Hello from Haiti - From Jack Zeleznak

Today Monday was our first trip into the filed.  After breakfast, worship, and a two hours drive through some tented communities we reached our first community.  We drove the worst roads I have every experinced.  Rocks, openings created by the quake, and plain underdevloped roads.  The first community was servely hit by the quake distroying most of the homes, and nearly colapsing the church while being occuppied it.  We met the pastor of the church, the leader of the community.  Through a World Relief interepter he skope of stories from the day of the quake.  There also was another man from the community asking us why we were there.  I was surprized at how direct he was.  The Counrty Director of World Relief was a part of our group.  He fielded the questions, and assured that we were there to help, and wanted to know what needed to be done.  This was the first meeting the director had with the Pastor.  World Relief works directly with the churches of Haiti to assess their needs and develop a long term sustainable solution.

World Relief is using a three prong approach in Haiti. 1) Livelyhood Development (job creation) 2) Agri Business (grow cash crops) 3) USCE (US Church Engagement, where US churches, like CCC partners with a community to help).

We are a part of the USCE, and it is amazing to see what has aleady done by World Relief.  In the first community they had built earth quake, and huricane proof stuctures where four people can live.  They are the stong, concreate reinforced buildings with a front door and a back door, and four windows.  World Relief also dug a clean well when we saw people hand pumping water for the day.

The second commuity we visted was Christianville that was a huge complex.  They served us lunch, and then took us on a tour.  The first spot was a chicken farm, with two rows of two levels of chickens.  The next spot was a fishery where they raised Tilapia.  Both the eggs produced and the fish are fed to the 1,000 children they support.  In this complex was several schools.  We saw the students in their uniforms. 

The last spot was a community that had more stuctures that World Relief had built.  Here we saw a Voodoo Temple.  The women from our group played games with  the little children.  It started out with maybe five or six kids.  I went to inspect the building under construction and look at the Voodoo Temple.  When I returned the women now had nearly thirdy kids playing.  Around the kids were another thirty older kids cheering and laughing, along with adults.

On the way back to our headquarters we got a flat.  The truck was only 4,000 miles old. When we got the jack out, it was missing the key to the tool.

Tommorrow we start our Out Reach program with the children Carrefour Fuielle.
Please pray for the Children of Haiti that they can build the Kingdom of God in Haiti.

Love and peace,
Jack