January 22, 2006

 Dear Everybody:

I returned to Haiti from Christmas holidays over a week ago and have been dealing with urgent affairs ever since. Unfortunately, the biggest news I have this month is bad news.

Robbery a blow to CWH staff

Before I returned, Valerie and her mother were here and they closed up the house one evening as the workers left. All was well until Valerie climbed the stairs to go to bed and found a masked man in her room. He grabbed her by the arm and put a gun to her head, demanding money. The man left with about the equivalent of $70 USD, but the money lost means nothing compared to the shock of being threatened with a gun. Valerie is quite shaken by the experience and so am I, even though I was not there. It seems that the thief entered the house during the daytime through an unsupervised door and then waited until night time to make his move.

I consider this robbery a major setback for CWH. For missionary staff to want to live and work here in Haiti, they have to feel safe. I’ve noticed that everyone here has been sleeping badly since the robbery, and we haven’t spent evenings sitting out on the porch. Instead, we close the house at dusk and don’t open it until the morning. I fear that new volunteers will be even more reluctant to come here since this recent incident. The previous incident to this one was in December 2004. Two masked men came together, and one pointed a gun (probably fake) at me. I yelled forcibly and they ran away. It seems now that the local thieves have at least one real gun and it makes our situation much more serious.

Two security positions added

We now have 2 security guys here from 6pm to 9pm each evening and they take their job very seriously. They are dedicated Haitian staff who trade off doing security detail in the evenings after they are finished building filters. We are taking this very seriously and will continue to make security improvements.

KIA truck is once again broken.

The next bit of major bad news is that our KIA truck is once again broken. This time, it seems to have a broken connecting rod which is quite serious and will cost about $4000 to repair. This is money that the mission doesn’t have readily available.

Missions Fest in Vancouver

Onto the good news! For the first time, we will have a booth set up at Missions Fest in Vancouver. This is the biggest mission’s expo that I know of, and it happens every January at the Vancouver convention center. There are many thousands of attendees who are looking into the possibility of doing missionary work themselves. Barbara Jonusaitis is flying out from Chicago and several other volunteers will be manning the booth at Missions Fest including Rob Haskell, Valerie Thacker and our beloved founder, Tal Woolsey. Most of the Missions Fest attendees won’t be immediately interested in coming to Haiti, but we will remain in contact via our update letters and perhaps months or years down the road some of these people will apply to be on staff.

Roman is in the process of restarting filter production in Gonaives

More good news is that Roman is in the process of restarting filter production in Gonaives. For the past several months, he has been following up on the filters that were installed there, and now he is ready to begin filter production again. I will be going there tomorrow to see the property we will be renting and talk to him about other aspects of the project. Because the truck is broken, I will be going by motorcycle and wearing a dust mask to keep my lungs clear on the road. We still have about 3 months left of the dry season and the road to Gonaives will continue to be one big dust cloud until it rains again. Actually though, several miles of that road have been paved in recent months so it won’t be as bad as it once was.

 We say farewell and thank you to Val.

Next week, Valerie’s eight months with us are up and she flies back to Canada. She has been a great educator and translator while she has been with us and she has added a lot to our lives with her unique perspective on life in Haiti.

 Staff of the month is Jack Andrew

Our staff of the month is Jack Andrew. Jack has been with the mission since the beginning of June. He found out about Clean Water for Haiti when he was in a coffee house in Seattle and saw a card which explained the mission and talked about what we do. He contacted me and after learning more, he quit his job sailing on the Victoria Clipper and came out. Jack is 23 and he graduated from the University of Washington several years ago. In Haiti he’s now in charge of the Pierre Payen (and environs) filter program. His favorite part of his job is walking up into the surrounding hills, talking to people about filters and developing relationships with people. He has learned Creole very quickly because he loves to talk with Haitians. Because of that, many local people know about the filters now and the effect is multiplying.

  We are grateful for your prayers and support

  Please keep praying! 

-Chris