Pray for Joy on a Medical Missions Trip

Joy was thrilled to be invited to go on a medical missions trip to Ile A Vache, an island off the coast of southern Haiti. Our school has a requirement for community service, so this kind can be approved depending on the circumstances. She had a ton of books to bring with her, but she's so excited to be going on this trip, it's fine.
One great thing about it is that she is the only teenager in the group--she's with Physician's Assistants, a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, etc. So she'll probably learn a lot from them and maybe have a chance to hear about their careers, too.
I should have posted this before when I was praying for their safety driving down, etc. But it's not to late to join me. In spite of a flat tire, they made it down to Les Cayes just fine and the boat ride was fine too.
They actually get to stay in a nice hotel (with air conditioning!--I know "where can I sign up?" right?)
We really appreciate Ed Amos giving her this opportunity.
So...pray with us this week for the safety of the whole group, and for the patients they will see. She comes home Friday.

Share your dream

One of the participants in Jen(a)biz started up a retaurant (Le Bon Choix) about a month ago. It's been going pretty well with the main challenge being the shortage of gasoline. The restaurant is in an area that doesn't get much electricity, so they have a small generator and it has to be filled with gas. For a couple weeks people had to wait in long lines to get regular gasoline (we use deisel, so we were spared this time) but that seems to be over now.

Can you imagine running this business without having your own vehicle to transport things like gas to the restaurant? I'm sure it's hard.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to write a post about Elysee and his restaurant is that it seems they just got a good opportunity. A high school near them is going to have a special party for the seniors, called Philo here, (All over Haiti they celebrate "Philosophy Day") there. So far, they've just been cooking food for the small numbers of walk-in customers each day like many other restaurants here. But Elysee shared his dream with the owner of the property he's renting. He explained that he wants to host parties and events, as well. Because he shared that vision, the owner, whose son is a Philo student at this high school, suggested that Philo day be at Elysee's restaurant.

So today they're making food for over 50 people! They borrowed all the card table and chairs we had as well as table cloths to make room for all these folks.

In addition, we have lent them a bunch of restaurant stuff that the old Township House Restaurant in Newtown threw out when the restaurant changed hands. We did not know how and when God would have us use this in Haiti, but he knew. It has been a great blessing to know that God's had a plan for this stuff all along.

Do you have a dream you should share with someone? You never know who God may want to be part of it.

Christian Literature Distribution in Haiti

One of our key partners in Haiti is Life Ministries (www.life-ministries.com).

They have supplied us with thousands of tracts, Bibles, and Christian books in Creole that we have distributed during our soccer outreaches and as we follow up.

In addition, we occasionally supply Life Ministry books to other missionaries. Below is a report from one of these missionaries who works in Gonaives, the 3rd largest city in Haiti that was completely destroyed by flooding in 2006 and again in 2008. (Imagine New Orleans flooding again!).

Dear Rich--Just wanted to update you on where the Bibles went that we got from you. We had my Pastor and a team of 12 other people come from my church in El Dorado, Kansas, USA. We had a Crusade in the evenings as well as a Pastor's Seminar during the week. The complete Bibles (24 total) went to the Pastor's Seminar and also 60 of the New Testaments went out at the conference as well. The pastor we have been working with is Pastor Mattieau and he took 60 Bibles to pass out to the people who received Jesus in the Crusade. He also took 50 of the follow-up booklets to disciple the new converts as well. We took 60 Bibles to an orphanage and plan to distribute more there as 60 was not enough. The Bibles have also been given out to the Ladie's Bible Study group that I lead each Monday evening. I just take some each week and give them out to the new ladies who come. So far 30 NT have been given out there. The remaining Bibles have been kept here at my house so when people knock at our gate to get food and clothing we also give them a New Testament. We plan on also giving NT to the Kids' club that we have in our home which is consisting of 20-30 children per week from our neighborhood.

This year I've gotten involved in the youth ministry of Quisqueya Chapel. I'm co-leader of a small group of 9 12-14 year old girls. My co-leader, Coby DeBlaeij and I hosted a Christmas party for the group over Christmas break. Seven of the nine were able to come. We made necklaces and gift boxes, sang Christmas carols and ate together. Please pray for these girls to open up--for most of them it's probably the first time they've been part of a group like this.
Edline, Shirley, Sendy, Rachel, Jules, Jennifer. (Natasha, Elodie & Naika not pictured here)

The Lord gives, takes away, and gives again!

I always appreciate it when people send me news articles about things going on in Haiti. About a week before the TREC training started, my Crossworld supervisor, Dwight Lehman, sent me a newspaper article about a group of Canadian College students who were bringing over $40,000 worth of sports equipment to Haiti.

Since we are always in need of equipment, I wrote to the editors of the paper asking them to send me the e-mail of the person in charge of the program “Right to Play” (http://www.righttoplay.com/). They were kind enough to respond, and right away I sent an e-mail giving the contact my number in Haiti and asking him to contact me.

Unfortunately, I got an “out of office” response, and since I was busy doing TREC at the time, I thought we had lost our opportunity. But God had other plans – the next day, I got an e-mail from Roger LeBlanc, the Canadian Professor heading up the group and he said he would be glad to meet with us.

It was 9:30 on Thursday night by this time, and Friday was the last day of the seminar. So I prayed with 2 other Haitian leaders, asking God to open the way for us to get some equipment and meet with Mr. LeBlanc. Then I picked up the phone and to my amazement, got a hold of him right away.

He said he was available, and so I told him we would send our pickup over to pick him up with some of his college students on Friday morning.

When Mr. LeBlanc arrived, he was very excited about what we were doing, even though he made it clear that “Right to Play” has no religious affiliation. He brought his daughter along, who is a soccer player, and another young lady who is the captain of the College's soccer team. They also brought along 5 BAGS of soccer equipment!! The bags had uniforms, cleats, sneakers and bibs that we desperately needed for the over 28 teams that were represented at the training. THANK YOU MR LEBLANC AND RIGHT TO PLAY!!

That afternoon we combined this equipment with the equipment we already had on hand thanks to Ian Moore of AACH and others who shipped donations to us. We were able to outfit 11 new teams and re-stock most of the other teams represented! THANK YOU IAN!

All of us rejoiced at the miraculous way God provided this equipment! The Lord gave!

So it was with great joy that we dropped off our newly trained coaches with their equipment at the bus station at 4:30 AM the next morning while it was still dark.

We had to take 2 trips to the bus station because there were so many people to take, and so one of the teams left a large box in the back of the truck which was for one of the second group.

Before we left the bus station the first time, we checked to see that the box was there.
However, when we arrived back to the hotel, the box was gone!! It was a big, heavy, box so we did not bother to tie it down. Apparently thieves lifted it just as we were leaving the bus station! Not only did this box have equipment in it for one of our regions with 8 teams in it, it also had $40 cash and one of our key coach's personal belongings. Needless to say we were disappointed at this loss. The Lord took away, but as Job said, blessed be the name of the Lord!

The following Sunday, I was telling another missionary friend about our seminar and she said that she had some soccer cleats available. When I asked her what size, she said the exact sizes we needed to replace the one stolen! The Lord gives, again!

AIS sends 3 Great coaches for TREC 08-09

Ambassadors in Sport International has been the driving force behind this year's TREC. Not only did God use them to provide most of the funding for this year's TREC, but they also send 3 very gifted coaches to Haiti to do the training: John Boggs, Matt Pheneger and Shame Wiebe.

John Boggs grew up as an MK in Haiti. His Dad was the director of an Evangelical Christian Bookstore for many years and also helped to found Quisqueya Christian School where Carol teaches and which Joy and Ricky attend. John is married to Cathy and they have a one year old son. He is in charge of summer camps for AIS, among other things. He has been a great help because he speaks Creole having grown up in Haiti.

Matt Phenger is in charge of International Training for AIS and is married to Laura and they have 2 lovely little girls ages 3 and 1. Matt has visited practically every country AIS has a foothold in either as a player or as a trainer. He has been a great help putting together this TREC!

Shane Wiebe took a week of vacation to come and help us coach. This is Shane's first experience with AIS and we hope it will not be his last!

Here is his bio:

"I was born in the U.S. while my parents were in missionary training with NewTribes Mission and raised in Bolivia until I was 15. I graduated from Bible College in '91. I later continued my education as a Bible major and aviation minor at Cornerstone University. I had been in ministry with high school and college students for 7 years when God moved me to the Florida Keys to be the director of Student to Student in 2000. I count it a privilege to continue to share the love of Jesus here in the Keys and around the world. I have been blessed to be able to use the skills and gifts God has given in both soccer and volleyball to minister to others. I have had good coaches and have been able to play soccer with very talented players from my time in Bolivia and in Europe and with The USA U19 team . I have coached soccer and volleyball up through the college level for the last 17 years. I am so thankful to God for teaching me so many things about Himself in such a fun way. I want continue to use these tools to show His Truth to His people."

We praise God for these guys who sacrificed their holiday to train Haitians in soccer ministry.

The AIS coaches are seen here with Daniel Jean-Louis, the Assistant Director of AIS Haiti.

TREC 2008-2009

Thank you so much for your prayers and support for our second annual leadership training seminar.

The training started on Dec. 26th with the arrival of over 35 delegates from all over Haiti. This year we are training two groups of people: Veterans from last year that we hope will be able to teach the courses next year, and about 25 rookies who we are training to start soccer ministries in their schools.

So far everything is going well, and the participants are really excited about what they are learning.

However, sometimes I forget just how poor most people here in Haiti are. In spite of the fact that we told the participants that they would be trained in coaching techniques by experienced US coaches, they came to the seminar with only sandals. When we asked them why, some of them said they do not own sneakers or soccer cleats! So today, we had to go out and purchase 20 pairs of sneakers so they could fully participate in the training!

We are also setting up local and regional committees to help us better administrate the ministry. These are exciting times as we look forward to what God is going to do through these trained and equipped leaders in 2009!

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel! & Happy New Year! Bonne Annee!

Miracle by the Airport

We have been trying to get 5 boxes of soccer equipment out of the airport customs office since last August. We had the stuff air-shipped to Haiti special so we could give out uniforms for our summer soccer tournament in Leogane which was held from Aug 8 to Aug 20th.

We partnered with the Haitian Soccer Federation for this tournament and asked them to help us get these uniforms out of customs duty-free since they are a tax-exempt organization in Haiti.

We thought this was something they do all the time since the Haitian National teams need to import equipment all the time. But it was now December 15th and the stuff was still stuck in customs.

So after two failed attempts to go through the Federation, we decided we had to take matters into our own hands and plead our case with the Director of Customs.

So this morning (12/15) we went to the customs office with a letter requesting a meeting with the Director of Customs. We were just going to drop off the letter and hope that he would honor our request to speak with him 2 days later. But when we arrived at his secretary's office, there he was, signing some papers!

He overheard our tale of woe and stoped and looked at our paperwork. His first reaction was that he could not reduce the fees. But then his secretary piped up and pleaded our case. He waved his hand and told us to start the paperwork and come back to his office!

So we got the paperwork typed up and then went to verify that the stuff was still there after all these months, and it was.

Tomorrow we will find out how much they will charge - so keep praying!!

To be continued...

A SOCCER TEAM AT A CHURCH?

On a bright Sunday morning I walked into a church in Borel, in the Artibonite Valley and what did I find? Eighty boys and girls in soccer uniforms sitting quietly in the pews being encouraged in spiritual things by local community leaders and church leaders.

I had gotten up at 5 AM to drive the 2 and ½ hours from Port-au-Prince to Borel with two of my other leaders-in-training: Ronald William who is on the AIS Haiti board, and Lucasse Henrilus, a former Lemuel player who works in the AIS office and helps me out when I travel. We arrived just as the service was starting.

The president of AIS Haiti's local committee, Wattnec Milfort is also an elder in this church and started a community soccer school as a way of reaching kids in the area with the Gospel. He has been coaching kids for a long time and two of his players have played on Haiti's national teams. His team was in the final of a soccer tournament he had organized that afternoon, and he wanted the church to encourage his players emotionally and spiritually before the game. And did they ever!

Some of the youth sang a song they wrote that said: “Jesus is happy when we pray. His grace is sufficient. Depend on Jesus. Be strong and of good courage.” Another song had a verse that said “Run straight towards the goal”.

I was asked to say a few words and used 1 Cor. 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink of whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” to encourage them to play for God's glory that afternoon. I also shared with them a dream I have of Haiti someday sending some soccer players to Senegal to help the youth of Senegal come to know Jesus through soccer outreaches.

Wattnec's younger brother gave the sermon appropriately based on 1 Timothy 4:12 “Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, in purity.” He used the example of Maradonna, the famous Argentinian player who got in trouble with drugs to show how we can either be a good example or a bad example to others.

The team must have taken the good counsel to heart because they played well and did not let their emotions get the best of them, even when they lost in a penalty shoot-out. Sometimes we learn more spiritually when we lose than when we win!

But in the end, God was glorified because 17 people indicated they trusted Christ through the evangelism that was done at half-time of the match!!

Tig se Tig (A Tiger is a Tiger)

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The Haitian proverb above means that a son is just like his father. We would say “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

As I have become like a Father to many of my Haitian leaders, it gives me great joy when, on their own, they begin to put into practice the things they have learned from us.

Recently we had the privilege of being invited to attend the final game of a week-long U-15 tournament in the Artibonite valley. As you may recall, this is the area where we started a pilot project last year and started soccer teams at eight UEBH Christian schools.

Wattnec Milfort, the president of the local committee we organized to work with these eight schools has enthusiastically embraced our strategy of using soccer to share the Gospel with young Haitians throughout the Artibonite valley. In fact, on his own, he organized a tournament and just asked us to help him with the evangelism at the final game.

Wattnec raised the funds, motivated the teams to participate, hired the referees, and did everything make the tournament a success, both physically and spiritually. He also did not do it alone. Following what we taught him about the importance of forming a committee and delegating responsibilities, he called upon several other members of the local committee that we had trained to help him.

The soccer results were that his team made it to the final game and lost in a heart-breaking penalty shoot-out.

The spiritual results were that 270 people filled out response cards, 17 people indicated they trusted Christ, 55 asked for more information before trusting Christ, 51 were already Christians, 59 said they would like to be involved in a Bible study, and 46 asked for prayer.

In addition, we gave out 3 Bibles as prizes and over 300 tracts to the spectators. PTL!!

Report on Business Training Seminar

Program:

Thirty-one Haitians between the ages of 18 and 35 attended nine days of entrepreneurial training (Oct. 15-25, 2008) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti made possible through Jèn@biz – 2008, the first annual business development program of the Haitian chapter of Young Americas Business Trust (YABT – Haiti). Twenty percent of the group was female and the rest were male. The participants, from a variety of backgrounds and business experience, shared sessions and group activities where they learned how to do market studies, financial planning and management techniques to help their businesses succeed.

Strategic Objectives:

Capacity-building
Personal and financial disciplines needed to succeed in business
Environmental scanning to identify feasible business opportunities
Organizational leadership to develop teamwork and project management
Entrepreneurship
How to write a business plan
Field research
Marketing their product or service
How to fund their business

Curriculum:

During the first four days of training, leaders and guest speakers provided an overview of business plan development. In the second week, more in-depth sessions were provided in the areas of marketing, production, internet research, management, finances, and the use of information technology in business development.
Throughout the program, an analogy of a tree to the process of business development was unveiled. The seed was compared to the business idea. The soil, the local environment. The need for sunshine was the need for financial capital, while the need for rain was like the need for good personnel. Just as it takes a long time for a tree to grow from a tiny seed, it takes time for a business to develop strong roots and bear fruit. The fruit then attracts birds, which were compared to customers who then go out and spread the word to others if the business is offering a good and attractive product or service.

Activities:

The delegates participated in many small-group activities throughout the training. In one activity, they examined the decisions made by business owners that lead to the gain, loss, and regain of a client’s trust. In groups of ten, each participant acted as a customer at a cyber café. Upon describing a strong reason that a customer places trust in the products and services of the business, participants passed a card representing their level of trust to the “owner” of the café. Each activity was followed by planned group discussions.
During the second week, participants were also required to perform field research each afternoon, exploring their respective target markets, competitors, opportunities, and challenges for their businesses.
Each participant wrote a business plan, complete with financial projections. For the final day of training, many participants prepared a display that highlighted their business plans. Ten participants chose to exhibit their business plan to the group in formal five-minute presentations.
Representatives from two local microcredit institutions gave sessions on their systems of providing financing for small businesses and fielded many questions. In addition, an entrepreneur from Haitian Partners in Christian Development's Business Incubator told the story of how he started his business.

Outcomes:

After nine days of training, most of the 31 participants handed in a business plan to the board of YABT – Haiti. Of the 31, we expect five to ten entrepreneurs will find funding and then we will mentor them for a year as they birth their business ideas into reality. Monthly training will continue for all participants.

The Story of Obias Exilus:

“There are many opportunities, but not enough services. People’s needs are not met.,” says Obias Exilus, owner of Design Plus, an informal printing services business. “It seems that businesspeople are not thinking right. We need more assessments of each area—to do deeper surveys to evaluate the real needs of the areas.”

Exilus was one of 30 participants in the recent entrepreneurship training program, Jèn@biz – 2008, held in Port-au-Prince for nine days. He entered the training with a hope to start Design Plus (a cybercafe and desktop publishing business), and, from the training, walked away with a better understanding of both the challenges and opportunities he holds as an entrepreneur.

“The biggest challenge is the energy problem because of the present price of gasoline used to fuel a generator for a café,” says Exilus. “Instead, we have to be equipped with an invertor or solar panels which takes a lot of money.”

In response to the challenges, Exilus has specific goals to make his business grow. In particular, he recognizes a budding target market which he believes Design Plus is able to meet. “I want to expand it to a cyber café,” says Exilus, “because we have a lot of students in the area who really need a place to do research and complete assignments.”

“Basically, I am learning what to do, what not to do, how to attract people to my...business, and how to increase production,” says Exilus after his experience in Jèn@biz - 2008. “I will get a profit which will help me sustain the business, and have a profit for the employees and myself.”

Acknowledgments:

YABT Haiti thanks the following individuals and organizations for their support of this project:
A Major donor from the US who funded the training
Haititec who provided 8 days use of their conference room for free
Dr. Leslie Jules and the Center for Specilaized Leadership for use of his curriculum.
Eagle Market, One Stop Market and Megamart who contributed drinks
Sogesol and Lumisec, two financial institutions who made presentations, reviewed the business plans and will finance several of the start ups.
The YABT Haiti board and teaching staff
TeleNational who filmed interviews and student presentations at the closing program.
Haitian Partners in Christian Development
AACH who handled the finances

School collapse

Pray for the families of those killed and injured in the school collapse that happened yesterday in Petion Ville (near Port-au-Prince). There also may still be some people trapped under the rubble.

Pictures of Business Seminar

Here are pictures of Jen@biz the business seminar we're working on YABT and AACH.

Prayer - Margaret's Mom - breast cancer

Margaret works for us 4 days a week doing all kinds of things around the house. She is a good Christian and has faithfully worked for us for from the time we arrived in Haiti. Margaret's mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Please pray for them.

The big Surprise!

Jim and Bob, from Bible Fellowship brought us a big surprise...what Ricky has been dreaming of...an electric guitar!

Right away, he tried playing with Joy on her acoustic. Joy and Richard had to try it too.

Now he's practicing a song to do with the praise band for our school chapel next week. He's a beginner, but he might be able to do that because God has given him a real talent for music.

We are so thankful to Bible Fellowship and especially Jim Compton and Bob Spicer.

Help for Hurricane Victims

Last week I posted about helping the hurricane victims and my director pointed out in a comment that our own mission, CrossWorld, has a relief project for Haiti. They have already disbursed $17,000 to provide aid and will continue to collect and distribute funds. If you would like to help with that, please check out http://www.crossworld.org/.

(I thought that once I "published" the comment, people would see it, but you actually have to click where it says "comment" below my post, so I thought another post would be a good idea.

An encouraging visit from members of Bible Fellowship

We were very encouraged by a visit from Jim Compton and Bob Spicer of Bible Fellowship Church this past weekend. They both left their jobs and their families for 5 days to come and learn more about our work here and plan a future visit from a larger team from Bible Fellowship.

We could not travel to central Haiti as we had hoped to because the bridge connecting the north of Haiti to the south was destroyed by the hurricanes and has not yet been rebuilt.

So we showed them around Port-au-Prince and visited Ft. Jacques where we held a soccer tournament this summer.

On Saturday morning we had a meeting with the Executive Committee of AIS Haiti and invited one of our leaders from Verettes to come and explain the needs of one of the schools there. We are thinking this is where we will bring a team early in 2009.

While they were hear they helped us fix up the house of one of our church members that got flooded from the hurricanes. They even donated enough money to put a new roof on it so that they don't get soaked from the next storm.

Of course we talked a lot about our plans for the year and how we hope God will use us. The biggest projects we have in the next 12 months revolve around training:

Training of young entrepreneurs in how to write a business plan, get financing and start a small business with Young Americas Business Trust - Haiti (YABT-Haiti) for short.(Oct. 15-25, 2008)

TREC 2008-2009 with Ambassadors in Sport: This will train our Haitian leaders how to train other Haitians in Sports Ministry. (Dec. 26, 2008 to Jan 4, 2009

AIS Haiti leadership Training: During this training the Haitian leaders we trained in TREC will train other Haitians in how to start their own sports ministries in their schools and churches.

We were overwhelmed by their interest and desire to help and encourage us in our ministry and look forward to when the entire team from Bible Fellowship will come alongside us for a week of ministry in 2009.

Anybody thinkin "How can I help Haiti?"

If you're seeing sad pictures of the aftermath of the recent 4 hurricanes that hit Haiti and wonderin how you can help, there are several ways.

1. Of course, pray. Please. There are neat stories going around of how God is providing for victims of these hurricanes. Like 27 orphns and orphanage workers whose orphange and school were washed away. I talked to Sherry, a missionary teacher (but not at QCS) yesterday at Quisqueya Chapel and she breifly mentioned how she would be receiving these 27 that afternoon even though she never expected to have an orphanage...God provided the building and bit by bit God is providing what these children need.

2. Get online or call Christian missions and ask if you can serve in Haiti helping with the relief efforts.

3. if you go to wwww.unjobs.org you can find jobs that are available with organization related to the UN who are organizing and carrying out relief. Most of the ones listed there are high level jobs, but it may be worth checking out if you are availble for an assignment of 3 months, 6 months or longer.

4. There are a lot of organizations collecting money to help the victims.

Flooding problems

The boy quoted in this article is in one of my French classes.

Posted on Mon, Sep. 08, 2008
Haitian family recalls `darkest night'
BY JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA

As the wind howled and rain tore through the Haitian village of
Messailler, Charles Amicy huddled on a dark staircase with his family.

Amicy and his wife tried to console the group of six children, three
of them his own. As they wept, he encouraged them to pray.

As the floodwaters raged around their two-story home, they sang
religious songs to help block out the screams of neighbors.

''It was the darkest night of my life,'' said Amicy, 48, a
Presbyterian pastor, recalling Hurricane Ike's wrath early Sunday
morning.
'People were crying, `Save me. Save me.' There was nothing I could do.''
The family, three orphans living with them and a maid, clung together
for hours as water crept up the walls of their home.
They survived, but so many others in Messailler and the nearby poor
oceanside town of Cabaret -- grandmothers, pregnant women, babies --
weren't spared.
Bodies of the dead were scattered on the grounds of Amicy's five-acre
compound, a former sugar cane plantation turned religious retreat
where local children learn, orphans feel loved and the faithful flock
to church.
Amicy's 10-year-old son, Allan, saw several corpses that had been
dumped by the river onto the grounds of the compound.
''This has had a big impact on his life,'' said Amicy, who lives in
Port-au-Prince during the week and at the compound on weekends. ``He
cries. He doesn't want to sleep alone.''
The horror began at 2 a.m. Sunday.
Amicy was awake, praying in his second-floor bedroom, when his
25-year-old nephew ran in, saying he heard a ``big noise.''
Amicy hurried downstairs and toward the front door to peek outside. As
he reached for the doorknob, he felt water on his feet, coming through
the cracks of the door.
Then, the door collapsed. Water came rushing.
Amicy ran toward the first-floor bedroom where his three children,
three orphans and a maid were asleep.
He ordered them all upstairs.
The children -- ages 3 to 18 -- were crying.
At daylight, Amicy walked outside.
What he saw, he will never forget.
''Houses washed away. There are no more walls. Everything is
flattened,'' he said.
``Everywhere you look, devastation.''
Toilets were flushed down the river, tires shred to pieces, tables floated away.
Also stolen by Ike: More than $300,000 in prescription drugs from the
compound's pharmacy and five vehicles used by the ministry, including
a school bus, a dump truck and a van.
After assessing the damage and handing out spaghetti to hungry storm
victims, Amicy knew he had to somehow get his family back to safety in
Port-au-Prince.
But phone lines were dead and cellphone service spotty.
So they started walking.
Barefoot, with only the clothes on their backs, Amicy led his family
up the hills, away from the water, on a four-mile walk to a main road.
There, they were picked up and driven to the city.
Even after all the devastation and heartache among Haitians, Amicy's
spirit remains unfaltering.
''We will rebuild,'' he said. ``I don't know how, but I know that God
will help us.''


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