(LOVE this photo! This little girl is one of the neighborhood children who come to the Guest House in the afternoon for a Bible lesson and play time)
Wanted to catch you all up on some of the highlights from our trip to Haiti last month, and a few developments re: future trips…
One thing I am SUPER excited about is now having a place in Cap Haitien that we can bring our teams to that is SO incredibly nice (and safe) – the See Him Ministries Guest House is definitely nicer than most of the hotels we’ve stayed at in Haiti, plus the food is great and the guest house staff take extremely good care of us.
Everybody gets their own room (and yes that is an air conditioning unit above the bed 😊)
Another thing I’m super excited about is the friendship we’ve developed with Sonel Dorsainvil, who I’ve written about in previous posts. The more time we’ve spent with Sonel, the more I’ve come to realize just how much a part of JT’s “inner circle” he is – Sonel lived in Port-au-Prince for a long time, and knows pretty much everybody we know at Delmas (he even worked out at the HFHC facility in Thomazeau for a while). I got the distinct impression that Sonel is one of those guys who JT took under his wing and has been mentoring for many years, and that the two of them still talk by phone pretty frequently. I mentioned to Jim at one point, “If you can’t actually have JT with you on a trip, Sonel’s a pretty good close-second up here in the Cap Haitien area.”
Sonel has offered to help us in planning and implementing trips, and working with the churches in northeast Haiti. He’s also offered to take us to St. Michel, which is only about a 3-hour drive from Cap Haitien – which would open up an incredible opportunity for us to get back actively involved in St. Michel, Bout Savane, and those surrounding areas.
Jim and I spent most of Sunday with Sonel in the village of Dumas, where Jim preached at one of the churches that Sonel works with.
After morning worship, Sonel took us to a place I’d never been before – a very cool and atmospheric seaside village called Fort Liberte, where we had lunch at this beautiful little Haitian restaurant:
One of the best things about our time in Dumas, Fort Liberte, and this entire area – it was SO nice being in places again where it was safe to get out, wander around, explore, and just immerse ourselves in real-life Haitian culture.
On Monday through Friday we taught classes at the CBT (Center for Biblical Training), the preachers’ training school established in Cap Haitian about 25 years ago. (Some of you may remember Tim Mastenbrook, who was an Elder for many years at the Providence Road Church of Christ in Charlotte, NC – Tim is one of the Board members for the Haitian Christian Foundation, parent organization for the CBT).
On Friday we were done teaching at noon, so we had a little extra down time. Frantzdy Belizaire, one of the See Him staff who oversees the Guest House operations, offered to take us into downtown Cap haitien for a little sight-seeing – we ended up having lunch at this really nice restaurant called Boukanye (Creole for “Buccaneer”).
The restaurant sits right on the Bay of Cap Haitien – this is the view as you walk out the front door:
(I found out later that Boukanye is one of the favorite places to go for See Him’s American teams that come in a few times a year.)
Last but not least – if you’ve got a couple minutes to check out a few short videos, I think you’d definitely enjoy them! Everything is loaded at https://thehaitifund.org/2022/04/08/haiti-trip-videos-march-2022/ – videos include:
So all in all Jim and a felt like it was a great week, and a hugely successful and worthwhile trip – and has definitely opened up a bunch of exciting possibilities for resuming regular trips to Haiti.
The next move – we’re talking to JT about having a few of us fly into Cap Haitien, have Sonel drive us to St. Michel, and meet up with JT and Bwa there – as always, prayers appreciated, and I’ll keep you posted on how things develop.
On a more somber note, speaking of JT, he’s been struggling with some pretty serious health problems and is New Jersey right now getting treatment – I know many of you do this on a regular basis anyway, but – now more than ever – please be praying for JT’s health and well-being.
That’s it for the moment – glad I finally had a chance to catch my breath, and catch you up on everything!
