Before departing the Mellier worksite, Foundry Associate Pastor Dawn Hand conducted an Ash Wednesday service for 20 people, including the nine Foundry VIM team members and 11 Haitians.
Pastor Dawn imposed an ash mixture comprised of ashes from Foundry and those gathered from the coals used by the four-person Mellier kitchen staff, who prepared the VIM team's meals.
Eguins Louissaint bid the VIM team farewell on behalf of the Mellier community.
"I believe one day we will be together again to worship in the (Methodist) church of Mellier," Eguins said. "We do not share the same language, but we share the same language of God. I love you."
After leaving Mellier, the Foundry team toured Port-au-Prince, viewing the national palace, which still lies in ruins, and a tent city that continues to occupy a prominent downtown square.
After lunch, the team visited the Hotel Montana, where Clint Rabb and Sam Dixon, United Methodist Committee on Relief executives, died from injuries sustained in the collapse of the hotel in the January 2010 earthquake. The team said a prayer at memorial on the site.
In the afternoon, the team returned to the Methodist Guest House in Petionville.
After relaxing briefly, the team reported to United Methodist Volunteers in Mission leadership about their Mellier experience, an important final action to complete their week in Haiti.
Over the course of more than five hours, the group met with Tom Vencuss, project coordinator for the Haiti Response Plan, a partnership between UMCOR, UMVIM and Eglise Methodiste de Haiti; Lauen James, UMCOR liaison to EMH, and Pastor Fede Jean Pierre, superintendent for the EMH circuit that includes Mellier.
Nicole Woo, Lauren VanEnk and Ace Parsi outlined several of the concerns related to them by the Mellier community, including teacher salaries and training, the hiring of local workers at the Mellier construction site, a school lunch program and micro-finance in Mellier.
In each meeting, the Foundry team sought to ensure that the $7200 Foundry raised to support teacher salaries and the school lunch program reached its intended recipients.
Pastor Fede said that his circuit is considering changing the worksite-pay system so that the workers are compensated directly by the church district instead of by the site boss.
He also said that he is trying to get local communities more involved in supporting their schools.
As Haiti struggles to recover from the earthquake, the Haiti Response Plan faces its own challenges in trying to help the country. The group is supporting 25 worksites while developing other initiatives.
"There's so much to do, and we have limited resources," said Pastor Tom.
On Thursday, Feb. 23, the VIM team will leave Haiti on a 10:30 a.m. flight to Miami. We're due to arrive in Washington in the early evening.
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In the morning, Nicole Woo, Lauren VanEnk and Ace Parsi met with the faculty of the school in Mellier that convenes at the VIM site.
The teachers told the VIM team that they struggle with lack of training and low and inconsistent pay. But they continue on because of their love of education.
At the end of the day, the Foundry VIM team met with 30 Mellier citizens in the makeshift church on the site.
The Mellier residents cited a lack of water and a dearth of jobs as two of the community's biggest problems. The former is undermining agriculture while the latter results in idle youth who can cause trouble. Mellier also needs some kind of training school for post-secondary education, according to one speaker.
Lunch, too, was a community affair, with the school faculty and church leaders joining the Foundry team. After lunch, the team presented four duffel bags full of gifts for the school and the church.
For the second day, Lauren, Becky Hein, Lynn Kim and Dawn Hand conducted Vacation Bible School. They led 52 students in several activities.
Work on the construction site continued. The Foundry team played key roles on a cement-supply chain that produced substantial progress on support beams for a balcony in the church-multipurpose facility.
While construction was going on, Becky and other Foundry VIM team members taught local women to make jewelry.
Becky hopes the women will be able to start their own micro-business.
"Today we taught people how to fish," Becky said.
The Foundry team has built on the foundation of the two previous teams to journey to Mellier over the last year.
"We are touched that you have come to live among us," said Patrick Pierre, principal of the school.
The Foundry team benefited from the generous hospitality of the community. The cooks and interpreters were a blessing. They made our Haiti experience comfortable and joyous.
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Lauren VanEnk, Lynn Kim and Becky Hein led nearly 100 children in arts and crafts, Bible lessons and games.
Meanwhile, the VIM team construction crew continued to work on the church- multipurpose building, forming a cement-transport assembly line to build a balcony in the structure.
Later in the afternoon, the VIM team toured nearby Leogane. We took a bouncy ride in a tap tap along unpaved side streets. Our visit included a stop at a sugar-cane processing facility, a hospital and the sprawling Leogane market.
On the way back, we passed a housing division comprised of new homes built in place of those that crumbled in the 2010 earthquake.
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The Foundry team in Mellier this week is rebuilding a multipurpose facility that will house a church and other programs.
The Foundry team is working alongside 11 construction personnel from Mellier and surrounding communities.
One of the leaders of the Mellier group, Eguins Louissaint, sat down with Foundry VIM team member Ace Parsi today. Here is Ace's reflection:
I asked a young man, Eguins, for one message to give to our congregation.
He said, "Continue to pray so God can bless the church and especially those in necessity so that God can make a way for them, too."
There is certainly necessity AND potential in Haiti. Eguins, in his early 20s, has finished his second year in college-level economics and can't afford to continue.
Similarly, Haiti's soil is rich and ideal to grow rice, but all around we see bags of rice with American flags. These bags represent the subsidized crops that put many Haitian farmers out of work.
Answers are not simple. The people pushing the bags of rice thought they were hiring American farmers and feeding a nation, not taking the livelihood of others.
Well-meaning answers are not enough. We must be willing to sit with the discomfort, ask people how we can walk toward their dreams, not the dreams we hold for them -- and work for solutions that are long-term and sustainable.
I asked Eguins to close our conversation with prayer. He said, "Dear God, even though we have a different skin color, language and culture, you have made it so we worship one God."
Late Saturday afternoon, the Foundry team took a walking tour of Mellier, a small town that was hit hard by the 2010 earthquake.
We saw rebuilding and striking economic progress as well as deep challenges that remain for the vast majority of its residents.
God, give us as a team and as a congregation the wisdom and the resolve to be true to the spirit of brotherhood Eguins and we pray for.
Amen.
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The buzz demonstrated that previous Foundry teams created an enduring connection to the people in this rural community about 10 kilometers east of Port au Prince in Leogane, the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake.
The following is a reflection by Foundry VIM team member Lauren VanEnk, who is on her second VIM trip to Haiti:
Everything is growing! Today we arrived at our work site in Mellier, and the only thing familiar about it was the shining faces of the children. The church community center had grown from a bare foundation to a full two-story building.
The rocky path behind the kitchen was suddenly a full garden of tomatoes and green peppers.
Even the number of children at the school has grown. The progress is amazing!
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