High risk loans

Yesterday we had a meeting with 8 of Elevate's higher risk loans. Most of these ladies are single mamas that are struggling to meet the basic needs of their family. Our meeting was to discuss the "how's" of business. This included evangelizing, marketing, money management, and customer service. 

    Look at this beautiful group!

We asked one of our successful Elevate loan recipients, Chrismene (you may remember her from one of our posts on fb, she sells underwear), to come and share her story and to ENCOURAGE the ladies. She  was great and the other ladies were really receptive to what she was saying. 

  Here is Chrismene in her element

We also discussed with them the DREAM and VISION we have for them. We explained that we know that their current loan will not generate enough profit to support their families. However, this first loan is helping us learn what kind of person they are, these are things that cannot be taught. We are watching to see if they are willing to work, if they understand the importance of paying back a loan and the attitude that they do these things with. So far, every one of these ladies (and one gentleman whose wife was unable to come) is doing a phenomenal job on all of these aspects which means they will qualify for another loan once this one is paid off. 

We told them that we are in this for the long haul. Our goal is to help them get STAND ON THEIR OWN FEET within the next 4-5 years. For three of these ladies, this commitment means helping with food, housing, and school for their children in addition to the micro-loan. 

                                          "He is rich or poor according to what he is, 

                                                   not according to what he has." 

                                                          Henry Ward Beecher

My favorite part was watching the difference between the ladies that have just recently joined the program compared to those that have been part of it for the last year. The new ones had difficulty even sharing their name and the business that they do with the group. They were embarrassed, one in particular could not look anyone in the eye nor could she finish her sentence. The ladies who had been part of the program for a while were able to articulate well and some even asked questions! 

Please continue to pray for these ladies in particular. They have a long road, but if they are willing to do their part, I have incredibly HOPE for them. 

Training...

I was recently talking to Isaac, our Elevate employee, and he was asking me if I wanted Elevate to grow big. My response was 'no'. 

    (Isaac and his wife and 8 week old baby)

I explained that our goal is not to grow big but instead to grow deep. We want to make a lasting impact in the lives of those that are part of Elevate. We want to love them well, encourage them, to disciple them and remind them of the value they can find through following Jesus.  However, I did explain that if God wants Elevate to grow big, then we will listen. 

That opportunity may be arriving. We were recently contacted by another organization that works about an hour away from us. They run a clinic and have a few mamas that need an extra boost to be able to care for their families. They told me that they don't want to just give, they want to help the women help themselves. They had heard about Elevate and so they asked if they could meet with us to hear how we ran it. 

   (Our very first training with another organization who wants to duplicate Elevate)

Soon after this organization contacted us, we ended up talking to a couple of people from an organization that provides food to other organizations. They said they had heard about us and wanted to hear what we do. They asked us if we would consider training other organizations to do what we are doing. 

So...this may be jumping the gun, but imagine with me! We have 50 recipients in the Elevate program and, unless we hire more people, we are tapped. But what if God uses us to share how the Elevate program works with others and each of those other organizations have 50 people. This could be a way to reach, and help, an amazing amount of people in Haiti!! 

In addition to that, yesterday we had our very first meeting to talk to our Elevate recipients about how to evangelize with their business. They were incredibly receptive and I'm excited to see how God uses the to share the Gospel!

I say this all the time, but following Jesus is never boring. You never know what he is gonna do next. It may not even be this, but it doesn't really matter. The possibilities are endless when Jesus is leading. It's the best adventure ever. 

Below are some pics of Elevate recipients and their children which are being sponsored to go to school. God is good. 

Answering the call...

Remeber that Facebook post a few days ago about me feeling sad because this is the time of the year a lot of people come to me asking for support to send their children to school?

Well that post generated enough money to send 14 children to school. I only had 7. So I thought, "Well Lord, who else do you want sponsored?"  

Yesterday, I went to visit two of the children who are now sponsored to get their pictures and stories to share with their sponsor. As we were walking through the the neighborhood of Lafito, my friend Daphne said she wanted to introduce me to someone. 

That is how I met Fifin, a mother of 9 with another on the way. She is shorter than I am and very petite. She said that all of her 9 (10) children have the same father but that their father doesn't live with her or support her. Her kids ages are (20, 16, 15, 13, 10, 9, 7, 5, 3...wow). 

Fifin said that of her 9 children, 5 have never gone to school. She has one little boy who is special needs but when asked if he could learn she gave resounding "Yes!". She said that he loves to ask his momma to show him how to write things, he follows directions well and he loves to be around his peers. 

I asked Fifin how she has paid for the school of of the kids that have gone to school and she said she makes things to sell. I am thrilled to hear this because it shows she is motivated to work to support her children. 

So, I'm pretty sure we found the family that we are supposed to help with that extra funding. 

We will be watching this little family to see if maybe Fifin would qualify for an Elevate micro loan and to see what their food situation is (hungry children don't learn well). 

I'll keep you posted. And a huge thank you to those of you who felt the nudge to help!

Here she is with 5 of her 9. The rest where off playing in the community. 

The $10 lady's story continues...

Do you remember Mdm Volcy who started with $10 and with that money built a home for her family? 

Check out this link if you want a reminder;

http://imslandfamily.blogspot.com/2016/02/give-woman-10-and-she-can-build-house.html

Well, Mdm Volcy received her loan and last week I went to visit her to find out how her business was doing. When I arrived she was inside her home and her two children, ages 11 and 9, where hanging outside the home. I noticed an older woman laying on a piece of cardboard under a tree and near her was a young man sitting on a pile of rocks. 

Mdm Volcy came out as soon as she heard that we were there to greet us and welcomed us to her home. She has one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen (she is the lady sitting down, with the black tank top in the picture). She introduced us to her children who were well mannered and had kind eyes. 

We asked about her business, which is selling charcoal. Charcoal is used to cook everything and it is consumable so it is a business that can make a decent profit. The day we visited her was market day but she wasn't there because her charcoal was not ready yet. Mdm Volcy said that she will take her profits and purchase wood. She then pays a man in the mountains to make it into charcoal and to bag it (this takes 8 days). She then can begin to sell. She said each batch she makes sells in about 15 days. 

Mdm Volcy shared that although her business was growing she was having a hard time making ends meet. Her mother has some kind of mind issue (possible Alzheimers?) and can't take care of herself or her four youngest children (ages 22, 20, 19, 17) so they all moved in with Mdm Volcy. The responsibility of purchasing the daily medication for her mom and feeding her siblings now falls to Mdm Volcy. 

After hearing her story, we think that her mom is a perfect candidate for an elderly feeding program. It fits in with what Elevate wants to do, which is help people get above the median. We hope that by helping her with food for her mom, she can another boost to start to get ahead.

 

We are looking for sponsors for Mama Volcy, her name is Lamise Laurent. If you are interested please go to elevate-Haiti.com and send me an email. Pray for this sweet family would is welcome! 

Missionary Kid Life

My kids started school this Monday and one of their assignments was to write a short poem or paragraph using as many descriptions of color as they could. 

Not only do I think that they did a good job, but it is so interesting to me to see something concrete that shows a small impact being a missionary kid has made on each of them. I wonder all the time what God will do with these experiences my kids have. 

______________________________________________

Landen, 6th grade

In Cabaret I see the green mountains all foggy in the white clouds.

The red gates and the gloomy black gates. 

Down the road that giant, pink house sticks out from all the gray gloomy houses 

Same with that white house right across from mine.

______________________________________________

Sierra, 8th grade

I see gray buildings standing tall. 

Black eyes staring at me in the shadows

The sky a deep dark endless blue.

A dark narrow road leeds into a house built for two but ten live inside

I walk in and see gloomy faces looking up at me.

I came to give hope but find a loss for words.

______________________________________________

Austin, 10th grade

In the middle of the night Port-Au-Prince is shimmering with color from afar; 

The houses lit yellow and white. 

There are sudden flashes of blue, red, yellow, and white. 

Even at night, the dark blue of the Caribbean,sparkling in the white moon light. 

Over to the right an occasional flash of blue from an airport. 

The dull green brown of the mountains behind and the white and black helicopter flying over the water with a flash of a red light. 

When I think about the city, I imagine all the buildings colored blue, pink, red, yellow, and orange. 

Sometimes there is a wispy gray smoke coming from a large orange fire that is blown by the wind across the land and hills of the tan green field. 

I pray daily that they are dangerous for Christ and that God uses our experiences in Haiti to teach them that following Jesus is never boring!

My first ticket in Haiti.

Today I was stopped at a routine police check point. The police man said my taillights a didn't work. He told me to pull over to the side of the road so he could write me a ticket. 

A little side information. Police in Haiti are notorious for; saying they are going to give you a ticket, but then take a bribe and for picking on white people (who might have money). In this police man's defense, I was the only white person of the 5 other cars pulled over for the same type of thing. Yet, I was convinced that the accusation that my taillights didn't work was not true. Shane takes very good care of our car. So I followed the policeman and told him my lights worked and I was not going to accept the ticket. 

The policeman was a big man, similar to Shane, and he came over to double check my lights. He proceeded to tell me that my lights weren't working. I said I think they are but you can't see them with the sun. He told me that was American logic which made me kind of mad. I pushed, not offensively, but intensely. But then I started to think he may actually be right. Plus, he wasn't asking for a bribe, he was doing his job! So I called it a day and left with the ticket and without my license. 

If you get a ticket in Haiti, they take your license until you come back with a receipt to prove that you paid for the ticket. The reason they do this is that without regular employment or good government tracking, it is impossible to enforce tickets. 

I told Shane about it and when he went out to check the break lights, they weren't working. He had driven through water last night and it must have created a short. He fixed them in the next 20 minutes and all was well. 

Except it wasn't. I knew we were going to drive by that police stop in the next two hours. I knew I was supposed to tell the policeman I was sorry for giving him a hard time. But then I would start to rationalize it all; no harm was done, he doesn't really need an apology, I would just pay it and we could forget it.  

When we passed the police stop I told Shane to pull to the side of the road. I could rationalize all I wanted but I felt convicted to apologize. 

 

Shane stayed in the car and I went over to talk to Mike, the policeman who gave me the ticket. As soon as he saw me he started to tell me that the ticket was staying, my lights didn't work. I told him yes, he was right. My husband checked the lights and they didn't work. I then asked the man for forgiveness. I told him I was sorry that my mouth had made his job harder. He looked pretty surprised. He was gracious and said it was no big deal, it was normal. Culturally what I did WAS completely normal, but I know God has called me to live differently. 

As I was leaving I realized that I still didn't know where to go pay this silly ticket so I went back to ask one of the other policemen. He explained it (I still didn't have any clue where to pay it) and I said thank you and went to get in the car. 

Immediately, he flagged me back and asked me to bring my receipt into the office. I followed where he, Eric, and Mike proceeded to arrange for another man to drive my ticket into the office to pay. I heard the two of them talking about my apology in an astonished tone. Then, the best thing, they gave me my license back! He said something to the effect of me being respectful to them and they wanted to help me out.

To be clear, this isn't about me. I was wrong. I would rather have ignored the whole thing, but the Holy Spirit would not let me be. And if I'm following Jesus, then I want to follow him all the way. It's only in Jesus that I can humble myself because my value isn't wrapped up in what I do. It is all about who Jesus says I am.

It was also a nice bonus that God let me also see that when we live different than the culture, others notice. 

Just a funny pic I borrowed from another missionary. The words in the bottom of the tap-tap say "Diarrhea doesn't know beautiful underwear" hehe.  

Being a single mom and abandoned is hard in any country

I have known this woman for a little under a year and a half because she comes every Monday to pick up food for an elderly in Global's elderly program. Everytime I see her, her little boy is with her attached to her breast or her hip. I think he is about 18 months old. I never really paid much attention to her except to notice that she is an older mom, her clothes are always tattered and she always asks for something extra. 

I recently spent some time talking to her to find out her story. Her name is Cadelt. She is about 40 years old, she has one adult daughter and her surprise baby, Lilou. She said that this last baby was not planned because she is not married. The father is not involved in either of their lives. When people found out that she was pregnant, she was evicted from her home and it appears that help was mostly cut off. She told me, "God knows. I could have thrown this baby away but I chose to honor God and keep him. But this life we are living is not good for my baby."

Since we are considering Cadelt for a micro-loan, I visited her at her home yesterday. She lives in a depot, a place where merchants store their goods, which means that people are in and out of her room constantly. She doesn't have a bed, she has borrowed a pot from her mom to cook her food, and she has very few items of clothing. Her little man clings to her side whenever I am around and yet she so obviously loves him. Despite what she doesn't have, Lilou is always relatively clean.

After visiting her, I know we are going to be starting a micro-loan with her this Monday. However, I don't believe she can succeed unless some of her living situation is improved. We have decided that we are going to help her rent a room for the next year to provide a safe place for her and her baby to live. We are going to provide a bed, her own pot and small charcoal burner. We are also going to start giving her a small allowance for food and clothing each month for the next year. 

We are praying that through Elevate's micro-loan, supplemented with monthly support, we can help her find hope again. We are praying that Cadelt will step up to the task and take this opportunity to provide for Lilou and that she will be able to succeed. 

I'm writing this to ask you to pray with us. 

If you want to help, please go to imslands-in-Haiti.com and press the donate button. (Put Cadelt in the notes). 

Debt pardoned

We currently have 20 loans out. Of those 20 there are three people who are not paying back their loans regularly. This is actually pretty good considering how difficult it can be to make a profit in Haiti. 

One of the ladies received her loan in November, made one payment, and then since December I have not heard from her. December can be tricky because of the holidays so I assumed that she would begin her repayment in January or Febuary. However, instead she avoided my calls and spent time at her mothers so that I could not visit her. I was sad for her, but not mad. I chalked it up as a loss. 

This woman came and visited me yesterday. Apparently Daphne ran into her the day before and encouraged her to come and speak with me, face to face. Her entire demeanor was so sad. Her eyes were heavy, her back bowed forward a little, when she said "Bonjour" to me she was hesitant. We sat down together on my porch and she explained what had happened and why she could not pay back her loan. She told me that her house had been robbed and that immediately after that she got malaria. She looked sick as she explained these situations and said that the loan has been on her mind and she is sad about it. 

I told her that I understand. That I am not mad at her, I am sad for her because her situation has been hard. I asked her to look me in the eyes so she could see that I was not mad. I then told her that we will take her loan and close it. She no longer has to think about it, it is a forgiven debt. I had to say this three times before she believed me and her face changed. It was as if a weight had been lifted from her. She smiled at me and thanked me. 

"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." Matthew 6:12 ESV

Do I think she told me the truth? My discernment says no. But we were able to close our meeting soon after that on good terms. While she knows that she can't receive a loan from us again, she also knows that she doesn't have to hide from me. We are on equal grounds. 

The entire purpose of Elevate is to show the Haitians Jesus' love. We do this through micro-loans that allow them to begin to help themselves and take care of their families. We do this through classes that teach them about what God says about money and business and relationships. And sometimes, we do this through the forgiveness of a debt.

All of these things we can do because we have been loved and forgiven first.

For more information go to Imslands-in-Haiti.org

Our friends from T12 came and stayed with us this week. We were able to spend 3 days serving with them. They had 4 young men on their team that are incredible soccer players, one of whom is an adopted Haitian. This is a picture of him sharing his story and the hope of Jesus with the young men in Sport Disciple. 

I know it's blurry but I just love this man. He danced almost the entire time we were there saying how happy he was that his brothers and sisters in Christ had come to visit him. 

Shane's aunt and three cousins came to visit us in the last couple of weeks. We visited a struggling orphanage with them. 

Shane's aunt, Linda, loving on the kiddos. 

Isaac spent all day Saturday driving back and forth to get water for Sport Disciple. His sidekick is Patrick. He is a 35(ish) year old Down syndrome Haitian. Through Sport Disciple he has gained respect in the community, earns a wage, and we have started to see the sassy side of him. Sometimes he forgets who is the boss. :) 

This is Eddie, Shane's cousin's husband. We took them to visit one of the schools for 3, 4, and 5 year olds. They hang on you like little piranhas. 

A family pic. 

 

Give a woman $10 and she can build a house

A woman came and visited me yesterday. She is 33 years old and has been on her own since she was 12 year old. She came to visit me because she is an example of someone who took a small micro-loan and was successful. As we sat she told me the story of her getting a loan in 2012 for $10 American dollars. How she used that money to go out and purchase 3 pairs of sandals. Once she sold those sandals she took the prophet and purchased more. Eventually she had enough to purchase curtains (the Haitians hang them on in their doorways to keep out the dust and give some privacy while keeping their doors open). She continued to grow her business and eventually was able to purchase oil, rice, and beans. She said that after the earthquake, her family was displaced. However, they received a Samaritan's purse tent-home and had been living it in since 2010. She said after her business started to take off, she started to purchase cement. Then blocks. And finally metal for her roof. After 3 years of working she was able to build a 1 room home for her 11 year old son, her husband, and herself. 

But here is the catch. Because she built this home, she no longer has the resources to continue to sell.  Her business is closed. 

I asked her if she thought that she made a good decision in building the house. She said a resounding, "Yes!". She said that the tent was so threadbare that you could see the sun shining through it. She said that when it rains, and it rains hard in Haiti, the rain would poor into her house. She told me that she may not have a business but they have a safe place to live and to be a family. 

So here is the struggle. Our Elevate program is helping people, it is. It is allowing our borrower to get ahead and it is mentoring them on how to let God get the glory in their lives and businesses. But the micro-loans in Haiti need to be done differently. Elevate's micro-loans need to continue to be given out but I think the heart of Elevate is the relationships that we have with our borrowers. And when we have a relationship with someone and they fall, we reach down and we pick them up. We believe that it's through relationships that we can really make a difference. 

 

Our relationship has just started with this woman but we look forward to having her part of our Elevate program in the very near future. I can't wait to see how God uses her talents to bring Him glory. 

Hibiscus plant

There is a grocery store in Petyonville that we used to go to biweekly. This grocery store is very nice, the meat is good, and they have a sandwich shop and deli attached to it. When we first got our own vehicle and could drive there, we were pretty sure that this place was heaven. 

There is a down side though. It is straight up, through the heart of Port au Prince. We have not had to go there for quite a while because there are some grocery stores that have recently open that rival it. However yesterday we decided that we were going to go to this grocery store. This decision means driving an hour and a half of, starting and then abruptly stopping traffic. We get to see the sidewalk sales that are going on (there are few actual stores on this road but people bring their items daily and set them up to sell). We saw clothes, shoes, jewelry, sunglasses, pots, beds, couches, tires, propane tanks, generators, produce, and much more. It is like a buffet for our eyes. Always something new to see that makes us appreciate Haiti. 

On our way back down the mountain (after we had driven for an hour and a half, shopped, and then eaten lunch) I noticed a man on the side of the road with hibiscus plants for sale. I said, "Shane! Look at those! Aren't they beautiful?". My husband, stops in the middle of the road, and says I should buy it. So after a short time of haggling (picture horns honking in the background and pedestrians telling us that we are causing a problem) I bring the hibiscus plant into our car and place it gently at my feet. 

It's a pathetic looking plant. It might not even make it. In fact, this morning when I put it in the planter, I noticed that the flower was on its last leg and is dying. But there are little leaf buds coming out everywhere and I think, that once it has some love, it will be beautiful. 

It makes me happy to see it while I am washing dishes or sitting in my favorite chair on the porch. It makes my heart happy to know that my husband knows I don't like impulse purchases, but knows me enough to know that I would have regretted not buying it. I love that my husband, who hates to make a scene, was willing to stop in the middle of the road to get me a hibiscus plant.