“There will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.” (Deut. 15:11)
The year 2007 has been a year of changes for Haiti and also for Coram Deo. With a functioning government in place Haiti is making steps to move forward. With the assistance of the UN and training of new police officers the security environment is much improved at the end of the year. Pray for continuing improvements for 2008 and that the country can continue to move forward. This year has also been one of changes for everyone here at Coram Deo. We look forward to continue to serve Him in helping the poor of Haiti. We lift out a hand to help those in need. We don’t know what God’s plans are for 2008 but we know for sure that our hand will be open to the people here in Haiti working by His grace and strength.
The Haitian government held several gatherings over Christmas. President Preval hosted a Christmas party for handicapped children. He made a plea to the gangs to stop kidnapping children. While kidnapping rates have gone down compared to last year kidnappers are now primarily targeting children. Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis hosted a Christmas party at the Carrefour sport center for children in the community. He explained to the children what Christmas is and told them that “The bible tells us that Christmas is the time of year to celebrate the birth of Jesus who was sent to save us from our sins”. It is good to hear the leaders of the country openly acknowledge who Jesus is. Pray for those in government as they lead the country forward.
On the street around Coram Deo it was pretty busy around Christmas. With the new depot across the street music was blaring throughout the night and quite a few drunken people were dancing on the street throughout the night and on Christmas day too. We made sure the gate was closed so that none would come stumbling into the yard! Jacob went home to visit with his uncle and family for the first time in 2 years and he was happy to be able to spend some time with them. Benson had a visit from his brother Emmanuel and we are trying to arrange for him to spend some time with his aunt and family as well.
We renewed the insurance on the pickup truck this week and it took 6 hours to do so. It used to be easy and well organized at the government insurance office but now it is chaos. There are a couple of new procedures to follow now before insurance can be renewed. An “expertise” must be done where an inspector checks the serial and motor number of the car. The difficult thing is to find an inspector. They stand out on the street in front of the insurance office. Because this is new everyone has to search for an inspector. I just looked for a vehicle with the front hood up and finally found one willing to check the numbers. It was an hour wait for the office people to check the number he wrote with the number they have on file. After this we had to go to another office called “informatique” where they check to make sure that all the information is recorded on the computer. This process took an hour. At both of these offices when they hand back the papers everyone crowds around the official and he announces the names and passes the papers back through the crowd. After the “informatique” office gives back the paper it is now time to stand in line to pay for insurance. The problem is that racketeers are in cahoots with the security people and keep getting let in to the front of the line. People waiting in line get angry and there is some pushing as people try to hold their place. This took a couple of hours before we finally got to the front of the line. It was a good workout! At least I have insurance for another year on the pickup truck and only have to go through this process once a year!
Loudrije came to the house on Christmas morning with a bad burn on the back of her leg. We have been changing the dressings every day and the burn is starting to heal. Before coming to us she put a “home remedy” on the burn. It was some sort of laundry soap/bleach powder that is supposed to dry up the burn. On the first dressing we had to remove all this blue stuff.
Emmanuella never recovered after surgery to remove her shunt and she died early Sunday morning. The hospital on Airport Rd. doesn’t have a morgue so we brought her to the morgue at the downtown General Hospital. Pray for the Marcellus family during this time of loss.
My nephew John is out of the hospital and doing well after having the shunt tubing revised in his abdomen. Pray that the shunt continues to function well and for no infection.
The month of December has also been a busy time for cocaine shipments into Haiti. The government announced that for the first 15 days of December 4 planeloads of cocaine entered the country using clandestine airstrips. 2 shipments arrived at Madras, 1 at Anse-a-Pitre and 1 at Flamond. They estimate that each shipment carries one tonne of cocaine. The plane is destroyed after unloading. All terrain vehicles are used to transport the cargo and the community around the airstrips refuse to co-operate with authorities. Sometimes shipments are dropped by bales into the sea and picked up by speed boats as well. There is not much the government can do to stop these activities as they lack resources and personnel to do such a task.
A UN task force uncovered a problem of corruption and mismanagement involving millions of dollars in contracts for fuel, food, construction and other materials used by UN peacekeeping operations in Congo and Haiti. 5 UN employees in Haiti were charged with misconduct after the task force established that they had steered a 10 million dollar a year fuel contract to a Haitian company.
That’s all the news for today. Have a blessed New Year!
Karen Bultje
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