Living Hope Haiti Christian Mission had a great 2017!
We started and finished the construction of a concrete bridge in St Michel de L'Attalaye, and another suspension bridge for pedestrians and motorcycles. This was our second suspension bridge. The concrete bridge allows the road to St Michel to remain open to traffic during the rainy season. While we were there in March building the bridge, a rainstorm one evening made the river rise, showing us how high the river can get- even during the dry season. St Michel is often times cut off from the rest of Haiti by a simple rainstorm.
The concrete bridge represents the largest infrastructure project in the city's history. The full time missionary with Living Hope Haiti, Brennon Garrett, did a magnificent job of planning the bridge, and managing the work teams. We also thank the folks from the States who traveled to Haiti for a week to get the main structure finished. And the President of Living Hope, Mayor Gueillant Dorcinvil, helped tremendously to organize the construction and motivate the work crew on both bridges.
Allison Garrett continued her ministry of helping the citizens of St Michel with a variety of health issues. In several instances, her assistance was the difference between life and death.
We hosted surgical teams from Baptist Health South Florida in March, July and October, and we were able to double our usual surgical capacity by partnering with IHI and St. Luke's hospital in Port au Prince. By doing so we were able to perform surgeries at the two Operating Rooms at St Lukes. Many patients received life-changing surgery.
In addition to the surgeries that we perform, we took a number of people for CAT scans and other diagnostic tests, and are working on getting them surgery in Haiti at other facilities, at a fraction of the cost in the United States.
If you would like to support our efforts to orchestrate life saving surgeries for Haitian patients in Haiti, you can support the cost of tests and surgeries that we organize for patients that we can't operate on with our teams. You can do so by visiting our website: LivingHopeHaiti.com and click on the donate button. It will take you to the page where the medical support project is listed.
Allison and Brennon Garrett enlisted the help of an intern, Jessanne, to tutor their daughter Brianna daily. In her off hours, Jessanne taught English lessons to the High School English Teachers each week. We thank Jessanne for her service in Haiti.
We focused on English lessons this summer in St Michel at VBS- look for us to make progress on this topic in the years to come.
We launched a Christmas Backpack program in partnership with Church @ the Springs in Ocala. This program had us deliver roughly 1400 backpacks loaded with supplies, toys, and hygiene items to the children in our elementary schools. The distribution took place the week before Christmas and was a whole lot of fun.
The backpacks also contained A Story of Jesus in Creole, some food for a Christmas meal, and a pair of sunglasses!
As always, thank you for your prayers and support!
Thanks,
Calvin