Before the American Thanksgiving, the student body collected food items for the national workers. There was a competition among the classes who could bring in the greatest amount. The grade six class won! The senior class looked after collecting the food each morning for a two week period. Baskets were purchased and they then distributed the food among the baskets. There were 29 baskets :-)



Here the food was sorted and put into the various baskets, which were more than overflowing! This was accomplished by the senior students and some willing mothers to give a helping hand. It was interesting to see the nationals take this gift home - one worker put it all in his wheel barrow and walked home with his treasure. The baskets all contained cooking oil, rice, flour, spaghetti, canned beans and other vegetables.




This past Wednesday, at our weekly chapel, most of the national workers were called into the gathering to thank them for their services. Junior Vixamar, our Haitian computer technician, led the assembly with words of thanks and praise for their faithful services. He also led us in prayer, thanking God for His faithfulness and goodness that we were able to show our appreciation to the nationals with these gifts. Together we truly serve a faithful God no matter where we are planted - whether in Haiti, or USA or Canada. Everyday needs to be a day of thanks giving. Each day needs to be a day of thanksliving.

Once upon a time I 'needed' all these ties:-) The tie makes the man. Each day I would have the arduous task selectibg the tie for the day. I was known for my ties at Scugog Christian School and parents and/or the students would give ties for my birthday or Christmas. So, before I went to Haiti, I had enough time to 'air' my ties. I left most of them behind, taking only a few select ties with me. To my amazement, the 'blancs' also wear colourful ties to church. Once again I am wearing ties to church, such as Tigger and Pooh, Noah's Ark, etc



This morning I received a most encouraging newsletter. Linda Wielinga used 39 of the ties and created this quilt. The parents at the Scugog Christian School annual auction first did a bid to determine the price individuals would pay for each tie represented in the quilt. "The bid rose to $105 per tie. Then we said we needed 39 people to pay $105 each to acquire the final cost of the quilt - you never saw 39 auction cards go up so fast! It was incredible!" Again, I just praise God for the way He showed Himself through this community. We serve an awesome God! Half of the proceeds were for our ministry :-)


This past Friday, the students were dismissed at 12 noon so that the generator could be serviced. This past week it kept cutting out, creating havoc with my classroom computer and the lights in the classroom. I need them to teach ;-) They also changed the chatado - the water reservoir on top of our apartment building. The local maintenance Haitians did the change over. I won't describe the contents that were inside the tank:-)




This is one of the local maintenance workers who helps me out when I need light bulbs for my classroom, or a piece of wood cut for the cupboard in my classroom. I did not take any tools along to Haiti, which was not a good idea:-( He is a great handiman and always cheerful. The new reservoir is about twice the size of the old one and maybe, since it is black, the water will be a little warmer ;-)

Here is an update on the banana tree beside our front door. It has had a bit of a setback from too much soapy bleach water being thrown in the garden. We have asked the cleaning ladies not to throw the water in that garden. I gave the tree some fertilizer and took off the dead banana leaves so hopefully it is not too late to save the bunch of bananas. A banana tree only gives a bunch of bananas once. After that, the tree is chopped down and new shoots that have developed at the root level are allowed to grow into a new tree.













Here you can see at the base, two new banana trees developing. On one you can see brown spots, leftover from the bleach water, but the new one on the left has no spots so we hope that the problem is fixed. Eventually after many banana plants have come from the same root it will be unable to grow any more shoots. Then you plant one of the new shoots in a different location to start the process all over again .

This past week I rode on a tap-tap (Haitian taxi of sorts) to the location of Suzette's new home. Tap-taps are the main form of transportation here. You can also get on a larger truck or bus but the crowding is all the same. This tap-tap stopped at our corner to pick up passengers. He won't leave until it is full, and I mean full of passengers! Most of the time there are 12-14 people in the back and some in the front but in rush hour, they may have as many at 20 inside with four more hanging on the back!


Here is a picture of Suzette standing proudly in the doorway of her new home. There are three small bedrooms, a gallery or front room, where she is standing and two other rooms. A living room and a dining room most likely. Suzette told me she would be doing most of the cooking outside to avoid heating up the house. At the back of the house there is also a fairly large septic tank and under the gallery is a very large cistern that will store all the water that collects on the cement roof. She hopes to be in there by Christmas.

This past week we lived in a house adjacent to this ravine. Ravines in Haiti are low spots that get flooded when it rains. The rains came down in torrents this past week while we were at the VanDam's house. We were watching three of their four children while they were at a mission conference in Nicaragua. As we looked over the rail of the balcony, this was our view. Many people lived here. This land belongs to the city. People build houses here since they have nowhere to go. If you have enough money to cut into the side of the ravine and build a house, then you have 'semi-permanent' housing. We watched a television program where they destroyed partial built homes in another ravine. I could not understand the Creole, but got the idea that this was illegal. These people in the ravine beside the VanDam's house have been there for years. Each time I have looked down in the ravine, there are a few more houses in progress.


These are three of the four VanDam children playing in the playroom of their house beside the ravine. We looked after Teresa, Micah and Melieka while their parents Howard and Ruth along with their sister Natasha went to Nicaragua for a mission conference. As well as the children, there were also a cat, a dog, a turtle and two love birds to care for. The children helped us out with the animals.

If you look down into the ravine and look closely, you will see a lady washing clothes in a tub. She will rinse the clothes in a 5 gallon bucket and then hang them in the sun to dry. This is probably her only means of income for the week.