For over ten years the schools run by the Haiti Endowment Fund have continually grown in numbers. Today they operate thirteen schools with 2300-2400 children attending. Of course this is exciting but also poses a challenge to pay for all the expenses involved in growth. Most of the children come to school with empty stomachs. It is our conviction that we are to feed these hungry children.

ChildCry has the privilege of assisting a feeding program that feeds the students throughout these schools. The last thing these children should have to worry about is whether or not they will have food to eat. Several organizations, including ChildCry, have partnered together to ensure that these children receive at least one meal a day, and in return, can concentrate on getting the education they deserve. Please continue to pray and help us feed these children.

ChildCry helps schools across Haiti receive a daily hot meal and experience the love of Christ first hand.

Haiti Report: Up and Away

In the Spring of 2009, a volunteer team travelled to Hinche, Haiti to assist in the ChidCry feeding program as well as provide basic medical care to many who desperately need it. Here is a little taste of what they saw...

The plane ride was 22 minutes of adventure. One that some in the team were dreading. The first team to go prayed through the dips and dives through the landscape of mountains and valleys to get to Hinche. And just when they thought they would land, the pilot had to make a turn and go up again to wait for a truck full of people to clear the makeshift, unpaved landing strip that serves as a road in the middle of the town.

Hinche is a rough little town with hilly, winding roads some paved some unpaved. We visited the market just as it was about to close and a torrential rain, what we now know is a daily event around sundown, poured on the team members who had hoped rather to soak in some of the local color. The people are welcoming and warm. The children absolutely beautiful. Our host ministry has a compound that includes a team house that will house us for the next seven days.

The day after the team’s arrival in Hinche, we traveled to our first medical clinic in a nearby village called Papaye. It seems an overstatement to even call it a village as it was hard to define where it started or ended. It was simply a few houses dotting the countryside with the yellow and brown cement church that HEF built at the top of a small hill with a cluster of more humble dwellings around it.

On our arrival in two pick up trucks, one loaded with Rubbermaid bins full of meds and supplies we noticed the rows of impeccably groomed little children seating on benches right outside one of the church walls. They were orderly and surprisingly quiet as the team visited them. They were waiting for their one meal of the day to be served at 10:00am. ChildCry is funding these daily meals which may be the only meal these children will have each day. We were told that most will have nothing to eat during the weekend because their only meals are provided at the school. Hunger is evident everywhere we look. I am overwhelmed as the large pot of rice and beans continues to fill bowl after bowl as each child steps forward and I am silently praying it will not run out before each child is fed. 125 children and their teachers ate from the one miraculous pot that day.

I’ve grown accustomed to the sound of the water coming down from the drain pipes after the evening rain. Today the downpour was fierce and I could not resist the temptation to take off my sneakers and try out the puddles of clear waters formed on the pebbled pathways of the compound. It never ceases to amaze me how it rains at precisely the same time every single day as if the Lord has scheduled the watering of the earth before it sleeps and wakes up to another scorching day. The sound of it is lovely, and in a country where food is scarce, it brings hope of plenty someday.

We visited the school founded by the church in Hinche. The children look impeccable in their grey and pink-checkered uniforms. Their hair neatly done in beautiful ribbons and hair clips. The medical team prepared to set up to visit each classroom to give out multivitamins and check for the obvious signs of illness among any of the children. We also give out the gifts sent to ChildCry by a second grade class in New York to give to the second grade class here. The children welcomed us singing “If You’re Happy and You Know it” in Creole.

These children have stolen our hearts. Our team leader is ready to adopt a few toddlers along the way. It is in these children that we see the seed of hope that the Lord is sowing in this nation. We have seen the work he has begun and it is beautiful to behold.

Haiti, “Arise and shine, for your light is come. And the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord rises upon you. And his glory is all over you.” –Isaiah 60:1.