Time with children, Planning: Education, Microfinanced businesses, Health Promoters in local churches and more :-)

It's been a busy and productive day.  I hope you will all have time to see the photos that we will share.
Worship is always amazing and inspiring - and long :-) (about 2 hours).








We did a little shopping for lunch food and some organizing for our first orphanage visit.











We took our new 9ft parachute and the children had a great time trying to keep the nerf ball on the fabric and then lifting it high and playing underneath while it came down.  We had a couple of stellar jumpropers. And the Puzzles Becky Marshall's Kindergarten sent were a huge hit!!!!!

Bubbles were fun and I must have read the one French and English story book we had about 10 times :-)  The older children read the French and I read the English.

In the late afternoon we met with Pastor Ronel, Manese, and 2 translators who will be working with us for the next 2 weeks.  We made a schedule for this wonderful gift of a planning week (the first time we've had a week to plan).
Tentative plans: -
A) we are exploring the creation of 2 micro-finance groups.
1) would be a sewing group: we have hired a man to come in and tune up the existing sewing machines and then teach 3 days of sewing classes.  At that time we will decide whether they should focus on simple sewing projects - bags and dresses - or try to include the more complicated Days for Girls kits.
2) would be a craft group
B) we would like to begin to train 2 Health Promoters (a little like Parish Nurses) who could monitor health needs and perhaps do some Health Education in the different churches we work with. Eventually, if it is successful,  we would like to have 5 - 10 of them in different churches around Port au Prince.  We would also plan to bring someone over from the existing Health Promoter Program at the Good Samaritan Hospital in La Romana wich has promoters in the Bateys (Haitian Sugar Cane Villages) in the southeast section of La Romana DR.  This program will necessitate sponsors who will pledge small amounts monthly to support 1 (or part of 1) promoter.
C) as many of you know we are initiating a Days for Girls Program here this year. We will have about 130 kits to distribute to girls (about 20/day) and with each group of 20 we will do a class including sex education, sexually transmitted disease prevention, Self Esteem, and Trauma Resilience. We will do an introductory planning session this week with our resident Mom (Marese) and our 2 translators.
D) we plan to visit 4 to 6 hospitals, in the Port au Prince area, to know better where we can refer patients (and team members) if it's needed.  We also hope to establish a relationship with at least one.
Pastor Ronel is extremely supportive of all of these initiatives.
Whew - just writing about all of this is tiring.
Please pray with us this week!
In deep gratitude to all of you - shantia