A different view

It's nearing midnight and fairly quiet here now.  Still a few up on the Nelson team's last night here, our last card match complete and a few quiet conversations closing down.  About the only activity is internet searching, catching up on the emails and the rest of the world while there is little wi-fi activity and its easier to get through.  Oh we take so much for granted...

Pastor Jim Reimer, from Nelson BC was about the town today examining the remaining tent camps and where the people have gone who have left the camps.  There are still many camps.  In Grand Goave he visited two camps where 150 tents and 180 families are still living in very gross conditions.  Besides the obvious lack of decent shelter, any privacy or room to do anything, prospects for these families and hundreds of thousands of others are bleak.  Funding from much of the world is drying up and relief programs gone, as the world turns to later, more recent disasters or their own problems...  Haiti Arise has a home-building program called EachOneBuildOne to provide good, solid housing for families who lost their homes in the quake.  It has been very successful, but still they have completed or nearly completed "just" 19 homes, with another 6 on the books.  Funds are more limited now, and they are looking to consider other ways to get sustainable housing into the mix that would be partially self-funded.  This will require much prayer and wisdom.  For a good view of current life in the tent refugee camps go to this short 14 minute video, produced for Lifeline Ministries, another christian NGO operating here in Grand Goave:

Haitian Country Club:
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/The-Haitian-Country-Club.html?soid=1102455604037&aid=zoZEtqZfpNo

For those who have left camps, many have moved back to broken homes, cleared up the rubble and set up makeshift tin-roof and tarp shelters.  Its better than the tents.  Last year the birthrate tripled normal rates and the country has already more than replaced the earthquake's dead, with ~300,000 new births.  Apparently rape and sexual abuse is pretty rampant in the camps especially, not hard to imagine.

Here at Haiti Arise and to a greater extent in Grand Goave things are decidedly more upbeat, with lots happening, new homes being built and schools and other facilities open.  Its great being here, but there is much to still be done.

We're loving being able to help out in some small way...  As a saying I once heard goes...

"You can't do everything, but you can do something"

C&C