Opening of New Sewing Program

Today was a great afternoon, as the sewing program that as been a dream for so long, finally started.  Five ladies are a part of this program, but only 3 were able to come today.

After a sweet time of sharing our testimonies with each other and hearing how God has been working in their lives, we started to learn how to sew.  For the three ladies who came, they had some sewing knowledge already, but working on an electrical machine was very new to them.  They have only used treadle machines, but they quickly began to understand how an electrical machine works.

One of the goals of this program is to teach these ladies to make various crafts such as head bands, hand bags, small coin purses, along with other things that will be sold through Mountain Maid, which the craft outlet associated with Baptist Haiti Mission.  As items are sold these ladies will earn an income to provide for their families, send their children to school, help their church etc.

I think the highlight of each Saturday is now going to be meeting with these ladies.

Here are a few pictures from today.  Rebekah was the photographer :)

Highlights from September

Well Drillers:
We were blessed to have a group of well drillers that came to the Northwest to drill several wells.  One of the wells they drilled was for a BHM affiliated school and church in Grande Caille.  They drilled 300 ft and didn't hit water.  It was a little disappointing, but when they went back the next day, they discovered that there was some water at 110 ft.  We hope to put a hand pump on this so the community can use this water.  It is the goal of the well drillers to come back and drill at the Atrel school, our property and possibly another BHM affiliated school.  Pray that in God's timing these wells would be drilled.

Setting up the drilling rig in front of the Grande Caille church

Cistern Progress:
We are so happy to share that work has begun again on the cistern project that was started last March.  Thanks to some amazing Canadian donors, we now have the funding to finish the project.  There are several men from the community who are working on this and we are hoping that by the end of the year all four cisterns will be completed and the foundation will be ready for the quonset hut to be put up.

Pouring the floor of one of the cisterns

Blessed with Rain:
We have been blessed with an abundance of rain in the past few weeks.  Everything is very green and it is looking like the farmers are going to have a good harvest this year.  One down side of lots of rain is the damage that it can do to thatch buildings.  Kyrk had the opportunity to visit a school in the community of Vincent and their church/school building has been completely destroyed from the rains.  Join us in praying that this community will find a way to work together and build a new building.  Right now they are going to use tarps to make a shelter to hold church services and school classes.

The site where the church/school building used to stand.

Market fun:
Yesterday we went to a local market to purchase some fruit and vegetables and some other needed supplies.  One of the things we purchased was a chair for each of the kids.  These are locally made and the kids wanted chairs that they could use in their forts outside.  

Robert enjoying his chair

Enjoying the coconut milk from coconuts we purchased.