A New Home for the Cledanor Family

Mr. and Mrs. Cledanor in front of their destroyed home.

Meet the Cledanor family.   As a result of hurricane Matthew thier family home was destroyed and they were forced to live with another family from the church.  Mr. and Mrs. Cledonor have 3 children and one on the way.
Last week we had the proviledge to visit the Cledanor family and see their new home.  Thanks to donations towards hurricane relief we were able to come alongside the family and help them have a new home. 
But this was not an easy task for thier family.  Their home is located up on a steep hill and all the materials including block, iron, cement, rock, sand and gravel had to be carried up the steep hill.  The family worked very hard to carry all these materials and were thankful when others from church would also come and help them with the task of getting everything up the hill. 

Half way up the path to the Cledanor home.  It was a hard climb.

Mr. Cledanor and his 3 children along with Pastor Francois

Mrs. Cledanor is 3 months pregnant and when we visited her last week she was in the hospital with some pregnancy complications. She had been working very hard these past few months to help get building materials up the hill.  She is hoping to be able to rest more now and enjoy her new home.
Continue to pray for this family and join us in rejoicing that they have a new home.

Visiting Mrs. Cledanor in the hopstial with Pastor Francois

Mr. Cledanor and his 3 children in front of their new home.

There are many more families like the Cledanor family that are waiting for a new home.  We currently have 18 families that have worked hard to prepare foundations for their new homes, but we are needing people to come along side BHM to help purchase materials to have these homes built.  For $5,000 US a family can have a new home.  If you are interested in partnering with us in helping these families donations can be sent to Baptist Haiti Mission designated "hurricane relief housing."

Making Progress on the Training Center

The month of January has been full of activity as we have started construction on the lower wall of the training center property.  This wall is a huge undertaking since it is going to be a large retaining wall that will eventually be backfilled against to enable us to have a flat soccer feild at the bottom of the hill.
We are so thankful that God has provided the funds to work on this wall.  We have been able to hire several men from the community and we were also blessed with having a group from New Jersey come and work alongside the local men for a week.  

This picture begins to show just how long this wall is going to be.  They will put a second and possibly a third layer of gabion on top of these before it is finished.

Filling the Gabeons with rock is hard work since it takes about a dump truck load of rock to fill each one.  It is also like a puzzle, finiding the right rocks to fit each space.

Another important project we have been working on is digging two large holes for the toilet pits.  This is an extremly hard task since they need to be 15 feet deep and once they got down about 5 feet they hit rock and it became very difficult.  After breaking a pick that they use to break the rock, we have decided to wait and invest in a jack hammer to help dig out the last 5 feet of depth.  We are praying that this arrives soon so these 2 pits can be completed.