Haitian Projects

Wake up, turn on the sink, brush your teeth.  Go to the kitchen fill the coffee pot, drink your coffee.  Go to the sink fill a glass of water, take your vitamins.  Fill a pitcher, water the plants around the house.  Get a glass of water sit down at your desk start your day.   I probably turn on the sink 5 to 6 times during the first 30 minutes of my day, but when you literally have a water source at your fingertips that's no big deal.

Now, compare that to this.  Wake up strap four 5 gallon tanks to the side of the motorcycle.  Travel a half mile down to the local pump.  Fill all 4 tanks, now strap those tanks to the side of the motor cycle.  Drive the half mile back home.  Unstrap the tanks.  Take the first and pour it into a container to be filtered for drinking water.  Take the second and pour it into another container for brushing little teeth and washing little hands. Take the third and heat it up to make breakfast.  The fourth can be used to wash dishes afterwards.  Now, if you intend to do laundry today you will need to make at least two more trips to the local well before the kids get back from school.  Then there will be the afternoon trip to the well so that you have water for dinner, drinking, and nightly teeth brushing and general washing up.  If it's bath night forget it, that's at least two more trips in order to have enough water to shower the 30 plus people living at the orphanage.  I am exhausted just writing about it.  

As soon as we met Makencia Hannah and I knew that God intended for us to be a part of each other's lives.  We were excited to help all those precious orphans she cares for, but we were also excited to help her.  Makencia, this precious woman who has literally dedicated her life to saving these children, she deserves more.  We wanted to help her, to problem solve for her.  

The first time I visited her orphanage, one of the things that struck me so deeply was how hard Makencia worked.  I struggled with raising 3 children, in a modern home with modern conveniences.  She was raising 27 children in a hut with a dirt floor, no electricity, and no running water.  I complain because I have to bend over to load laundry into my fancy front loading washing machine.  Makencia washes clothes for 30 people by hand in a washtub filled with water she has to transport up a hill several times a day.  I complain if I run out of hot water for my nightly bubble bath.  Makencia has to bathe 27 children in lukewarm water, which she pours over their heads as they stand over a grate.  If, after that, she happens to have enough water left over, and she is not too tired from her day of manual labor, she then can bathe herself in that same outdoor shower.  

I see a problem, I solve a problem.  It was such an easy decision to plan to put in a well at Makencia's orphanage.  A fresh water well on her property would literally change her life in an instant, as well as the lives of her family and the children they cared for.  We estimated that she spent approximately 60 to 80 minutes of her day just lugging water.  Then, she had to worry about the purity of that water.  Was it clean enough to drink, bath in, or use in meal preparation? 

We contacted Daniel at Schools for Haiti and asked him to price out a well for us.  The quote we got was $12,000.  Wow, I had no idea that to dig a well could literally cost as much as building a building in Haiti.  Well, the well would have to wait. At least that is what I thought. 

 

But God....I had put a post on our website asking friends to pray with us about funding a well at our orphanage in Haiti and an amazing thing happened.  Some friends of ours, Jody and Laurie Johnston, from One Ball One Village saw our post and reached out to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  

One Ball One Village is an amazing ministry based in Tampa that travels the world seeing to it that people in need have access to good, clean fresh water.  The way they do this is by installing water filtration systems on wells and other bodies of water and then maintaining those systems for life.  Well, Laurie was reading about what we were working on in Haiti and they just happened to be taking a team to Montrouis in 3 weeks to install 7 filtration systems.  Laurie told me that they felt like God told them to help with our project, so they would be sending an extra filtration system to put on our well.  When I told her that was so wonderful, but we didn't actually have a well yet, she said that that was ok, God would take care of it and they were sending the filtration system anyway.  

I love it when your friend's faith smacks you in the face.  So, Jody and Laurie were shipping us a filtration system for a well that we didn't have yet.  They were actually sending a team down to Haiti to install a filtration system on a well we didn't have yet.  God is so good.  

The next day Daniel reached back out to us.  He found some local guys that would be willing to dig the well for $3,000 and he thought that they could do it pretty quickly.  Could they get it done in 3 days, because that was about how much time we had until One Ball One Village would be in town to install the filtration system.  Wow, Lord, I guess you want Makencia to have a well as much as we do.  Our well went from costing $12,000 to $3,000, and our friends were not only going to install a filtration system on the well, they were going to service it for, well basically, forever.  

 

As you can see, the well was a huge success, and has become so much more than just a source of water for our orphans.  Access to fresh water has literally added hours to Makencia's day and her well has become a gathering place for the neighborhood, providing fresh pure water for the surrounding homes.  Local women come and socialize as they sit in clusters around the well sharing stories and scrubbing clothes as neighborhood children bathe and play in the water. 

I can't say enough good things about One Ball One Village.  Their ministry is filled with people who just want to love Jesus and love the world.  The way they do that is by filling two of the most basic human needs.  They give people fresh water and the love of Jesus.  When they came down to Montrouis, however, they did so much more.  Their team added a 400 gallon water tank for storage, as well as a generator to run the system.  They extended the distance of the well, so that we could have running water in both the new orphanage location and the old, and they loved on the kids at the orphanage like only One Ball One Village can.  I can't say it too many times.  I love this ministry.

I am so grateful for a God that loves his children.  I am grateful for fresh water for us here in America and for our family in Montrouis, and I am grateful for friends like Jody and Laurie Johnston and ministries like One Ball One Village who care enough to share their fish with us.  

My daddy died about 15 years ago.  It was sudden and unexpected and painful and life changing, and so much more.  He went in to the hospital for something minor and never walked out.  It was one of those instances of a simple procedure that went tragically wrong.  Now that I look back on it I can recognize God's hand in everything especially how He held me together in my grief.

Now, years later I can breathe as I remember so many wonderful things about my Dad. He was such a kind, gentle man.  He loved people and he loved the world and just about everything in it.  He loved nature and animals and children and gardening.  He loved gardening so much.  

I know that my dad would love everything about Fish Company.  He would love that we help widows and orphans, he would love that we think outside the box and try to solve problems, he would love that our ministry unites people of different races and cultures, but I think the thing that he would love the most..... the thing that I wish I could share with him more than anything is our gardening projects.  

I grew up on a small farm, on a small dirt road, in a small town, in southern Michigan.  If there was one thing I could count on in my life it was that between the months of April and September my dad would be in his garden working  every single day.  It may be watering in the morning, or weeding on his hands and knees late at night.  It may be picking corn in the late fall, or sweet strawberries in early June.  Unless it was cold and snowy he would find time to be in his garden each day....and he was good at it too.  Our garden was so prolific that we would trade bushels of vegetables with other local farmers for milk, or beef, or bales of hay.  Yes.  My dad loved to garden and he passed that love of gardening down to his children.  I love to garden as well.

When we agreed to plant the garden at Makencia's Orphanage it was like inviting my dad into our ministry.  I could almost feel him smiling down on us as we built the gardening boxes, taught the children how to till the soil, planted the seeds and mulched the plants.  I felt almost like the garden was my way of saying "thanks dad". 

Like our other garden project Makencia's garden has grown so quickly.  Within two months thanks to my wonderful friend Donna, we were able to purchase the field next to the garden and expand Makencia's growing area by almost 1000%.  In this field Makencia was able to plant okra, beans, peppers and bananas.  Healthy organic food that the children at the orphanage have already begun to enjoy.  

               

Like our garden at Grace School, Makencia's garden is already ready for another expansion and thanks to our partnership with Bay Hope Church this second expansion is already fully funded.  I love how God ties his people together to make something beautiful, it's like planning a wonderful feast... you bring the turkey, I'll bring the stuffing, she can bring the mashed potatoes and together we can celebrate Thanksgiving.  I am thankful.  I am thankful for Makencia who cares for the children at our orphanage, I am thankful for my friends who helped us plant this garden, I am thankful for Donna who helped expand this garden, and I am thankful for my Dad who taught me how to love nurturing things and watching them grow, but most of all I am thankful that God is allowing Fish Company to play just a small part in His plan to provide for His children.

 

 

 

 

We were about a week away from leaving for a mission trip in February when we found out that our two main objectives for the trip had suddenly changed.  Well, not really changed, but had been postponed.  We were planning on setting up our sewing school and emptying a bus we had shipped over full of supplies in December, but the bus was still stuck in customs and construction had been delayed on the sewing school.  What to do? What to do?  

It was then that I remembered Daniel's dream.  You see the last time we were in Haiti we had a chance to sit with our friend Daniel and talk about his dream of teaching the children of Haiti how to garden.  We believe that if you give a child a fish he eats for a day, teach a child to fish and he eats for a lifetime.  Well, this is the same idea, but with potatoes or okra.  Give a child a potato he eats for a day, teach a child to farm and he can farm the land, and eat forever.  Well, Daniel is the right-hand man at Schools For Haiti, a ministry that we often partner with on our projects, and God had given him a dream.  In that dream, God told Daniel that a famine would be coming to the land so he needed to teach the people of Haiti how to garden so that they wouldn't starve.

Daniel had a plan, we needed a plan, so we agreed that on this trip we would fund and plant gardens.  We called our team, told them to bring tools and gloves, Daniel drew up some blueprints, and our plan was starting to take form.  Now, how to fund a garden we hadn't planned on paying for.  I didn't know where the money was coming from, I just knew God told us to say yes, so we said "yes".  

Two days before we were to leave on our trip the phone rang and my mother-in-law proceeded to excitedly tell my husband that God had spoken to her in a dream the night before.  God told her that she needed to plant some gardens because a famine was coming and she needed to help.  My husband told her to hold on and handed the phone to me.  She then told me the same thing she had told my husband.  Tears filled my eyes as I told her that the plans for our mission trip had changed suddenly and that we had prayerfully decided to plant gardens in Haiti on this trip, but had no idea where the funding was going to come from.  In that moment my Father-in-law grabbed the phone and shouted "We are going to pay for your gardens. God wants us to pay for your gardens." 

Once again, our plan was high jacked by Holy Spirit, but what a beautiful high jacking it was.  We said Yes and God provided.  There were 24 of us on that trip to Haiti, we had the most wonderful time, playing in the dirt, building gardening boxes, planting seeds and seedlings; planting gardens, God's gardens.   There is something so wonderful about having your hands in the dirt, sitting next to a friend as you run your fingers through the soil, poke holes in the moist dirt and plant seeds that will one day provide food for someone in need.  And, to be able to share that experience and knowledge with a bunch of children made it all the more special.  

One thing I know about my God is that there is abundance in obedience.  You see, our original plan was to plant 10 5x10 planters where we would start the seeds and see what happened.  About 3 months after we returned from Haiti I received a phone call from Matt at Schools for Haiti.  Daniel had told him that the garden was growing so quickly that they needed to expand the planting area.  Would we fund it?  Yes, absolutely, yes.  

About 2 months later we received another phone call, the garden was growing so fast that it had almost outgrown the expansion.  Local goats were starting to eat our plants.  Well we can't have that.  Would we be willing to pay for a fence?  Yes, without hesitation yes.  So we added a fence to the expansion and while we were at it, we expanded the growing area again.  

The most recent update:   Well, in just 6 months those plants that we started from seeds in those gardening boxes have grown so fast that they are now producing enough vegetables in such a volume that the school is able to serve them to the students with their stew for lunch.  

I am always amazed at God's provision, I don't know why it always surprises me.  He asks, we obey, He blesses.  

I have to say that while we started Fish Company with the intention of helping widows and orphans I always kind of knew that the original plan of building orphanages would evolve into something more.  How fitting is it that a ministry that is so rooted in sewing would end up building a sewing school for young girls.  

When Hannah came back from her first trip to Haiti she was filled with excitement not only about what God was doing there, but who He was using to accomplish His work.  Hannah had the blessing of leading a team of Southeastern University Students on this trip where they worked with Schools For Haiti's Matt Perry.  When Hannah first met Matt she knew that somehow our ministries were supposed to be tied together.  

She came home filled with excitement and couldn't wait for us to meet Matt to discuss how Schools for Haiti and Fish Company could work together to save the world.  

 

All it took was breakfast at First Watch and a little bit of "What if?" conversation and the idea to build Fish Company's first sewing school was born.  

Madam Titus Brunet is a wonderful woman who worked as a cook at School's for Haiti's Rock School who had three awesome things going for her, she was an amazingly gifted seamstress, she had a huge heart for teaching others, and she was a personal friend to Matt Perry, who also happened to know of a certain ministry that knew a lot about sewing.  

Two weeks later we were on a plane bound for Port Au Prince to meet Madam Brunet in person and discuss the future of Montrouis' own sewing school.  It was a lifelong dream of Titus and her sweet husband, Pastor Simeon, to have a school where they could teach young women a life skill that could not only provide them with a good career but help these young women support their families in the future.  The dream was so solidified in the minds of Titus and Simeon that they had spent the last several years preparing to build the school in their own backyard.  Every day on his way home from work Simeon would gather cement blocks from the rubble of buildings destroyed in the earthquake from 2010.  He would carry these blocks along with buckets of sand as he made the long steep hike up to their home that sits on the side of a mountain.  I could only stare in amazement as I took in the sight of that pile of cement blocks he had gathered in the hopes that one day God would build them a sewing school.  The idea that God would use us to fulfill the dreams of someone so faithful humbles me.  With tears in our eyes, we wholeheartedly agreed to help them build their school.  

Two months after that we started fundraising for that school and almost a year to the day, we were back in Montrious with a small team of people putting that dream into action as we put the finishing touches on the building that will help change the lives of the women in Montrouis.  

We are so incredibly blessed to do what we do.  I am so grateful as I write this and think about each person who gave their fish to be a part of this project; the donated finances, sewing machines, fabric, tables, chairs, scissors, the hands that helped build the building, construct the walls, even carry the blocks up the side of that mountain.  I am reminded that we don't have to serve God, we get to serve Him and sometimes that means that we get to serve others.