More Than Nothing

We headed out of Port Au Prince this morning and made our way to the village of Titanyen, which in Creole means “less than nothing”.  First stop - Grace Village.  We were greeted by a sea of children, all in purple and our tour guide, Kiki, the only staff member of 120 at Grace Village who is not Haitian.  She started the tour in the bakery.  The brick ovens in the bakery were provided by Punch Pizza from Minnesota.  Folks from Punch came to Haiti to install the wood-burning ovens and train the staff on how to use them.  (Thank you, Punch!)  The three ovens were named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  They are trialling baking in preparation for going commercial in their new bakery/cafe adjacent to the church being built just outside of the walls of Grace Village for easier access to the town residents.  

We went on to their dining hall where the ceramic tiling on the floors and walls contained the images of 5,000 fishes.  The school serves 450 students, 42 of whom are orphaned and are year-round residents, the others are children from town.  Each of the children who live at Grace Village are housed in one of the four homes, living with a Mammy and a Pappy, creating a warm family.  They focus on making each child feel welcome, loved, and safe. They serve 570 meals between the students and staff.  Four days a week, they serve Feed My Starving Children MannaPack for lunch.  Today we discovered that their current stock of MannaPacks had come directly from the 2015 Incarnation Lutheran MobilePack!  (Go Incarnation!)


The children in Haiti start school at age 3 and if they complete all grades, finish when they are between the ages of 19 and 20.  The families of the students pay for their education.  It’s a minimal cost, but this creates an environment where they have a vested interest in their children’s education.They have an on-site fish farm raising tilapia from fingerlings to full-size fish to be consumed both at the school and to be made available for sale.  Their new library is stocked with a growing number of volumes in French, Creole, and English.  Their plan is to begin checking out books to the students next term.   


We wrapped up the tour at their full service clinic.  They had doctors, nurses, X-ray, a pharmacy, and each service cost the equivalent of $1, making it a very affordable one-stop health care facility in a place that is desperately in need of modern health care.  The birth rate in Titanyen is three times the average birth rate in Haiti which they hope to address with a family planning program by expanding a midwife clinic.


Grace Village sits atop a hill overlooking the Caribbean with a view of Cite Soleil from which constant smoke rises from burning garbage.  Despite the stark contrast between the abundance of Grace Village and the scarcity of the villages of Cite Soleil, we felt Christ’s presence in both places.  

We paid a visit to five elders in Titanyen - Pierre and Lauramise, Maricia, Felicie, and Marie.  At each stop, we provided a hot meal, a bag of toiletries, and a lotion massage to their hands and feet.  We had the opportunity to sing and pray with them.  It was amazing how excited they were to have us - we were greeted warmly at each of their homes.  Their gratitude and smiles and their love of Christ touched all of us.  They each made a point to pray for us as well.  Their prayers included a prayer for a better life for their children and grandchildren which is a universal parental wish, just as we have for our own families.  




After visiting the seniors, we had the opportunity to visit Mission of Hope.  This organization is the largest distributor of  Feed My Starving Children food in Haiti. Wiki gave us a tour and told us that they serve 90,000 meals per day from their facility and their current inventory is 3.5 million meals of food.  Wiki shared with us that their goal in the next two years is to supply 50% of the food they are distributing with Haitian grown ingredients.  Wiki is a product of Mission of Hope.  He started school there the first day they were open and is a success story in and of himself.  He continued school at Mission of Hope and went on to graduate from college in the Dominican Republic with a degree in business.  He now is employed full time at Mission of Hope and serves as an inspiration for the current students and staff.



In light of the election results which were to be announced today, the staff at Mission of Hope and our interpreters from Healing Haiti advised that we cut our day short and return to the guest house directly.  We had plans of visiting the mass gravesite where countless people were brought to their final resting place after the 2010 earthquake.  We were also looking forward to distributing MannaPacks, but we heeded their warning and made our way home.  On our way back to the house, we encountered our first severe traffic jam but our driver expertly maneuvered his way through.

 

Today we saw joy in the faces of people who have nothing but a love for Jesus and a trust in Him that He will provide.This, however, is so much more than nothing.The people we visited today are living proof how He delivers on His promises.It’s incredible how Grace Village has grown in just 4 years to a place that provides a positive future for so many children.Kiki shared with us that they have dreams of feeding 5,000 students per day as their plans for growth materialize and it’s through the world’s generosity that those dreams will come true.They have a wonderful philosophy which is to empower the students to lead in small ways at the school so that they are prepared to lead in larger ways within their country.

- Mike Styba, Dan Zibell, Kristi Hartman