Haiti Mission 2009

HAITI MISSION 2009 Larry Bailly
18414 Broadway Ave.
Snohomish, WA 98296
360-668-5031
baillybusbarn@juno.com
This letter is going out a little earlier than normal, but events in Haiti recently have made planning for the next trip even more important than in the past. This will be my ninth trip to Haiti, the 8th to the North Coast. I will have teams at two locations, one team at Passe Catabois and another at LaPointe. The hurricane season this year has been devastating, and there are more storms possible before the season is over. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to have absolutely just the basics of life, and then have that all taken away with the wind and the rain. As this is being written, overland travel to PC is impossible except by foot or motorbike, and even the airstrip at Port de Paix has been damaged.
Passe Catabois
This small settlement in the Northwest section of Haiti is home to a mission compound that houses a medical clinic run by Rob and Anne Marie Hulshuizen-Wessels. Anne Marie is the sole Doctor in this part of Haiti, and her clinic the only medical facility in an area with as many as 1 million people. Her help comes mostly from a Haitian staff of nurses and helpers, a young Haitian assistant who has learned the medical trade by watching AM, and visiting medical folks from around the World. One of the nurses who traveled with our group in January, Ryna Hansen (see her blog at http://rynah.blogspot.com), went back in July for an extended stay. She has seen first hand what a Hurricane can do to an impoverished nation. Though PC is located on a plateau and was not significantly damaged, there was damage to the water system and the 4 roads into the compound were all washed out. There have been a number of deaths in this area, some at the clinic due to lack of medicine, and more in the outlying area due to the impassable conditions to get to medical care.
Our team for January is evenly split between Medical and construction skills. I have a Doctor coming from Minnesota, as well as several nurses from here and possibly there also. We could still handle a few more for that team. Let me know if you are interested.
LaPointe, Port de Paix, Centre Medical Beraca
This is where I will be in January. This medical facility is one of the largest in the Northern part of Haiti. It started back in the 1920’s and has been in operation since. The grounds at Beraca house a full service Hospital with surgical and clinic functions, as well as our main focus, The House of Hope. There is also a K-12 school, a vocational school, a CEF school to teach the bible, and a camp facility to host large groups. All of this is run by the UEBH (Union of Evangelical Baptists in Haiti), along with Crossworld Missions, a world wide mission organization.
Most of our work here centers on infrastructure repairs and maintenance. We also supply teaching assistance for the Crossworld missionaries. There is a large mission compound with a number of homes and storage facilities as well as workshops for vehicles and carpentry. We are usually met with a long to-do list as we arrive, and do our best to complete as much as we can in the time we have. We do plumbing, roofing, electrical, cabinet making and painting just to name a few of the projects. I of course spend much of my time in the garage, working on mission and Haitian owned vehicles as well as repairs on the only source of electrical power, the generators.
The House of Hope is a care facility for children. TB, malaria and malnutrition are the most common maladies, but burns and other diseases are also cared for. HIV cases are usually sent to another facility, unless the children are very young and have a chance of medical treatment to cure them. Jenny Reitz (Crossworld) and her Haitian co-administrator Linda Felix have had some success with treatment, and have an adopted a little girl, Nani, who has gone from positive to negative under their care.
Children with disabilities or disease are often neglected or abandoned due to the lack of money for medical care. This leaves the HOH with the task of raising, educating and loving these kids until they are in their late teens. The entire staff, including many of the kids raised there, works for one goal; to provide a happy, safe and healthy life for children who would have been abandoned by their own families. They are masters of just this mission. The kids are hard working in school, help from the time they can walk and become active members of their community when they are ready to leave. These kids are what will keep me going back. A few minutes of holding one of these kids, and feeling them draw love from your body softens your heart and brings you back to what really matters, God’s love and mercy, given freely without any compensation.
Who Goes
Over the last 7 years, I have taken nearly 100 people to Haiti with me. Some have gone back several times, some only once. By going you get to feel, smell, taste and see the true condition of working in missions. Pictures can never express the true despair of a place so poor.
People with different occupations, education levels and physical conditions have gone. Some have specific skills when they go; all have a skill when they get back.
This year my daughter Rachel will be traveling with me.
These trips are not real expensive, but the planning and expense does cost something. Each member of the team supplies their own funds for airfare, lodging, food and transportation. Some get donations, some don’t. Over the years we have supplied tools, building materials, hardware, vehicle parts, medical supplies and everyday items for the missionaries. Some of this has been donated (like the brand new glucometers supplied by my doctor’s office), but when it comes time to travel and there is something requested, we don’t hesitate to purchase and deliver.
Most of the items we take are not available at any cost in Haiti.
WHAT WE NEED
The team doesn’t need anything. The people we help in Haiti need everything. The fund I draw from is donated by people I will never know. Money appears in the Haiti account, and I don’t question where it comes from. We have used those funds for providing things that the missionaries in Haiti request. We need funds this year to help with rebuilding, not only on the mission compounds, but also Haitian homes that have simply disappeared.

If you can give ANY amount: Send donations to Snohomish Community Church, Haiti Missions, 13622 Dubuque Rd., Snohomish, WA 98290. Make checks out to SCC. With a notation that it is for Haiti.


This is Aline. She was 8 years old. She was brought to the HOH with an unknown disease that was never diagnosed. She died this summer. She was the very essence of what a Haitian child is. Even while dealing with severe pain, she always had a smile on her face and tried her best to fit in with the other kids. She had already accepted Jesus into her heart, and her last days were spent in a loving, caring family at the House of Hope.