On the path to a Pou Solèy Leve site

Meeeting Bishop Joseph Lafontant

From Dr. Bonnet's third trip to Haiti in six weeks.

July 20, 2010

Happy to report from Haiti, our SanteBuses are on the road and are great vehicles. The Suburbans get everywhere even though they are two-wheel drive. There has been much rain recently and climbing dirt paths is not an issue. The logo on the bus seems to bring a smile from all that see it. Traveling with a team of Felician nuns in one of the 'Burbans is the president of Madonna College. They will be starting several programs here in Haiti, and we can be proud at SanteBus that we opened the doors. It's magical, in a way, how it is all falling into place. I visited a camp of 400 deaf families. Our colleagues at Pou Soleil Leve will be starting a school program for the children who are not deaf. Madonna College will begin a program for the deaf families as well.

The Sean Penn JPHRO (Jenkins-Penn Haitian Relief Organization) team is loving the school bus and will soon start using it to do the mobile clinic. The bus is air-conditioned, and we were joking about sleeping in it.

We are beginning the process of interviewing Haitian doctors to be full time with us. We will place the first at the Penn camp. We are going out a bit on the limb, as we will need to secure larger funding, and we pray and trust this will come. The generosity of our community is what has launched this long-planned project. We hope our support team grows. Updates can be found at www.santebus.com.

For those that knew John Anderson and Robert Boyle were coming down, the flight plan got derailed due to weather.

Much is being done but is shadowed by the work that needs to be done. The blessing is that the long overdue changes are now being addressed. On Tuesday, we are meeting with the bishop of Port au Prince, and he can help secure food for one of the programs we support.

The thousands of street children are an issue we hope to have some input with. These kids need a loving support system, and at present many have none. We have thoughts of children's homes but will need to tie them to churches or sources of support from the United States, such as churches or families. The link can be virtual with Skype. Is anyone interested in helping?

To all who have helped us with either financial support, time, prayer, materials: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Stay with us; we need more help. This will take years, but is all good.

Blessings and again thanks to all.

JPB

P.S. There are areas of discontent where people are still starving. If the hurricane season is bad, it could be a catalyst of anger. We are trying to encourage calm and patience to all.

Read Sister Johnice's account here

Delivering 56 mattresses to King's Orphange

At the deaf families camp