Recap: When an earthquake hit the southwest coast of Haiti, we considered carefully how best to help those affected. We are a small organization. Our best asset is our lines of communication with community leaders. So we talked to our partners at ACAD in Cap Haitien, and they suggested sending one of their contacts, a pastor with years of experience doing missions work in that region, to find out what the people need. Meanwhile, we heard about an organization building houses with a design that can withstand earthquake-level damage. This design uses locally-sourced materials - lumber, stones, sand and cement - to strengthen building panels. This is a design that some Haitians have used for decades.
The second house restored is special: It is the house of the family that housed and fed the pastor when he was a missionary to the area for 6 years. It is a larger house. The pastor said (Pastor Michel translated): “This is the house I have been telling you, where I have been living for years without paying anything. This is the place also I stored all the materials I bought for the project. Not only I used the money, $1000 from Hand to Hand for Haiti, I used also all their leftover materials, but also the owners of the house, they strongly participated to buy materials and also one of them worked, and we didn’t pay anybody to work on this house.”
Here are pictures of the third house:
Luisida, the owner of the 3rd house, says, [Pr. Michel translated] “I thank you very, very, very much. My house was in bad condition. I had to take refuge with my family without knowing when I was going to be able to even start to restore the house. Because my husband died... I was not even thinking about restoring the house, because I had to get money to bury my husband. I was very hopeless. And people around me helped me a lot for the funeral of my husband. I thank God for this miracle. I am so happy. My name is Luisida. I greet you a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am very happy. I won't ever finish to thank you, because I won't see you face to face and I won't be able to go where you are. I thank you again.”
A pastor who served this area for six years is managing this project. The cost to restore a house is $1500.