Looking back at 2020, and looking ahead to 2021
We would like to thank our donors, whom we call “People who love God, love Haiti and the people at Sous-Rigole”, for helping us found Haiti Community Outreach. We received the first amount of money at the end of December 2019, the perfect sum of $7,000. With that perfect amount of money we started Haiti Community.
In a year’s time, the most troubling year in my lifetime, the Lord has granted us to achieve our greatest accomplishment. Yes, it takes tremendous faith, courage, audacity and determination for Gina and me to decide to found an organization in a rural and disenfranchised area in Haiti without having any money. But God honors our faith in him and sends some friends who love him, who love Haiti in the right way, and who love the impoverished community of Sous-Rigole.
With the funds provided by those friends, we have been able to start building a five-classroom facility, poured the cement roof and hung iron doors and burglar bars; another facility that will be used as chapel/cafeteria/kitchen and storage room and restrooms is under construction, and the cement roof already poured. We are already using this building to hold our Bible study.
Along with those friends are our sons who contribute sacrificially to helping Haiti Community Outreach technically and financially. They generously earmarked some funds for us to start building the wall to fence the campus. For we tried in vain to prevent people from using our campus to make their animals graze. So we just finished building one of the four walls needed for the campus to become a private and safe place.
Another great accomplishment our donors who love God, Haiti, and the people of Sous-Rigole helped us achieve this year is the fixing of the dirt road leading to sous-Rigole. That dirt road was so bad that we had difficulties finding trucks to deliver building materials to our campus; even with strong for-wheel drive vehicle, we sometimes had to finish the trip by foot. No wonder that Gina and I are eternally grateful and appreciative of our friends who love God, who love Haiti and the people of Sous-Rigole.
Gina and I are appreciative of Outreach International. Without the faithful and disinterested service of this Christian organization, Haiti Community Outreach would have a hard time receiving donations.
For all these reasons we praise the name of God and thank our friends for Haiti Community Outreach. In a year as trying and hard as 2020, we have been able to accomplish so much. People who never mentioned God’s name in a positively way before are now praising him for what Haiti Community Outreach has so far realized in Sous-Rigole. Children who knew no Christian songs before because they parents never introduced them to the church are humming beautiful songs they learn in Bible study. So far eight young men and women have made decisions to follow Jesus.
We wanted very much to open the school this year, but we did not make it due to political unrest and the confinement for the pandemic. But this delays has helped us realize we should not attempt to open the school before we close the campus.
Therefore, first and foremost, we plan to finish the walls in early 2021. We purchased the stuff our plumbers asked us to buy to finish the restrooms, but immediately they told us kids would play with and destroy the installation, that we have to secure the campus first before we can finish. Yes, indeed we have to finish up the fencing activity and set iron gates at the entrances.
Plans for 2021 in order of priority
Ø Finishing the walls and installing iron gates by the first quarter of the year
Ø Getting the classrooms, toilets and kitchen ready
Ø Hiring school the principal and teachers to make preparations to open at least three classes next school year
Ø Launching officially the Christian Church of Sous-Rigole
Perspectives
To finish the present constructions
To build an administration office
To start music, tutoring and English classes for the young people in the community
To build a guesthouse
Sources of funding
As a non-profit organization, Haiti Community Outreach continues to depend on God provision through our friends who love God, love Haiti, and love the people of Sous-Rigole. Gina and I are convinced that what we are striving to accomplish at Sous-Rigole is God’s will. If it is God’s will, it is God’s bill.