Video - UN and Gangs Fighting In Cite Soleil

Shooting between gangs and UN soldiers from Brazil led to a civilian getting shot and killed yesterday in Cite Soleil

Dieula Pierre-Louis - Earthquake Victim - 5 Years Later

Dieula Pierre-Louis' entire life changed the moment the earthquake struck in January 2010. Her house collapsed during the earthquake pinning her husband and herself under the rubble. Neighbours removed them from the rubble the day after the earthquake. Her husband suffered back injuries and she suffered a broken arm and leg that needed surgery. Her injuries were serious and she was unconscious for 3 days. Fortunately her children were not inside the home when their house coll...apsed. Her husband is living with relatives in the countryside. He is no longer able to look after his family. It has been tough on Dieula to try and support her children. This task has been made even more difficult because her sister and brother-in-law were killed in the earthquake and now Dieula is a mother to her sister's 5 children. Dieula now has 9 children to raise. She is a determined woman and makes the best out of a difficult situation. Dieula's family is one of the families we share our Feed My Starving Children Manna packs with. We took her this week to Bernard Mevs Hospital to meet the Broken Earth Halifax Orthopedic team. She has an appointment to meet the next Broken Earth team that arrives on May 3rd. She still has the steel plates in her right arm and right leg. Some days the pain can be quite bad. We are hoping that the orthopaedic team can help her. She lives with her family in the Delmas 33 area in a tarp shelter. Sometimes when she comes over to visit the day after a heavy rainstorm she is in tears about dealing with a leaky shelter. Please keep Dieula and her family in prayer.

Kentucky Team - Food Blessing

Our friends from Kentucky came by yesterday bearing sacs of blessings from the church that they attend in Kentucky :) It sure is neat how the Lord provides. We have 6 boxes of Feed My Starving Children Manna Packs left in our depot and I had bought a few bags of corn meal last week to help make the rice meals stretch until the end of the month. We had shared our manna meals with people in the Delmas 31 ravine for a few days after the flooding and it caused our food stores to be depleted at a faster rate. The earthquake showed me how God provides. After the earthquake we fed 150 people in our yard each day with no way of knowing how fast the international response would be to the earthquake. We were blessed with food after the earthquake too knowing that we only had a few days of food stores. The same thing happened after the floods in our neighbourhood. We only had about 5 days of rice meals left and now we have food which will be used for the end of April and towards May's special events such as the Miami Hydrocephalus Surgeries hospital meals and the Timothy Leadership Training Seminars for the church leader meals for the participants that we sponsor. Thank you to our Kentucky friends for this blessing! Please keep the Kentucky team in prayer as they travel and minister to the people of Sousab this week.

Jackenson Jean-Louis - Hospital Update - April 21, 2015

Jackenson is doing a little better in the hospital. Sunday and Monday were difficult days. He was finally able to sleep on Monday and both times we visited him he was asleep. Today he was awake when we were there. He is running a fever and having some back pain. I tried to get him to smile for TiBouche but he couldn't. Please keep Jackenson in prayer.

Water Cistern Cleaning Day

We collect the rain water from our roof into our water cistern when it rains. City water is almost non-existent. When it doesn't rain we buy a water truck load of water (3,000 gallons). Every couple of months we give the water cistern a good cleaning. With the rains that we had a couple of weeks ago we got a lot of water but also a dirty water cistern too. We have 2 filters to filter our drinking water (uv filter and a separate filter to remove particles in the water. Job, our youngest Coram Deo resident was the supervisor. He enjoyed the small snake that the guys found in the reservoir and came to show it to me. The guys did a great job at cleaning and scrubbing the cistern. Once they were done we ordered a water truck load of water. Glad to have lots of helping hands here :)

Manu and the Hedgetrimmer

Manu had an accident last week. He has been working at Dorothy's place -  Faith, Hope, Love Infant Rescue. He grabbed the hedgetrimmer by holding onto the blade instead of the handle. Thankfully he didn't cut off his fingers, but he did need to go to the hospital for stitches. Glad to see his fingers are all in one piece :)

Jackenson - Hospital

Saturday evening we had to bring Jackenson back to the hospital again with another sickle cell crisis. He has been fighting a bad cold the last couple of days. Yesterday he was complaining of an upset stomach and by the early evening the pain started setting in. His mother spent the night holding Jackenson. He couldn't find a comfortable position to lay down and felt most comfortable sitting on his mother's lap. He spent the night vomiting and had nose bleeds as well. This morning when we went to visit him there was no change. He was still in extreme pain and uncomfortable. Please keep him in prayer.

Easter Sunday - Eglise Du Dieu Vivant

Easter Sunday we attended Pastor Octave's church which is across the street from Coram Deo. The church members were putting a fresh coat of paint on the outside and inside walls of the church the week before Easter. Easter Sunday was also the 42nd anniversary of the Eglise Du Dieu Vivant (Church Of The Living God). Pastor Octave was the founder and has been the only pastor in this church's history. Marie, who is our cook is a member of the church and also a member of the church committee. Since it was a day of celebration for Easter and also the anniversary there was no offering collected. The church members made a meal for everyone in the congregation. To celebrate the anniversary the church committee came to the front to get recognized by everyone in the church. The worship leader, a short man pictured in the 4th picture was shaking the champagne bottle while the committee members were introduced to the church. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I have seen people do this at the end of car races and victory celebrations but never in church:) After a couple of minutes of shaking the bottle he popped the cork and our cook Marie got a champagne shower! It was hilarious. The members of the committee than drank the rest of the champagne that was in the bottle. At the end of the service we all had a meal and drank a coke. It was a day of firsts for me. This was the first time that I saw a church not hold a church offering and also the first time for a champagne shower celebration :)

Kite Flying!

Easter time in Haiti means kite flying! The people here at Coram Deo made their own kites, using the smaller bamboo branches growing in our yard. Bamboo is light, strong, and flexible. From the youngest to the oldest everyone took part in flying the home-made kites. The symbol of the kite here in Haiti is to look up because Christ is risen. It is a sign to people that when they look up to their flying kite they are looking up into the heavens :)

Manu - Guitar Solo - Church Offering

Yesterday Manu sang/played a guitar solo during the church offering at Quisqueya Chapel. He did a great job! He loves music and playing the guitar and every week he takes guitar lessons at the church. He is a quick learner and knows how to play a lot of songs. He has now joined the worship team at church too. Here is a picture of Manu with some gifts that he received from Nicole and friends :)

Delmas 31 Ravine - Young Children

There are a lot of young children who live in the bottom of the ravine. We visited some of the homes where mothers were trying to wash everything. Some of them we helped with clothing. Naval is holding one of the young children who were rescued by lifting them up through the hole that people made in the roof.

Delmas 31 Ravine - Church On The Rock - Rebuilding

The Church On The Rock has started work on stabilizing the foundation of their church. They moved the container that was hanging into the ravine and now are working on building a foundation for the new retaining wall. Please keep their rebuilding efforts in prayer.