rivier de Nippes

Thank you for the prayers. While I could write a lot about our trip I need some time to process and rest up so will try to focus on some important points and update about current plans.

The hardest part I think was that continuing rains prevented us from visiting any of the hard hit areas in the mountains just south of Petit Goave or those north of Bainet. We were in the central coastal areas of the southern peninsula where damage was significant but frther West is much worse.

We also tried to get to Còte de Fer, traveling down to the Southern coast and then heading back East, but two bridges had been washed away on Rout 208, just past the town of Nadine.

Heavy storm clouds were coming in from the sea and although motorbikes were driving through, it  was knee deep, was wide, and looked too deep for our truck.

Tuesday we visited the church at Petite Riviére de Nippes and then took a small boat to Grand Boucan to see the church there. Wednesday the bridge that was out turned us around after a couple hours on the road toward Cote de Fer.

Where we had to turn back..no bridge.

So we visited three churches close to the road near Petite Goave as well as a location in town where the river ran through a neighborhood.

We managed to fit in one last church-which meant driving a while up a large riverbed.

During Hurricane Matthew a bridge coming into town was damaged by this river being flooded.

Wednesday night light rain started between 9-10 p.m. and continued all night into the morning.

Because our truck is small, the plan had been to send in a higher, heavier truck to take us to the harder to reach areas.

Petit Goave

So with the weather outlook being for heavy and all day rains, we returned to Port au Prince where a planning meeting was held that afternoon.

Four areas were identified as needing the most assistance. Yesterday we traveled home, picking up Anna from Ortlip.

Most of the banana plants will grow again and produce if they have enough leaves when they bloom to nourish a bunch of bananas(the number of leaves and flower bud form months before it blooms and then no more leaves can grow) but it will take about 15-18 months to start harvesting full-size bunches of bananas again.

Banana plants still in standing water...if they don't dry out soon the bulbs will be badly damaged or rot. If there is higher ground to plant, people could move the younger bulbs.

Meanwhile in Port, the supplies donated by World Hope [tarps, water filters, and personal hygiene kits] cleared customs in only three days. Food will be purchased to add to the supplies and be put into family packets.

We plan to return to travel with the teams going out for distribution of the family packets and to see the more heavily damaged mountain areas. Thursday night the US embassy sent out warnings for Les Cayes and Petit Goave because the long heavy rains caused additional flooding.

River bed 'road' one takes to visit Pomme Wesleyan church. 

Some of the locations of the heavily damaged churches are in the mountains and on a normal day can only take a truck so far and then need to go on foot or motorcycle up steep mountain trails for 1+ hours.

Flooded road in Port-au-Prince on Thursday.

Positives: The areas along the coasts that we saw, some homes were completely swept to the see and some gardens and trees down but it was spotty. Like the quake...some houses only had some mud, some were severely damaged and others gone. But with some trees and areas still OK just minutes away they will be able to receive help from close by.

We also saw areas along the way with moringa and chaya. ECHO contacted us to use our Creole chaya information and will add some to it and help to get the word out about this very nutritious leaf that most Haitians only know as a shade bush.

North Haiti

Another positive will be that the Haitians can reuse a lot of the tin and wood.  Much of the fallen branches and trees too small for lumber can be turned into firewood or charcoal.

The income, for those who had damaged trees, will help the needs.

Six days, 622 miles-many hours in the truck. [Yesterday it took us about 7 hours to cover 150 miles...]

Please continue to pray that the lifesaving supplies can reach those with the most need. Many very hard to reach areas still have not received any help. If the rains continue the relief can't get to the mountains or distant areas.

Medical teaching..

The medical chats with patients waiting to be seen at clinic continue to go well.

I started this back in April. Mondays continue to be the bigger days but for a while this summer, with the government medical residents being on strike, and a special deal here of some type, many days all three benches overflowed with patients.

[Pictures from back in June on a busy day]


I introduce myself and explain that while they wait we can discuss medical or health issues. Some days I talk and answer questions for two hours, while other days no one wants to talk [or only a few return patients are waiting who've heard the normal chats already] Then I just walk back home.

The talks not only help people learn more about medical conditions and ways to prevent health issues but allows me to learn more about what they believe about the human body or medical topics.

Occasionally the nurses or other clinic staff ask me questions as well.

Three weeks ago I restarted teaching in the adult literacy classes on Monday afternoons, now getting a full hour a week. Today I was asked to pick up an extra hour of class tomorrow as the normal teachers are ill. OK-so I can add substitute teaching to my resume.

still giving out chaya to those who want it

I started the first couple classes asking for topics. While some of the questions remain simple like those I hear on the medical chats, they also want to tackle big topics like heart disease and infections.

Being in a classroom setting it is easier for me to prepare a topic to share. Easier does not equal easy.

Remember these adults may have just started school again or for the first time. They focus on basic reading, writing, and math skills. Even those who have been in the program for 5 years do not have all the education of a fourth or fifth grader, and don't study all subjects like science.

One of the first topics the mostly female class wished to discuss was menopause... I learned rapidly that I need to define all the terms when no one had a clue what a hormone was...

So I work to keep the words, examples and topics as simple as I can. This can get tricky as well due to Creole not having many of the words we generally use to describe medical topics. While most of the students have attended church for years-the French vocabulary heard in reading the Bible and hymns does NOT include all words needed for scientific topics.

The language limitation, levels of education, and complicated subjects make class interesting. This week we talked about skin-so I reviewed the definitions of bacteria, virus, parasite, and fungus.

Couldn't really find the word for fungus but the normal teacher provided me with it. Great! Used it during the hour only at the end to have the teacher confess that it was the word for fern. Oops. OK class forget that word and we'll use the word for mushroom instead!

Also interesting to hear what 'they say /I've heard'...some truth, some urban legend and some just wild ideas.

Trying to sort it all out can be tricky..especially when 'the doctor said'. Much wisdom needed trying to balance what I know to be true, keeping things simple enough to be understood, and trying to think/understand what the doctor meant/or what the patient may have misunderstood.

Having prepared for a full class on a topic helps me with some of the questions for the clinic chats as well...uterine fibroids for example.

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. 

Bord de Mer Church

Confession..we remain embarrassed and clueless why it took us so many years to visit the Bord de Mer Wesleyan Church.

 Cory visited years ago when it was still being built and planted some acai and date palms.

But reviewing our church list last week we decided to go as our visit was years over-due and it is close by, just about 30 minutes down the road.

Anna didn't feel well over the weekend but went with us even with a slight temperature and head ache.

We enjoyed worshiping with the church folks and did a quick visit of their school.

Over 300 students attend this small school!

The sign on the outside school wall tells the children "not to learn for the test but for life"...good advice.

We totally forgot Haitian Father's Day until hearing the announcement in church on Sunday.

We celebrated Eli during the weekend as well so had some special foods like mulberry pie, taco soup, and hot fudge cake.

Today we joined Cory and the guys and visited the three garden plots across the river.

After seeing them we left the guys to work on weeding the third garden while we returned home.

Yesterday Cory handed out over 30 chaya cuttings and handouts to the large crowd waiting to see the clinic doctors.

I spoke to the group before he arrived and they listened and asked good health questions. Not every group says 'thank you' but this one did.

Cory came late due to the ambulance having trouble starting, the driver needed to borrow some tools and a gallon of gas.

Then a cow was found wandering and grazing weeds in the campus gardens so it was caught and tied up and Cory talked to the owner, who happened to be sitting across the road from the person in charge of loose cow problems.  (This person keeps lost livestock until the owner comes and pays any fines/damages that are due. We didn't ask for any damage fee since no real damage was done).

 It is reported that the offending person has let his cows damage many gardens, sometimes letting cows roam for weeks. His story was that someone untied the cow. There is always a "story" about a kid that improperly tied the animal or someone else that caused the problem.

Today only about 10 adults were waiting at clinic but another good listening group.

District Conference, speeches and the first cement post

Tropical Storm Chantal went by with a small amount of light wind, a little rain and a very nice sunset.

The district conference appears to be going well.

On Thursday I shared for a bit about the first aid topics as before: splinting, holding pressure on bleeding, transporting people and in the afternoon we checked a few blood pressures.


That same night I ended up being asked to interpret the evenings sermon for the visiting American speaker, Robert.

With only 10 minutes warning I did not have much time to think about it. Pastor Denord stayed close by so I could hand over the microphone when I didn't know what to say.

Some of the words that tripped me up included: sanctification, commitment, anointment and ink.

Adult LiteracyClass

We attended last night's service as well and I'm very thankful that I only needed to help with the first night as last night's would of been much harder.

School went well this week with both Eli and Anna doing some extra lessons as we push to the end.

Anna's practicing more with the volleyball team [6 hours yesterday total from morning and afternoon practices] as they will play in Port Margot's town square on Friday.

Cory spoke to the district leaders this morning about agriculture and will hand out some artemisia plants and star fruit [to eat and then plant the seeds if they wish] and chaya starts.


Cory's big frustration, project this week consisted of pouring the first pillar for the dragon fruit arbor.

The main issues turned out to be the consistency of the cement/gravel/sand/water mixture and tying/taping enough to provide support so that the split PVC stayed together enough to hold the mixture in place.

Will see how it turns out on Monday when they plan to remove the PVC and pour the second pillar.