Our first night in Port-Au-Prince was spent in the "Palace" Hotel (a palace in name only)! Next morning as we rode through the city streets, we got our first taste of the staggering and overwhelming poverty in which most Haitians live. The remainder of the day was spent in our "tap-tap" (Haitian bus) on a grueling 11 hour ride on the only official road in Haiti. Constant slowing down to a dead stop for huge potholes and barriers meant the highest speed we could reach was an occasional 50 mph. Traversing treacherous mountain passes in this vehicle made the ride especially exhilarating, and at one point we even had to ford a small river! The last 2 hours of our journey to the remote mountain village of Ouanaminthe was spent on a bone-jarring, washboard surface of rock-hard dirt.
While in Ouanaminthe, we cleaned up and painted a new section of a school, making it ready for students in October. Our paint brushes were hand-made of-palm leaves. Except for a tin roof, the school is constructed completely of concrete with a "smooth" section of concrete (painted green) serving as a chalk board. There are no desks and no electricity. Students sit on crude wooden benches or on the concrete floor, and pencils, paper and school supplies are a rarity. Small decorative bricks and a wooden doorway let in a little light and air. A four-seater outhouse sits behind the school.
The village of Ouanaminthe has been without electricity for over 7 months. However, the house we stayed in had a small generator providing 2-3 hours of electricity each evening. After that it was illumination by flashlight!. One particular night Lynn Ann sat up late talking by flashlight to one of our Aslan kids, Janet (not her real name). Janet, age 15, was removed from her drug-addicted mother (now in jail) after years of neglect, sexual and emotional abuse. Janet now lives with a cousin in Red Bank. She was reading, I Am Somebody!, a small American Bible Society booklet we gave her, and sitting there crying her eyes out. Janet finds it hard to believe her life has any importance. Lynn Ann listened late into the night, reassuring her of how much God loves her and how much we love her too.
Aslan Haiti '96 brought incredible growth in Janet's life. Through sharing her love and herself with others in such need, she now understands a little better how truly special she is. Not quite finished yet, she is a child of God "under construction". We will keep you posted on her progress.
Most sincerely,