Timoun Leve 8/11/11

Last week was our kick off for the weekly Bible Study for the children, Timoun Leve!  Around 60 kids showed up!!  Some of the kids had attended the program at the house the week that Deanne and Jill were here but there were many new faces. 

Hugues was a big help with the kids.  He got us started with some songs.  We sang a few Haitian original songs, as well as "I've got the joy, joy, joy", "Deep and Wide" and "The wise man built his house upon the rock".  We are guessing that many of the kids that were there did not attend church because they were unfamiliar with the songs.  This is amazing!

Our Bible story was from Matthew 7:24-27. Gwenn had kids come up and help act out the lesson. She had one group of kids that built a house as quick as they could. They wanted to hurry up building the house and didn't put much work or material into. It wasn't built on a good foundation. But, they finished their house fast so they could have fun. The second group put more work into their house. They had to keep working after the other group was finished and their house was built well. When a storm came, the house that was finished first fell down, because it was not built well. The second house stayed standing, because more work was put into it and it had a strong foundation.

The kids colored a dot-to-dot sheet with the summary of the story: Si ou bati fo, w'ap rete fem. If you build firm, you will stay strong.  We wrapped it all up with a few more songs and the kids enjoyed a snack before leaving.  The rain held out for the program but it began to sprinkle as we were dismissing and we were unable to hang around for games. 

There were several adults from the church that also came and sat in on the Kid's Program. Especially in Haiti, it seems we try to preach deep theological sermons, when they don't even understand the basics yet. The adults were just as interested in the story as the children were. Pol, who is at least in his 70s, participated just as much as the kids and piped in with "Amen" and "That's right!" more than once during Gwenn's story. :)

What's happening!

God is doing some amazing things with Leve Project on the ground in Haiti!  We've got several new programs starting. 

First off, we had such great success with the kid's Bible study program when Deanne and Jill were visiting, we've decided to make it a weekly event.  Every Thursday, we will host "Timoun Leve" which translates to Children, Rise up.  We'll be doing a Bible story, singing, snacks and games!  The church is kind enough to let us use their building for the study because several of the children cannot make the journey outside the village. 

This Sunday will be our first week for "Patage Primye Dimanch", first of the month fellowship.  The first Sunday of every month, Leve Project will provide a meal for the church.  Our goal with this program is to fellowship with the congregation and to meet those from our community.  In doing this, we can learn their needs and better serve them.  We are also able to bring believers closer together, strengthening the relationships within the church family.

The basis for almost all aspects of our ministry is taken from Acts 4:32-34.  With every new program we start, our main goal is to become one with the community.  We hope to keep adding more programs to our ministry so that we can achieve this goal.  

making brooms!

This woman from our village takes dried up palm leaves and makes brooms out of them!

Kids Bible Program Day 1

Bonswa from Haiti! This is Deanne and Jill from Evansville, Indiana, and we're visiting the Leve Project house for the first time. Today we experimented with the first EVER Leve Project Kids Bible Program. After a slightly rough start (the kids arrived an hour late), it went great! We had a great turnout...we had just under 20 kids from the village, plus some of their parents. Nicole led the kids in songs like "This is the Day" and "I'm in the Lord's Army" which we accompanied with a somewhat hilarious attempt at motions. They didn't quite understand the whole motion thing, but they enjoyed it. Francois told the story of the Good Samaritan and then we handed out chicos (Haitian cheetos) and introduced them to Veggie Tales. We ended the day with lots of fun and games like jump-rope, soccer, and the circle game where people dance and sing in Creole (we had no idea what they were doing but they were having a ball). Hopefully the next two days go as well as today!

Pòl

We met Pol when we first visited Cayes Jacmel in February. His wife brought us into their house to meet him. He was sitting on a mat on the floor where he'd been sitting for 3 months straight. He has diabetes. While diabetes are fairly common and treatable in the states... those same simple resource aren't as readily available here. Pol's feet and hands were swollen. And he had a diabetic ulcer on his leg. He didn't have a doctor to tell him what to do or a clinic to help him manage his diabetes.

But with the help of medical professionals in the states, Leve Project has been able to monitor Pol's blood sugar and treat the ulcer on his leg. Thanks Kay VanFleteren and Lisa Everhart, along with others who have helped us help this family!!

who's who?

who's who at Leve House??

We now have four, well make that four and a half, people living at the Leve Project house in Cayes Jacmel.

Francois Jean-Louis has been working with Leve Project since October, though he has been a trusted friend for much longer! He is our right-hand man on the ground in Haiti. He moved into the Leve House in May and started with some basic clean-up of the house and yard. Francois is our Haitian manager of Leve Project and does everything from run errands and yard work to helping with budgeting and planning.

The "half" that now lives with us is his 3 year old daughter, Paskalitha. She lived with her mother in Port au Prince, however after the flooding, their living conditions were not good. Shortly after the flooding problems, her mother was admitted to the hospital and couldn't care for Paskalitha, so Francois brought her here to stay with us.

Megan Haug is a co-founder and director of Leve Project. She previously lived in Haiti, working with different ministries, and moved back to serve as the on-site manager for Leve Project on June 1st. Her main focus right now is establishing a budget, financial reports, meeting people and establishing relationships in the community, communicating with & updating the Board of Directors in the states, as well as other administrative duties.

Nicole Joseph and Yonel SeraPhin joined us at Leve house on June 11th.

Nicole is currently pretty much everything house care related. She cooks us a meal of rice and beans everyday. Does laundry once or twice a week. Keeps the dishes and house clean. Goes to the haitian market to pick up supplies. Once things pick up at Leve house, we'll need to hire someone to help take on some of these tasks, but for now Nicole handles it all with ease!

Yonel is security and helps in the yard. He also runs some errands for us. He makes sure we have drinking water everyday. Get us phone cards when we need them. He is responsible for watching the gate and letting people in. He locks the house up at night. Yonel also helps keep the yard picked up and waters our plants when we don't have rain.