The country and the city reminds me a bit of Angola: really very, very little infrastructure, and wonderful friendly people.
We have 40 students; young people who are enthusiastic and very eager to learn. Every pastor of the 30 churches we work with was asked to choose one or two young people from their church to do this school. After the earthquake there are lots of young people who still cannot go back to their schools or universities, as most of those buildings collapsed, and lots of their teachers died. So we had a very large group of youth (120!) who applied to do our school, but we could only accept 40 students, because we do not (yet) have such good facilities and each student costs approximately $ 500 in food and housing for those three months. They cannot pay this themselves, so for the most part (25 students) they are sponsored by Brazilian churches.
We all live in tents with covers of plastic sheeting, which unfortunately is not watertight during the tropical rains that we have here almost every night. The church / school seems a bit like a large tent; the walls are made of blue plastic with a roof from corrugated iron.
There is no running water. Water is purchased from a truck that announces his arrival with a cheerful music of the Titanic (!) Only one or two hours a day we have electricity when the generator is turned on. The bricklayers are still building the toilets for the students to use; hopefully they will put in the doors today! Showering they do outside, with their clothes on (which are also immediately washed) with a bucket and cup ...
Some students lived in nice houses before the earthquake, others were already poor. For all it's a big adjustment to now live very primitively in leaky tents. We have great respect for their positive attitudes. There is not much food, most must be imported, and usually there is only enough for two meals a day: for breakfast a bit of spaghetti with a dash of ketchup, and then for the combined lunch / dinner a large plate of rice with a little beanwater . A sad reality, not only in our school, but all throughout the country.
It is very special to see the hope, resilience, willpower, and happiness of the students. They start each day at half past five in the morning with one and a half hour of prayer and worship. Than at 8 o’clock in the morning until 6 o'clock in the afternoon they have classes.
Johan is teaching these first weeks. His knee has healed well, but he cannot stand yet for a long time, or walk a long way. His eye infection is also slowly healing and he is reducing his medication. At night we rest very well, as we go to bed very early, like most people do here.
We are starting to hear some of the personal stories of pain and sorrow. Yesterday a pastor visited us, the father of one of the students. He told us about the earthquake and about his family. We cannot even start to imagine what they have gone through. In about ten days we will give special classes about trauma and bereavement. Will you pray with us for the students? We hope to train the students in this area, so that they in turn will help others, especially children in the many tent camps around the city.
Please, could you keep on praying for the students and for Johan and me? It's very special to be in Haiti at this time and to work with these young people. We thank God for his faithfulness, and also all of you who have sent us emails to encourage us, who have prayed for us and who have given us financial gifts. We feel very fortunate to have such wonderful compassionate family and friends. Thank you! We wish you God's abundant blessings!
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