Working

There is no end to the work that needs to be done in Haiti--this is one small ministry and there is endless work to be done. Our short-term team is pitching in with very routine-sounding but necessary work like washing walls and painting rooms. Heartline runs several different programs: a sewing center to provide women jobs so they can support their families. Heartlin runs a maternal and baby care center, so women can get prenatal care during their pregnancies and have safe child births. Heartline also does lots of follow up care so the babies have a higher chance of remaining healthy.

For more than ten years Heartline Ministries ran an orphange, but after the earthquake adoptions from Haiti were expediated--meaning all the kids here got adopted and went home to be with their forever families.

So Heartline now has an extra empty building--the former orphanage). After the earthquake that orphanage building was quickly turned into a field hospital, to care for so many people wounded people. Thanks to the efforts of dozens of different medical people who volunteered to come to Haiti in the weeks and months after the earthquake many, many people were healed. I've been telling some of those stories in earlier blogs.

Now that former orphanage building/field hospital is being changed into a home for unwed teen moms and their babies. The goal is to intervene in a young woman's life during her first pregnancy and provide emotional support, a stable housing environment, education, literacy training,and Christian mentoring. Also, to teach those young women job skills so they can support their children. Most of all, the women staff here at Heartline want to let the teen moms know they are loved deeply by their heavenly father, and that they can make other choices -- so that a girl having one child at 17 years old doesn't have another baby the next year and the next.

Those of us on the Colorado short-term team are painting the inside walls of the former orphanage. Washing walls, killing spiders, wiping away cob webs, cleaning and painting isn't glamorous work, but it is a small way we can help the full-time missionaries here. The Heatline staff is also introducing us to lots of the Haitians who they see in their ministry every week. Today I witnessed part of a class for moms to learn basic care for their babies--for example what to do if a baby develops a temperature,


Usually when I have traveled for missionary work in the past it has been to a Spanish-speaking country like Bolivia or Honduras where I can talk to people with my mediocre Spanish. Here I can't understand or speak the language at all and I'm really feeling it. Still, there are many people around who can translate. Not speaking Creole does have its drawbacks, however.

Last night I made a run out for sodas at a local small market nearby with one of the other volunteers, a teenager who has been living here in Haiti several months. When we got to the store, we were having trouble communicating with the clerk about the amount we owed--we only had American money.

My teen buddy hasn't been here long enough to acquire much Creole, and I know about only ten words. People here are more than happy to take American dollars, but there is a lot of math involved in the currency conversion. Currently there are about 40 Haitian "Gourdes" to the dollar. Doing math in my head has never been a great strength of mine (probably why I became and English major).

We solved the issue with the store clerk when I switched to Spanish. Wahoo! My brain barely remembers my high school and college Spanish but apparently I can shake the rust off if I really need to. Many people speak Spanish in Haiti because the Dominican Republic shares this island. We finished the translation in Spanish and I rejoiced that my long-ago college education finally paid off. I can buy a Coke-a-cola in Haiti.

Lots more has happened, but I am on a shared computer with other folks who would like a turn to use it, so I will sign off for now. More soon.