Darrin Vant Hoff-
Last Work Day
Today was our last service day. We participated in Mission of Hope’s Farm to
Table Project. We split the day into two sections. In the morning we did the educational part
and in the afternoon we participated in the service part.
Morning Trip
This morning we went to Turpin which is about 1 hour into
the mountains from Mission of Hope’s Main Campus. We road a “Canter” to our destination today. It is a vehicle with wooden benches for
seats. It is a bumpy ride and it is also
on gravel roads. When we arrived in
Turpin, we met the pastor of the church MOH works with there. He was very appreciative that we were helping
his village. They prayed for us and
asked God to bless us. We then went to
tour the “gardens” they have which we would call small fields. We saw the crops they are growing and how
they grow them. We learned that they
have 3 growing seasons here and that they let “gardens” rest a year after with
no crops planted in them so the soil can recover. The farmer in one garden shared some Kinips with
us from one of his trees. It is a
Haitian fruit that can best be described of as tasting like grapes and look
like a grape without the peal. They have
a large pit that you suck on to get the grape like substance eaten. They are delicious! Our team had them yesterday and when we had
the chance to have them again we jumped at it.
The farmers also shared with us they grow multiple crops in the same
field as some are fruit bearing and others or vine or in ground vegetables. After meeting the locals and touring the
fields it was time to go back to MOH for lunch.
Trip Back
On our trip back we stopped at the Turpin Market because our
intern wanted to get some Avocados. In
the Haitian markets you negotiate your price so one of our translators, George,
went and got our inter Maddy avocados for the best price possible. We then were back on the road home. The road to and from Turpin is very dusty and
we were all covered in dust by the time we got back to MOH. We could have been in an Orbits commercial we
were so dirty.
Lunch Time
Almost every day we have had some Haitian cuisine and today
at lunch was no exception. Today we had
some seafood rice which was very good.
They also had a non-seafood option for those who do not eat seafood. It was very delicious but this week has been
very carb heavy. We asked our intern if
living in Haiti has caused her to lose weight but she said that every meal is
so carb heavy that she actually has gained weight here. We had a short break and then we were off to
pack the food that our Rooted funds helped pay to purchase from the Haitian
farmers.
Food Packing
We arrived at the MOH warehouse and went to the food packing
station set up there. We were trained on
how to pack the meals of beans and rice and then we were off to pack
meals. We had to wear gloves and
hairnets for food safety. We had an
assembly line where one person would get the bags opened up then hand them off
to the filling station where another person would fill the back with a
measurement of rice. Then they would
hand it off to the sealer. After that
the bag was half full and be handed off to the next person who would hold it
and another person would add beans to the bag.
After that it would get handed off to the next sealer and then to the
person stacking the bags. We had fun
packing bags and listening to music that our Intern Maddy played for us on her
portable speaker. Even our translators
and Village Champion helped us pack food.
It was a blast. We may have even
been a little goofy too. After our time
of packing meals was up we had packed
672 bags of food. Each bag can feed
up to 12 kids. We packed enough food to feed 8,064 meals for kids, that is
AWESOME! Your generous giving had made a
real difference to over 8000 people.
Thank you so much for letting us be a part of this project.
Debrief Time
After dinner tonight they brought all the groups together
for a debrief time where we all get to share about our week. We had 175 people all together. We had two of our team members share about
how they saw God move this week. It was
really awesome to hear our students not only share in our group but with others
as well.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow is the beach day.
MOH takes all teams to a resort in Haiti to show us what Haiti could
be. From what we are told this resort is
owned by Americans and feels like a resort that a person would experience a
place like Cozumel or even Florida. We had the chance to invite our Village
Champion and our translators to join us for a small extra fee. We decided as a team (the other groups on our
team included) to help pay for them to go with us because we appreciated all
the hard work they did with us this week and we have become friends with them
this week.
Random
It has been great getting to know Tracy and her daughter
Emma from Elmbrook Church better. Tracy
was on the vision trip I was on when I was in Haiti in October of last
year. It is really encouraging to see
Emma Tracy’s daughter who is an incoming freshman own her faith and be excited
to go on trips to share the Gospel in strange places. My prayer is that Door Creek Church is
becoming a place where we have middle and high school students who are
passionately following Jesus and that they are desiring to share the Gospel in
not only Jerusalem (their world) but also to Samaria (The US) and the Ends of
the earth (Foreign Countries).
This week has had its challenges but even with the cold
water showers, ceiling fans that sound like 9 rats in a box (Callie’s
description), and stomach issues, it has been a week that I think we will all fondly
remember for a very long time. I also
believe that we all saw God work in awesome ways this week through us. I can’t wait to come back and see God work in
and through the next group from Door Creek Church.
Thank you so much for supporting us in prayer and also your
generous gifts that have allowed us to join others sharing the Gospel in
Haiti. We still have a couple of
students who have not been fully funded for this trip and if you would like to
join the work we have been doing here in Haiti you can give your gifts at: https://doorcreekchurch.ccbchurch.com/form_response.php?id=412
This is a market in Turpin.
Here are some pictures from our meal packing today at MOH
Amos, our Village Champion striking a pose for the camera.
This is what the finished 672 bags of food packs look like.
Johnny our translator goofing around
This picture is Tessa approved.
Some pictures from yesterday at the last day of VBS.
This is a view from the back of the canter truck as we are going to Turpin. We are in close quarters.
We are part way up the mountain looking back at the Bay of Haiti.
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