There are only a few main roads in Haiti. One goes from Port-Au-Prince to Goniaves and heads Northeast towards Cape Haitian. One goes Northwest up through the middle of the Northern Peninsula towards Port-de-Paix. The other goes along the coastline of the Southern side of the Northern Peninsula towards Anse Rouge.
La Pointe is where Centre Medical Beraca (CMB) is located. Part of this complex is the House of Hope (HOH), where many of the kids have tuberculosis (TB), as well as other conditions. Some of the kids stay for a short time, while others become permanent residents. In fact, one of the co-directors, Linda Felix, was brought to the HOH as a young girl and grew up there. She now has a major role in working with the new generation of HOH kids! The other co-director is a missionary, Jenny Reitz. She lives in an apartment above the HOH (http://houseofhopehaiti.blogspot.com/).
Dad and his family also spent a lot of time at La Pointe. In fact, Uncle Mel was born at CMB, in Bethany. Most of the missionary ladies had their babies in Bethany. We spent a lot of time as kids up here too. Karen spent several summers in high school at the hospital working in various areas and translating for a visiting doctor one summer. So CMB has lots of memories for Karen. We came up at least once a year for July Conference. I think UEBH, the Haitian organization that my parents work with, actually hosted the event but missionaries participated and it gave the missionaries a chance to spend some time together.
There are actually two campuses. The main campus is where the hospital and House of Hope are located. That is the Centre Medical Beraca side of the property. The other side is the housing side. When the campus was first developed, there was a girls home on the housing side. Now it has 6 houses and an apartment building. One of the apartments has two missionaries, Lois Beadle and Gail Kealy. The rest of the homes on the housing side are for doctors and/or staff from the CMB.
Aunt Lois and Aunt Gail took on the feeding of our weary traveling band. Supper was American style spaghetti the first night! Breakfast was yummy Haitian bread, fresh from the tree bananas and Haitian peanut butter. YUM! Lunch was Soup Jourmou.
This is traditionally an Independence Day breakfast. The story goes that before the revolution the slaves were not allowed to have soup as it was reserved for the plantation owners. So when the revolution was complete (Jan. 1, 1804), they celebrated by having Soup Jourmou! So tradition is to have Soup Jourmou for breakfast on January 1st as part of the Independence Day celebrations. However, as some of you have tasted, it is SO GOOD and cannot be reserved for just one day of the year so we thoroughly enjoyed lunch!
We spent the day walking around the two campuses. We visited Aunt Lois in her classroom area. She teaches KATAK which is the CEF Good News Clubs. She trains Haitian women to go out and teach the clubs in her own neighborhood. The day we visited she was preparing for a training session coming up so we helped her get an icebreaker game ready and I attempted to type some things for her but typing in Creole is a bit of a challenge so I did not get very far at all.
We toured the hospital (CMB) and Karen was able to show us the surgery unit where she translated for the surgeon. I will spare you the stories from that summer. Some doozy ones to be sure – woman with a 44lbs cyst - ‘nough said.
We spent some time at the House of Hope as Jenny shared a little bit about that they do and walked us around the complex a bit. We saw a group of women with their malnourished babies. They have space for the mothers to stay with the babies so that they all get good care. Jenny shared some of the stories of the kids. We spent the time holding hands and asking names to which we tried to hear the very quite responses. Jeff lifted one boy up and down, which of course drew him a crowd of the others wanting the same.
We checked out the classroom where the younger ones learn. The older kids go to local Haitian schools like this one.
We were there in time for Kindergarten graduation practice.
Beside the school is the Ralph Odman Tabernacle. This is where July Conference has their large group sessions. When the Tabernacle was originally built, it was in a different location but when they outgrew the previous building, it was moved to the current location, expanded and named the Ralph Odman Tabernacle.
Supper was new for me. We had Diri-o-Lait, which is white rice cooked with milk and cinnamon. It is so good!! Aunt Gail had her make extra and we ended up having it for breakfast the next day. Still good!!
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