New President in Haiti and 100,000 Meals for Kids
April 17th 2011
Haiti Pins Hopes on Pop-Star President
Haiti is the most interesting and eclectic place I have ever been. The title of this blog is the title of an article in the local paper announcing the results of the recent presidential elections in Haiti. The new president is Michael “Sweet Micky” Martelly a 50 year old “compas” entertainer. Compas is a high energy, slowed down version of merengue music. He has no political experience and ran a campaign based on being an outsider. He quotes, “I have a passion to change my country”; and yet he gives few specifics about what kind of change he envisions. He has said he want a free education for all children, but no specifics as to how to pay for it. He is also reported to be pro business. So we will see what the future brings.
May 21st Food Pack Event at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth NH
We are in the final stages of launching our first New England food pack event. Bethany Church is leading the event but three other churches have agreed to join us. First Presbyterian Church. In Concord MA, CenterPoint Church in Concord NH and Second Baptist in Sanbornton, NH will each have people attending the pack. We are very excited about what God is doing and hope to far exceed our goal of 100,000 meals. You can volunteer on our web site and we would love to have you join us.
Trips to Haiti
In late February Betsy and I went To Haiti together for a week. On the fourth day she tripped over a rocking chair in our bedroom and broke her arm – very scary time for us. (I left the rocker out from the wall and she tripped over the front rocker) The break looked like a sprain but was in fact a hair line fracture of the wrist. We used ice, compression and ibprofen to keep her comfortable until we got home to have it x-rayed and then put in a cast. My Betsy is one tough little lady and just continued on with the trip without complaint. We attended Sunday service at an orphanage in Cap Haitien, visited a church school in Marmalade and completed all our legal work to become a registered charity in Haiti. In addition, we committed to pay 5 teachers at the Marmalade school $500 per year to supplement the pay the school provides. We also commissioned a project to repair the Marmalade school with a permanent roof, cement floor and repaired walls. I have been working on this project since visiting there the first time in 2006.I will be returning to Haiti on April 18th for 5 days to review the estimates we have received for the work on the Marmalade church school with the local Haitian contractors. The numbers seem high to me, and while we want to hire locally and put people to work, we also want fair pricing for the project. It is good to be getting to the specifics of this work after so many years. I will also be visiting a tee shirt manufacturer in Cap Haitien that can expand their operation and higher more people. They need a better and lower cost place to manufacture their goods. I will be doing some site visits with them outside of the city.Here are our prayer requests for all of you:1.Pray for a great turn out of more than 500 volunteers at our May 21st Food Pack Event.2.Pray we receive donations to pay the $34,000 for the 100,000 meals we are buying, including the cost to ship them to Cap Haitien.3.Pray for the church school in Marmalade and the negotiation with the local contractors.Betsy’s cast is off and she is feeling great and I am thankful I am no longer needed to blow dry her hair. Thank you all for all the support we have had since beginning Help for Haiti last June. Much has been done already because of you – Haiti thanks you and so do we.Jim & Betsy Willey