Bon Samaritain

Mission trip to Haiti

View of Haiti taken from the roof top of pastor Olistin's house.

Report from the trip

By Yves Bellemare

Departure: Claudine, my wife and I left St-Georges QC Friday Feb. 26th around noon. We had to take our son Benjamin in Quebec city. We were stopped during 2 hours on the highway by a blizzard. Our first flight was cancelled because of a snow storm in New York city, where we were supposed to transfer for Haiti. We drove up to JFK airport (11h drive) and took the plane on time Saturday morning.

First Day (Saturday): We had a hard time finding our group at the airport, we waited 2 hours, during that time we called a missionary in Port-Au-Prince who came and took the material, medical stuff and the literature (500 pocket gospels, Bibles and N.T.) we had.
Finally we met the rest of the team and the “Score International” representative.

Benjamin, Claudine and Yves at the airport of Port-Au-Prince.

Michael, a Quebecer who comes from Joliette, was part of the team. We were on the same flight to Haiti.

We slept in tents on the rooftop of the house of pastor Olistin.

A camp for the ones who lost their houses.

Second Day (Sunday): We woke up at 5:00AM and went to church at 6:30AM. The building was cracked in many places and we had to stay in the church yard for the worship.

Damadged church, we learned befor leaving that it will also need to be rebuilt entirely due to the extent of the damages. There is also an orphanage to be rebuilt with the church.

We did the church meetings in the courtyard of the church under tarps.

In the afternoon we visited a Canadian mission in Delmas near Port-Au-Prince. We saw the children we've been sponsoring through “ERDO” . The kids were very happy to see us and we had a great time sharing with them and the missionaries.

Meeting with the missionaries Michel and Louise Charbonneau in Delmas.

Meeting with the sponsored children.

Third Day (Monday): We went to a village where a church was collapsed we continued to remove rubble and rebuild foundation. It was very hot (95° F, no wind, humid) we worked with picks and shovels. The Haitians were friendly and very thankful for our help.

We had to drink a lot of water or ''dlo'' in creol, to avoid dehydration.

We cleaned up the rubble and dug for the foundations.

Fourth Day (Tuesday): We went back to work at the church during the day, and we had a worship meeting with Haitians and distribute rice bags. We realized that they had almost nothing, but they had the most important relationship in this world. We shared some encouragement to the church in French.

We made chains to move different things, team work!

Rice bags for the distribution.

Cinquième jour (Wednesday): We worked in the morning and visited the orphanage in the afternoon, we distributed meals to the kids and played with them. They were very playful and wanted to learn songs and games in French and English.

Le repas servis aux enfants de l'orphelinat.

Discussion avec la responsable de l'orphelinat.

Jeux avec les enfants de l'orphelinat.

We visited downtown Port-Au-Prince, it was like and vision of the end of world, collapsed buildings, electric wires in the streets, no life, no light, desolation and destruction everywhere...

Presidential palace seen at night.

A destructed building

Sixth Day (Thursday): We worked at the church the whole day. We had some rest and a meeting with the team. We shared our experience and prayed together.

We kept laying foundations

Claudine who tries the kite children build themselves to play.

Departure from Haiti (Friday): We took off around noon and we arrived in NY for dinner.

Our team

To know more about the different ministries mentionned:

Score International
www.scoreinternational.org

La Ligue du Testament de Poche du Québec
www.ltp-quebec.ca

Mission Haïti - Michel et Louise Charbonneau
www.haitiministries.com