Haiti Trip, February 16-25, 2012, Days 2 and 3

Bonswa…Kòman ou ye? (Good afternoon/evening…how are you?) 


I made it into Port-au-Prince yesterday without a hitch, but after that things got fairly interesting. The team from Shreveport, LA got in about 30 minutes after I did. We loaded up the van and started heading to Les Cayes…normally about a 4 hour drive. On the way out of Port-au-Prince we found out that the president had declared that Carnival would be in Les Cayes this year. Carnival starts tomorrow afternoon and runs through Tuesday. The expectation is that close to 1,000,000 people will be in Les Cayes these three days. I think we were caught in the traffic with half of them. It took us about 7 hours to get here.

Our first site to visit today was Bigarouse (also known as Big House). On our way there though we stopped at a local street market. This picture is of the parking lot. Part of our team is here to plan for a group of college students to come this summer to teach in two of our orphanages. Their desire is to immerse the students in the local culture. This market will be one of those opportunities for immersion.

While at Bigarouse we met with Pastor Jean Elysee. We shared with him the plans to have a team here this summer that was going to focus on teaching French, math music, art, history, and geography. He was very excited. We also came up with a plan to have some of his children and members of the church community prepare some lessons for our team members. We thought it would be great for them to teach history, local customs, and some songs and dances. This is where his and Pastor Louis’ excitement and enthusiasm really lit up. He shared that the American teams always come down here to teach and that he really appreciates that. This is the first time that one of these teams has asked him to prepare some things to teach the Americans. He feels like it is a group that wants to “circle the wagons” around him and his ministry.

Our next stop was Darivager. The team will also do their teaching program at this facility. Once again the pastor, Pastor Monregard was very excited about the ideas for the program that was set up at Bigarouse.

After visiting these two sites we were able to visit some historical sites that date back to the 1700’s when the French occupied the country. These areas will be part of the cultural immersion for the college students. One of the sites that we visited was Fort Cachalou (not sure about spelling).


Tomorrow we will be participating in a couple of churches services and possibly checking out Carnival. Thanks for your prayers. I will send out my next email on Monday.


Prayer Updates:

• My mother had her gall bladder removed and should be home by the time you get this email.
• Please continue to pray for Ben and Susie as they walk through the illness of her brain tumor. You can follow here progress at http://www.benandsusiethomas.com/.