PLH Summer Kick Off Event in Stayton, OR

On June 23rd and 24th, PLH hosted its second annual Summer Kick Off sports camp in Stayton Oregon. Sixty kids from the community came out to participate in basketball, soccer, and volleyball training. The seven volunteer coaches from the community did a great job and the kids enjoyed learning about the game, improving their skills, and playing scrimmages at the end of the day. 

To close out the Summer Kick Off event, kids and adults from the community participated in a fun run on Saturday, June 25th. Many of the kids from the camp came out with their parents and many others from the community joined in. A total of fifty runners participated in the trail run through the Stayton Middle School Nature Trail. Congratulations to Tyler Franklin, the overall winner of the 5k race! 

The goal of the sports camp and fun run is to provide a fun experience for kids and families in our local community and to spread the word of the work PLH is doing in Haiti. PLH believes that sports and opportunities to play and learn are hugely influential in the lives of young people. This is why one of PLH’s four areas of focus is athletics. 

Thanks to generous sponsors and the registration fees of participants that paid it forward, the Summer Kick Off raised $1,500 to go towards the PLH summer kids programs in Haiti! This July and August, the PLH Haiti staff is organizing 8 weeks of soccer tournaments, English classes, artisan classes, soap making classes and more for kids and youth in the Camp Marie community. These programs will provide kids with a safe place to come play, learn and grow this summer. Stay tuned for updates later this summer!

Leadership in Times of Crisis: An Edifying Conference

By Wilson Emmanuel

In March of this year, PLH sent me and 6 others from PLH to Port-au-Prince to participate in a two-day leadership conference for the 80th Anniversary at STEP (Seminar of Evangelical Theology of Port-au-Prince).

The conference had other organizations as well and church leaders, pastors, institutional leaders, civil servants, and others.

The presenters shared five main topics:

1. Leadership in Times of Crisis

2. Approaching Crisis with Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility 

3. Methods of Organization: Strategic Management and Operational Management

4. Creating a High Performing Team

5. Decision in Uncertainty: How to Evaluate, Anticipate and then Act 

Through this conference, my colleagues and I have been edified.  I liked it because I learned a lot.  Now, I hope to address the crises and I understand more clearly than before the vision of PLH. PLH is here to help us change Haiti, not to change Haiti themselves.  PLH promised us training so that they could participate in the development of Haiti by making students. When PLH sends us to learn, we can be equipped to help bring about change in our country. The projects to develop Haiti are very real.

A big thank you to everyone that contributed to our exceptional and extraordinary training. God bless you.

A Look Ahead at 2022

In 2022, PLH is focusing on sustainability and self-sufficiency, both for the organization and the community of Camp Marie. To do this, we have several small businesses in the works which will create jobs for individuals in the community, provide a local place to purchase some basic staples, and create income for the organization. Here are the businesses PLH is already working on. 

1. U-Pick Fruit Orchard: In 2021, PLH planted over 300 fruit trees throughout the property. Local vendors will be able to purchase and resell oranges, grapefruit, limes, cherries, and keneps.

2. Kitchen: The PLH kitchen will provide daily lunches for our staff and offer meals and snacks for sale to students, players, and other locals. Construction will be completed by the end of January. The next step is to purchase appliances, countertops and equipment to outfit the kitchen

3. Solar Fruit Dehydrator: In our area, thousands of mangos go to waste each year as there is very little drying or preserving of food in Haiti. The solar dehydrator will allow for mangoes to be dried and preserved and for breadfruit to be dried and ground into a nutritious flour. PLH plans to purchase fruit in bulk locally as well as provide drying services for vendors to have their fruit dried and then resell it in the markets. The dehydrator will be placed on the kitchen roof and a special room for the fruit preparation and packaging is in the kitchen building. We are purchasing the dehydrator from an organization that builds them here in Haiti. We hope to have it installed in the next couple months. 

Water Purification Center: Currently, PLH purchases all of its drinking water, traveling 10 to 15 minutes to refill 30 plus water jugs several times per week. This was nearly impossible to do with the fuel shortage last fall. The PLH Water Purification Center will provide drinking water for our own use, offer the community a local place to refill their gallons at a low price, and create jobs for locals. The building will be completed by the end of January, and we hope to have the filtration system installed and operational by March.  

Chicken coop: Chicken is the largest source of protein in Haiti, and yet the majority of chickens and eggs are imported. PLH plans to create a chicken coop for egg-laying hens and meat chickens to be sold to local families and vendors. This will create jobs and allow families to purchase meat and eggs without having to travel 15 minutes to the nearest public market. Construction is planned for this spring. 

Sustainability and small business creation is just one of our goals for 2022. In 2022, we plan to strengthen our pre-existing programs, continuing to develop the youth athletics program as well as the English Institute. Both of these have been running for four years, and have seen significant growth and development. This year, it is our goal to continue to invest in our teachers and coaches to develop their skills and to advance the institute and soccer academy with further development of curriculum, discipleship strategies, and added tournaments and workshops. Please pray for the teachers, coaches, students and players that God will continue to touch their lives and that they may carry out the plans He has for them. 

As the PLH programs continue to grow and as small businesses launch, the PLH staff will continue to grow. We are excited to add to our number and have the opportunity to invest in more individuals on a daily basis. Employment is hard to find in Haiti and is life changing. An employer that treats their employees fairly and seeks to help them grow and develop can set individuals and their families up for success. And a positive work environment, focused on Christ and discipling its members can have eternal implications. Please pray with us that PLH will find the right employees to add to its number and that these jobs will be not only a financial blessing but cultivate personal, professional, and spiritual growth. 

The final focus for PLH’s work in Haiti in 2022 is to continue to invest in the community through special events and activities. Currently, Haiti has little to offer in the way of entertainment and positive environments for people to enjoy a day or night out. We hope to see PLH become the hub of the community - where people can come to enjoy time with their family and friends, relax, learn, grow, and experience new things. Please pray for the community of Camp Marie - for the leaders, schools, churches, families, and youth. Families face daily challenges that many of us can’t imagine. Youth struggle to see a hope or future and face temptations to live a life of gangs, alcohol, greed, and pleasure. Pray that PLH and the schools and churches in Camp Marie can be lights to the community and help to foster unity, love, joy, opportunity, and hope. 

Thank you for your continued partnership with Project Living Hope! God has great plans for this community.

As our Haitian brothers and sisters would do, we would like to leave you with a little new year’s blessing: May God grant you good health and watch over you and protect you. May you and your loved ones be blessed, and may this year be better than the last.

A Look Back at 2021

Happy New Year! Or as they say in Haiti, “Bon Ane!” We hope all your holiday celebrations were blessed and that you are facing 2022 with hope and purpose. We wanted to take this opportunity to share an overview of some of the things God has done in Haiti through PLH in 2021 and what we pray He will do in 2022. 

Though this past year was full of challenges, God did so much! 

The PLH campus continues to develop at a steady pace despite increasing material costs and the inability to send volunteers or containers to Haiti. In March, the first basketball court and a bathroom and locker room facility were constructed. In August, the classroom was insulated and the first PLH office created, providing a reception area to welcome students and guests and to carry out registration and business transactions. More than 300 fruit trees were planted throughout the campus and three wells were dug. 

The PLH classes and athletic programs were able to run on their normal schedule, providing training, education, and encouragement for more than 200 players and students. This year, we offered specialized classes in Medical English, Teaching English as a Foreign Language and a Survey of the Bible. The advanced English students, hungry for learning, enjoyed each of these courses. The courses also attracted many new students from nearby areas. We look forward to offering additional specialized courses in 2022.

In 2021, we added four new staff members to the Haiti team. PLH now has 18 salaried staff and 11 contracted workers. Our staff participate in team devotions each morning. This has been a good way for them to grow together and for those with a deeper relationship with Christ to minister to and disciple those who do not have a relationship or are less committed to their faith. As they take on more responsibility, we have seen the staff grow and come together as a team and the leaders step up into their roles. We look forward to continuing to train the staff and add new workers to the mix. 

This fall, PLH sent three young men to start a 3-year study in auto mechanics. Two of these men have been working for PLH for a couple years and the third has been a student in the English program since it launched in 2018. They are excited to have this opportunity to learn a valuable skill, and PLH is excited to have our own well-trained mechanics to work on the PLH vehicles and work in a PLH auto mechanic shop one day. We have also identified two young men to be trained in electricity. They will attend some short-term training workshops until they can join a formal school in the fall of 2022. Qualified, skilled and trustworthy professionals can be hard to find. We are excited to offer these young locals this opportunity and to be able to utilize them for future projects. We hope to provide them with continued training when we are able to bring in experienced professionals from the states. 

With the vocational center being completed in December of 2020, PLH had its own covered, lit, spacious area to host community events. PLH staff and community members came together for worship nights, family date nights, and parties. These special events offered hope, unity and fun for families and individuals. We loved witnessing parents and children laughing and playing together and our staff stepping up to plan and lead these events. 

If God could do all this in 2021, we cannot wait to see what He will do in 2022! More on that in our next blog post next week.

Have you heard Whensondy's story?

The mission of Project Living Hope is to empower Haitians to build a stronger Haiti. We have seen firsthand how education and employment provide life changing hope and purpose. We desire to see more people in the community of Camp Maire become empowered, able to provide for themselves and their families, and lead Haiti into a better future. Meet Whensondy Alceac.

"I'm really happy to share about the impact PLH has made in my life. I have been studying in their English school since it opened in 2018. I participated in some activities like basketball coach training. It was a wonderful training because, even though I loved to play basketball, I didn't know much about the sport. Before the basketball coach training, PLH trained soccer coaches to train kids and youth to play soccer much better than they used to. It was great being a PLH student, and now I have received a scholarship from PLH to study auto mechanics in Port-au-Prince. This scholarship means a lot to me. Thank you for your generous support. Through it, I can reach many things in my future and accomplish good results. I'm extremely grateful. I appreciate and value your help and support so much. You have been helping me in countless ways. I'm truly blessed to have supporters like you in my life. May the Lord Jesus keep blessing you in what you do!"

Whensondy Alceac

Merry Christmas!

Date Nights to Build Stronger Families

With the success of the father/daughter date night, the PLH staff organized mother/son and husband/wife date nights. These days and in our area, Haiti has little to offer in the way of entertainment or places to spend a special night with someone you love. Very few restaurants are open and most people cannot afford to eat at them. The goal of these events is to provide a fun event for family members to attend together in a positive environment and to encourage families to take the time to continue to build their relationships with one another and continue to grow in their role as parents and spouses. All three nights were big successes. Unfortunately, the bus broke down the night of the husband/wife date night, so that hindered the attendance as people tend to see the bus waiting and then decide to come. Still, 20 couples came on motorcycles or walked the road down to the campus. Each event included music, dancing, games, encouraging words from members of the staff and community, and food. One of the highlights was watching the dancing. There were many laughs and smiles and special moments as the women danced with their sons and husbands. These events received a very positive response from the community, with many asking when the next one would be or regretting that they didn’t attend. PLH will continue to offer these events and looks forward to becoming a hub for social activities and community development. 

Kitchen Progress

Construction is moving along for the kitchen building. The walls are up and the bosses are now preparing to pour the roof. This building includes a kitchen where meals for staff, guests, and events will be prepared as well as a laundry room and fruit drying room. Each of these rooms will provide jobs for local women. The next step is to acquire all the appliances, countertops, and supplies as well as the solar fruit dryer which will be placed on the roof of the building. This dryer is made in Haiti, by Haitian technicians, and with locally sourced materials. We are eager to see where the fruit drying business will take us. 

U-Pick Fruit Orchard

This fall, we began planting fruit trees on the PLH campus to not only provide fruit for our own use but to be sold to community members and vendors in a U-pick format. We planted over 300 orange, grapefruit, lime, kenep, and guava trees. Soon after the excavation of the soccer fields, we planted mango, Caribbean cherry, and avocado trees, which are all continuing to make progress with the cherry trees giving a good harvest this year. 

Christmas Week Events

This past Sunday, we held a staff Christmas party to honor and celebrate our staff and their families and the sacrifices and hard work that they have given to PLH this year. On Christmas Eve PLH will host the 2nd Annual Candlelight Service. We had a good turn out last year and everyone enjoyed learning a new tradition of candlelight carols and hot chocolate and cookies. To wrap up the season, a volunteer from the community has been practicing with children from the community each Saturday at the PLH campus for a Christmas show on Christmas Day. We hope that many parents will come out to watch their children perform and celebrate this special day together. 

Christmas and New Year’s in Haiti

Christmas is not a big holiday in Haiti. While everyone knows the history of Christmas and the popular American traditions, it is not celebrated in the same way. Some people have a party with friends on the 24th and others treat it as any other day off. New Year’s, however, is a huge celebration in Haiti. On December 31, Christians attend church services, sometimes from 10pm until 6am the next morning. They thank God for the grace and health that he gave them this year and commit the coming year to Him. Those who don’t attend church, have parties and music and fireworks can be heard all around. Then the next morning, January 1, every Haitian will enjoy a bowl of pumpkin soup to celebrate Haiti’s Independence Day. Not a puree like you may imagine, Haitian pumpkin soup is more of a stew with beef, carrots, cabbage, plantains, macaroni, and slices of pumpkin. Haitians eat this soup as a symbol of their won freedom from France as, during slavery, slaves were not allowed to eat this French dish. While many Haitians today will tell you they are still slaves due to the difficult conditions in the country and the population’s powerlessness against the gangs and corruption, this does not stop them from celebrating their freedom, worshiping God as they welcome in the new year, and visiting relatives and loved ones. 

Pray for Haiti

By Guesly Dessieux

Today, I have gotten several texts concerning our safety in Haiti with the recent kidnapping of 17 Americans that were coming from an orphanage in Ganthier Haiti which is closer to Fond Parisian. Please keep those people and their families in your prayers.

We are far removed from any current gangs that are kidnapping people. I am not saying that cannot happen even in Camp Marie, but the mayor has remained very intolerant to such behavior in her community. Ganthier is about 3 hours from us toward the DR border.

Please continue to keep Haiti in your prayers. Pray that the multiple gang issues get resolved. While we hear about the Americans, hundreds of Haitians (600+ in one report) have gotten kidnapped so far this year. Some of these we hear about, others we do not. The current situation in Haiti is a humanitarian crisis I think.

However God still has a plan for Haiti.

The Dessieux family is back in Haiti. So are a number of Haitian immigrants.

By Sara Dessieux

After spending four and a half months in Oregon, our family arrived back in Haiti a week ago.  It is so nice to have a comfortable home here to come back to!  My sister, Laura, and her new husband, Wahi, lived here and took care of the place and our dogs while we were gone, but the day we arrived they started staying at their new rental house on the other side of Camp Marie.  

We jumped into our new schedule: schoolwork in the morning, then soccer practice and English class in the afternoon.  For the seven and a half weeks that we’re here this time, I am teaching a Biblical English class to our most advanced English students.  Sometimes, our classes start up gradually with few students and then grow over the following couple weeks, so I was pretty surprised to have seventeen students show up today.  They’re eager to purchase, at quite an inexpensive price, the hardback ESV Bibles we brought, and I’m looking forward to interacting with them about the Bible.  

Soccer practices started up two weeks ago, so Guesly and the kids jumped into that today.  Guesly also put together a pair of soccer goals, set them on the basketball court, and introduced some players to futsal, a soccer game played on a hard, smooth floor with five players on each team.  No offense, basketball players, but soccer will always be the game of choice for most people here.  We did bring in more basketballs and are eager to have a team come at some point to do more basketball training.  

Now to switch gears, if you’ve been following the news, you may know that around 4,600 people made unplanned one-way trips to Haiti in the last week and a half.  After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti up until now, Haitian people have been travelling to South America in pursuit of jobs and better lives.  Recently, due to several different factors, they started making their way up through Central America and Mexico to the U.S. border.  Can you imagine the desperation they must feel to undertake such a long and dangerous trip?  Within a matter of days, thousands of them crossed the border into the U.S. in hopes of being accepted as refugees.  As of now, 12,400 of them were temporarily released into the U.S. to stay with family members and are expected to have a chance to appear in immigration court and 8,000 of them crossed back into Mexico.  The others were put onto chartered planes and returned to Haiti, which has only gotten worse since they left.  Some came with their children who have never even been to Haiti.  

For many more than 4,600 Haitians, this is absolutely devastating.  Haitians working abroad send money back to their families in Haiti.  These remittances have accounted for at least one third of Haiti’s economy.  Those who stay truly count on those who go.  And so, those in Chile and other South American countries, when faced with unemployment due to the economic downturn as a result of Covid-19, left their lives there and sacrificed everything for a chance to get into the U.S.  We all know that immigration is a very complicated and controversial issue, but we can still all strive to understand the plight of those trying to enter our borders.  

As I battled anxious feelings about our own upcoming trip to Haiti, I could only imagine how many more feelings these Haitian people on the move have.  Desperation, fear, stress, hopelessness.  For all of them, no matter where they are on their journey.  For those being sent back to Haiti, they are returning to a country plagued with such violence, political instability and economic devastation that most people here would say they have never experienced a Haiti this bad in all their life.  

So as I packed our suitcases, I said many prayers for these people who were returning to nothing carrying nearly nothing.  We aren’t likely to cross paths with any of them in this country of millions, though Wahi, Laura’s husband, has already, but we know they are joining the masses already struggling here.  Their difference is they have seen a better life, but then things got bad again.  

We always covet your prayers for our family, our staff and the community we serve.  We ask that you pray also for the Haitian people - those who have never left this country, those who have travelled far and wide in search of a better life, and those among them who find themselves back in Haiti once again.

Responding to the Haiti Earthquake and Looking Forward at Disaster Preparedness

In the wake of the August 14th earthquake in Haiti, many people have asked how they can help. When considering how to help, it’s important to understand the bigger picture. This post looks at three stages of disaster response and gives some ways you can help with each stage. 

After a disaster, the immediate need is RELIEF, defined as “urgent and temporary provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering.”  Relief may include emergency medical care, food and shelter for those displaced. In regards to the recent earthquake in Haiti, there are several organizations that are providing immediate relief. If you would like to give to this effort, here are a few to check out:

• HERO

• HaitiOne

• Haiti Air Ambulance

These organizations and others are currently providing medical care for those injured, advocacy and family support for those transferred to hospitals in Port-au-Prince, tarps, tents, food and supplies to those displaced, and trauma therapists for those suffering unbearable losses. Follow @HEROClientRescue to see what they have been doing. 

After a few weeks to a month, relief is no longer the appropriate response and the need becomes to REBUILD. When a disaster such as an earthquake or a hurricane hits, there are often thousands of people displaced. Rather than packs of rice and a tarp to sleep under, the needs become rebuilding homes and restoring social structures. Extollo International is a Christian organization that provides training in high-standard construction and is working to bring better building practices to the country.  In addition to buildings, social reconstruction is also needed. Local NGOs, churches and other social organizations are key to helping the communities rebuild, and rebuild stronger. 

Once a community has rebuilt, the need becomes DEVELOPMENT. This stage is focused on improving the “normal” and looks well into the future. Development may include job creation, economic development, and strengthening social systems. Also a part of development is PREPAREDNESS. This includes creating strategic plans for future disaster response and educating and equipping response teams. 

Project Living Hope has continued to emphasize DEVELOPMENT through our mission to Empower Haitians to Build a Stronger Haiti. PLH programs in athletics, job skills training, and community development all work towards this goal of development by working to create stronger communities, jobs, servant leaders, and a united effort. The fourth key area of PLH is disaster preparedness. This program has responded to urgent and widespread needs in our community through food assistance, job creation and partnerships with local churches. This program is ready to grow to provide disaster relief, rebuilding and development to help families and communities affected by natural and man-made disasters. The program will focus on community preparedness before disaster hits and partner with organizations already working in relief and rebuilding efforts.

PLH is starting to put together a small committee to head up the development of the PLH disaster preparedness program. This committee will help develop a formal written plan which will outline the process of training locals, stocking emergency supplies, carrying out disaster response plans, and using our campus and facilities to best support these efforts. If you have knowledge and experience in the area of disaster preparedness, we would love to speak with you about an opportunity to serve on the committee. Email us at info@plhope.org.

How you can pray: 

• Pray for the displaced. Thousands of people are still unable to return to their homes as aftershocks continue daily and engineers have not yet cleared buildings for reentry. 

• Pray for those who have lost loved ones. The earthquake occurred around 8:30am local time, so thankfully most people were up and out of their homes. Many people, however, had loved ones back at home or in other locations who were killed by collapsed structures. 

• Pray for the relief workers as they work long days and nights to provide care.

• Pray for the local organizations, churches, and communities in the affected areas that they can work together to bring fast and effective rebuilding and development. 

• Pray that in the wake of this tragedy, God can be seen at work and His love, grace and provision are felt by all.

Update: 2021 Haiti Earthquake and Tropical Storm Grace

Map Tracking Grace’s Path

Thank you for your prayers. While the south-western part of Haiti is still working on rescue and relief efforts from Saturday’s earthquake, tropical storm Grace approaches. The storm was expected to hit the northern coast; however, its path shifted south and it is now beginning to rain down on the southern coast and other parts of the country. Pray for shelter and protection for those displaced during this storm. Updates on the earthquake report 1,297 deaths and 5,700 injured. Please pray for the affected communities and families.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

While PLH is not near enough to the area to effectively assist in the rescue and relief efforts, there are many organizations that have been providing first response care and are organizing support for those injured and displaced, here are a few organizations that could use your financial support at this time: HERO Foundation, HaitiONE and Haitian Air Ambulance.

Thank you for your partnership and prayers. PLH will continue to provide you with updates as we can.