A Special Prayer

We have all just left Light Auditorium in the main street of Carrefour, where our new Vocational training centre was launched on Friday. It’s Sunday. Church is finished. The roads are filled with rocks and boulders, rubbish and burnt tyres.

I couldn’t get a photo as it’s still too dangerous. The situation is tense and the nation is in more turmoil than we have experienced ever before. We came back to the mission taking the back streets.

We farewelled Ben this morning back to Aus. He has lifted off and is safely on his way home to Aus and family. The team (Aus-USA-Haitian) miss him already. The roads to the airport were not safe for cars so he left with Pastor Regg - each being doubled on motorbikes in the quiet pre-dawn light when the streets are the least troubled.

We are all safe... but I am writing this to ask for all that pray, to please pray for Haiti. We love this nation and these beautiful, strong, resilient people so very much but they need our prayers. Now. 

We are very protected... by prayer, even dreams, by wise decisions and daily, careful, strategic planning. But the people of Haiti... our leaders, families and kids here, continue to suffer from a national government that is both incredibly corrupt and seemingly indifferent to the overwhelming poverty and desperation of the people.

So the people are gathering and rioting... crying out. They are angry. They are hungry. They are trying to unsettle the government enough so that they might take notice instead of take bribes. 

We have been blessed to be so busy with setting up the new Training Centre and spending time with the children and families that we have not wanted to feedback anything but what we are focused on...because what we are doing together with our Haitian leaders here in Carrefour is so important and full of hope and is helping to transform lives ... one family at a time! 

But over the last few days riots and roadblocks have increased across the nation. And on the very day of the opening of our Training Centre the unrest arrived into our suburb...Carrefour... right outside our building. 

Hundreds of men on motorbikes and walking, yelling and burning tyres as they created new road blocks... were protesting... trying to have a voice that collectively might be heard... by anyone who will listen.
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John managed to get some of these photos from the safety of our first floor rooms.

I had asked one of the stall owners outside the building earlier that morning what he thought of the rising trouble... His name was Marcus. He spoke a little English.

“We are not really scared (of these people who are yelling and throwing rocks).... but we are scared for our businesses which suffer and our children who go hungry again. But what is the answer? Our government won’t listen.”

My heart is stirred. 

I prayed with Marcus. He just watched the people pass as I prayed and his eyes filled with tears. Not sure how much he understood but it didn’t matter. We sat together and nodded together. 

Later that morning we opened Libellule Training Academy’s first Voctional Sewing Course, 4 mothers came in off the street and took up the last 4 places available. We may have to open a second course immediately... which would be incredible... 

All these mothers were not able to finish school but now have a chance to join a community where they will be taught to sew, led in basic business principles and family finance management and will contribute with our support to the micro-financing of their own sewing machine (pedal variety) to start their own business by the end of the course. Hope is ignited. Their faces say it all... some smile easily... some can’t believe this might actually come true for their families.

So if you pray, the people of Haiti would love your prayers. You are not just praying for them. We are praying with them. 

If you have any thoughts or words for them... please write back here and we will pass them all on to our families- translated into Creole.


​Please pray for Haiti. 

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XO,
Cheryl Ward