Blog

July 18, 2016 Time sure has flown by. Life in the U.S. moves so fast, island time is so much slower. It is an adjustment for us each time we come home. This time we came home with no means to support ourselves, but God provided us with work. First Bob worked for the Parish Twinning Program’s sea container program and I helped as a volunteer. We packed things for our twin parish with the help of friends from Michigan and the Dowelltown Methodist church. Then, just as we finished the shipping container, Bob was hired to work at CMI, […]

Happy Summer, Here is a link to our: Summer 2016 Newsletter Hope you have a blessed summer, Bob and Denise [pdfviewer width=\”750px\” height=\”825px\” beta=\”true/false\”]https://partnerinhaiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/SUMMER-2016-final.pdf[/pdfviewer]

Denise and I are completing a wonderful week at the 2016 Salvatorian National Assembly. The most powerful tidbit that I am taking home? Zeal without love is destructive. This year we are celebrating twenty years as lay members of the Salvatorian order. (Society of the Divine Saviour) While here we are sharing the beauty of Haitian art.

It has been a while since I have posted. When we first returned from Haiti, right after Easter, we both worked on the shipping container, and then, we were blessed with a wonderful job for me. We have also been blessed with a wonderful family, and friends. And now I am adjusting to living back in first world time. As opposed to Haiti time. This is my excuse for not writing. Today, our friend, Derys Louinel, last name first, just sent us two pictures of the big Flag Day celebration in our home village of Garcin, Haiti. There was a

Breaking the attitude of poverty. Or, From entitlement to empowerment.. part one Poverty can is defined by both lack of resorces and a lack of choices. The poorest of the poor have few choices with few resources. They are faced with making a choice like, “Do I spend the only five gourdes I have on clean water, or do I by a piece of bread, and drink from the polluted river?” With little if any education, how does someone know how to make a good choice between, “When I sell my vegetables in the market, do I buy more food,

March 23, 2016 Leaving Haiti again Time has flown by, we have been here since the beginning of January but it seems like weeks not months. We have been able to accomplish a lot on this trip. Having more language skills, is helpful, understanding the culture better, and having a support group to work with helps the most. It takes time to be accepted within any community. But we both feel much more a part of both the Haitian community and the Americans that are also working here. We have many good friends both Haitian and American. The first trips

All of those years designing kitchens and bathrooms has finally paid off! New moveable pit composting toilet at the Fr Jim Bretl Agricultural Center.

March 22, 2016 Nutritional Workshops While here in Haiti last fall I was involved in many cases of severely malnourished children. Two of which were so severe that they were hospitalized for Koshcores (a lack of protein that causes major swelling in all the body parts). The swelling can cause the child to have a heart attack and untreated will result in death. There are many children that with lesser degrees of malnourishment and all the children are probably under nourished. We have the school lunch program that is helping the 750 children that attend our five schools. But there

Life for an American in Haiti March 4th 2016 Haiti is a beautiful country, especially in the Northern area where we work and there are some trees. Then there are the beaches with the white sand and beautiful blue water of the Caribbean. Unfortunately many of the beaches have trash floating in the water so developing a tourist trade could prove to be difficult. Trash is a major problem here. They dont have any plan for the disposal of waste so it is all over the streets. Up here where we live in the mountains the people buy very little

The new office and guardian\’s house is almost done. We are also adding a little color by painting the front gate.