For real this time

Alright, being as I haven't posted anything of much substance in over a month - I'll do my best to catch up.

First of all, the wedding was fantastic - it went smoother than I could ever had hoped for. My friends and family all arrived in and left Haiti safely - my biggest concern. I was able to go pick up my friend/cousin Melissa in Puerto Plata in mid-April. While in the DR, we were able to make a quick trip down to IKEA in Santo Domingo with Tammi to do some serious kitchen/housewares shopping. It was a success and I must say it was definitely strange to be eating Swedish meatballs and boiled potatoes in the DR - but when in IKEA...

Melissa and I came back to Haiti in time to pick up my other good friend Rose a week before the wedding and promptly went to get manicures and pedicures in Cap Haiten. Not something I ever treat myself to in Canada, but when its only $5 US for each, how can you pass it up?

The three of us had a good time relaxing, catching up and just hanging out in Haut Limbe. We even got an afternoon of  fried fish and suntanning at the beach one day!

Melissa and I at the beach

Rose and I at the beach.

 On the Wednesday, my family (parents, sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephew) arrived in Cap Haitien. It was great to be able to show them where I've been living and my life here. My nieces and nephew are all little blond, blue-eyed cuties so they were quite the spectacle in town where people have probably not seen many white children.

While in Haut Limbe, we prepared favours and decorations for the wedding and then headed into Cap on Friday to spend the night at the lovely Hotel Christophe.

On our way to Cap - wedding dress safely packed in the pink bag!

We woke up to a beautiful, sunny Saturday and we able to get ready in time to have some pictures done in the hotel's courtyard before heading off to the venue for the ceremony and reception. The wedding was supposed to start at 12, and I think we actually got going at about 12:45 - not too bad by Haitian standards! Even with out having a rehearsal, the ceremony went fairly smoothly and mission accomplished - we got married!!

Mme David, Mme Marc (caterers) and me.

The cake!

The ladies prepared us a wonderful meal and an extravagant cake - I had know idea what to expect! Everyone ate their fill and by 3 pm, we were all done. It was perfect and I couldn't have asked for anything to be different.

Friends!

With Alin who brought the plants and flowers for decorations.

Tammi - photographer and friend!

 On the Monday following, after my family friends boarded their plane, Cal and I went to Puerto Plata for our honeymoon for a week and a half. It was a beautiful resort with great food.

Resort in Puerto Plata

Before dinner on the last night.

We ended the honeymoon by stopping in Santiago for one night with Tammi and to do some last minute shopping for the house.

Our little kitchen.

We are back now and are mostly settled into our apartment. I'm enjoying brushing up on my cooking skills and impressing Cal that I actually know how to cook.

This Wednesday, a group of 12 arrive from Strathmore to help at the clinic, so we'll be busy! I'm excited to see what God has in store for them.

Thanks for all your encouragement and support - Cal and I appreciate it so much!

Mr & Mme Calvin Christolin

Mr & Mme Calvin

My Nieces, nephew and I.

My sister (Maid of Honour), Nicely (Best Man), Calvin and I.

 

Cal's Family

My parents and Cal's parents.

My family.

Mama Manno and I.

We're back!!

We are here - we've actually been back in Haut Limbe for a week, but it's been a bit busy catching up on things, moving into our apartment and arranging everything. We are happy to be here and get settled into regular life before our next group arrives on Wednesday.

I'm going to try to post some pictures of the wedding by the weekend!

How a trip to Cap Haitien can suck the life out of you

Anyone who has spent a little time in Haiti, will quickly learn that nothing is easy here. It's best just to work on that assumption and then be pleasantly surprised when something is easy - it'll save you years of stress and frustration.

On Saturday we went in Cap with a significant list of things to do for the wedding and for the apartment. Perhaps it was too ambitious, but it was all things that needed to get done in the next little while. Anyways, we set off at about 9 am in the truck. Now, getting to Cap itself is an adventure. It's only 25 kms away, but only a quarter of the road is paved (with pot-holes), the rest is gravel (with pot-holes) and very dusty as we haven't had any rain in weeks. Needless to say, I don't make the trip into Cap unless I absolutely need to. Along the way, we stopped at the wedding venue, paid the deposit and continued on.

We arrived in Cap. Cap Haitien is a city that was built or planned for about 200,000 people - it now contains about 1 million people. So, needless to say, it's crowded, busy and dusty! Traffic, is well, interesting. I know that it's a whole lot better than Port au Prince, but for the size of the city, it's still frustrating. Our next stop was the florists - but they weren't open. So we headed off to the hardware/appliance store to look for a stove and a fridge. After some talking and negotiating, we were able to settle on a stove and fridge. The stove is a bit bigger than I wanted, but when you only have 3 to choose from, you have to go with what you got. Driving to Port to find one just doesn't seem worth it. We didn't take them with us, because we didn't have the extra money for the stove. Cal went back on Monday to pick them up.

After that, we were off to the "stores" to find kitchen and household supplies. Mama was with us to help in our search and negotiations. Basically all of downtown Cap is one big open air market, but there are some "stores" along the side streets. We searched up and down, but Mama couldn't find anything that made her happy, so we to the main central market with all the food, clothes, shoes, supplies - basically anything you would need. After weaving our way through the "machanns" with their rice, vegetables, meat, etc, we found the kitchen supply area - heaven. We start picking all kinds of things we need - pots, spoons, bowls, knives, etc. We got a pretty good haul for about $50 US. We piled everything into a "kivet" (a large basin) and paid someone to carry it out through the maze of the crowded market to the truck for us.

By this time, I'm getting pretty tired, and hot. It turned hot here last week, so it's around 30 degrees during the day. We go to a nearby restaurant for a bite to eat and a drink and to regroup. After, we go back to the florists, they are open now. Made our payment for the wedding flowers and all the final arrangements. One last stop. To buy a mattress/boxspring. Here again, there isn't a lot of choice, unless you want to buy used - then there is tons of choice. We find a bed, make a negotiation and tie it to the truck. We're done!!!

By now it's about 3 pm and I'm wiped and a headache it starting to set in. We get home around 4, I eat the lunch that Marlene left for us, shower and fall down on my bed with exhaustion. My headache lingered around all night and into the morning. Finally, by Sunday afternoon I was feeling a bit normal again.

I shouldn't complain too much - Cal made the trip to Cap again Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It's tiring. Good thing I have a week to recover before my trip back to catch the bus to the DR!

Sendie

Sendie Salomon

Sendie came into the clinic on Monday morning with her aunt. She is 10 years old and lives with her 4 brothers and parents in La Coup - a section of Haut Limbe. Since she was born, she has been hard of hearing. She began attending school at age 3, but has always struggled to keep up. The teachers do their best to help her, but class sizes are huge here and they simply do not have the extra time or expertise to give Sendie the attention she needs. She is able to read and write, but is very shy to speak as she has difficulties because of her hearing problems.

After Manno saw her, he called me to come and get her story so that we could send an email out to friends and supporters of the clinic to see if anyone would be willing to help Sendie so that she could see a specialist, perhaps in the DR. I wrote an email yesterday morning, not being very optimistic about what kind of response we would receive. Oh me of little faith.

This morning when I opened the inbox, we already had 5 responses from people with ideas and wanting to help financially. I was blown away and totally pumped. I showed Manno the emails and he said "this is the body of Christ - it didn't cost us any money to send an email. Can you imagine if we hadn't tried to help this little girl?". It's so true - it's so much bigger than us, God is in control and is working in the lives of people all around the world - in Haiti and in Canada and the U.S.

I'm not sure what the next step is for Sendie, but I'm excited to find out!

And the winner is...

Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly.

Yesterday, just after 6 pm, a roar was heard in the area as the results of the Presidential election were announced. Martelly won with 67% of the vote over Mme Manigat. Martelly is a famous Haitian rap star who is very popular with the young people. Mme Manigat is almost 80 and the former first lady of the country. I don't really know who would have lead the country the best, but I'm just glad this election process is finally over! With Martelly winning, it means there will likely not be any demonstrations or protests over the results. These were just the preliminary results, the final results will be announced on the 16th - just a week before my wedding! I'm glad that things are quite decided and that there shouldn't be any unrest in the next few weeks.

March Update

Dear Friends & Family,
Bonjou from Haiti where it is now summer I believe. We don’t really have four seasons here – just comfortable and then HOT! It was a pretty cool and comfortable winter, but it seemed to change overnight.

This Sunday in church I definitely needed my paper fan to give a little breeze during the service. We have now entered the season of multiple showers per day!

Weather aside, things are going well. This past month we hosted a group of 9 from Lighthouse Covenant Church in Sarnia. The majority of the group were 15-21 years old, so they had a lot of energy and a lot of questions! It was great to see them build relationships with our Haitian brothers and sisters here. They began helping construct the second floor of the depot that will be used as a residence for doctors and nurses working at the clinic. We also visited an orphanage in Limbe, had a Creole class and participated in a community English class. I think their trip was a success!

The clinic has been fairly busy, which is a good thing, but we also have some challenges as far as staffing. We have needed to hire an additional doctor for many months to help with the patient load, but we have not yet been able to. In addition, Dr. Joselie is on maternity leave for 3 months so we are under even more pressure for another doctor. Please pray for the committee as they work to secure a new doctor to serve at the clinic.

March 20th saw the run-off presidential elections here. Everything around here stayed calm and we hope to hear the results in April. Please continue to pray that the process will be fair and just and that peace will remain in this country.

Cholera is still here, but the numbers remain low. MSF pulled out of Limbe last week, so we expect the number of patients we receive at our treatment centre will increase a little bit. We are prepared to stay open to receive cholera patients needing treatment.

There has been some excitement in our household this month. Manno’s dad, Isaak, who had been living and working in the United States for nearly 20 years, retired and returned home to Haut Limbe! Manno’s mom (who I call Mama) was able to welcome her husband back to a very different house since he left. There has been a lot of work done to the yard and houses and since Isaak worked in maintenance in the US, he’s been busy everyday working on a project around the house. It’s such a blessing to see this family reunited as this does not always happen here when a spouse or family member goes abroad to work.

Also, Cal’s sister Briza gave birth via C-section to a healthy baby boy on March 15. We are thankful that everything went well.

Looking ahead, the next few months will be busy! Of course this month I will be hosting my friends and family coming for my wedding on April 23. In a couple of weeks, I’ll make a quick trip over to the DR to meet my friend who is flying into Puerto Plata (and do a little shopping). My parents, sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephew will arrive a few days before the wedding. We’ll spend a couple of days in Haut Limbe, and then go to Cap Haitien the day before the wedding. After the wedding, Cal and I will take our honeymoon in the DR and then come back to work in May.

At the end of May, we are expecting a group from Strathmore to visit. In June, there is a possibility of a small group from Minnesota as well as a group from Randolph World Ministries coming to providing training in the lab at the clinic. The first week of July, a group of youth from the Edmonton church will be coming – right in the heat of summer! We are getting the fans ready now for them! So, it will be busy. In mid July, we hope to make a trip back to Canada to visit friends, family and churches. Please pray that Cal is able to receive a Canadian tourist visa.

For me, this coming month will be focused on preparing for the wedding and preparing our apartment. We have decided to rent a little basement apartment that Manno is fixing up in the back house of our yard. We’ll have a nice sized bedroom, bathroom and combined kitchen/living area. I’m excited to be staying in the same yard so that I’ll be close by for visiting groups and also to have my adoptive family around me.

After the wedding, my monthly expenses will increase (about double) as we will be renting the apartment, buying and preparing our own food and just taking care of day to day expenses. I want to thank all of you for the support and encouragement that you have given me so far. If you would like to continue to support me monthly or with a one-time gift, you can do so online at CanadaHelps.org. Designate your gift to "Haiti Clinic" and write "Janelle Peterson" in comment section. Cheques may be mailed to: Evangelical Covenant Church of Canada, PO Box 34025, RPO Fort Richmond, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5T5. Please include a note indicating your donation is for Janelle Peterson. All gifts are eligible for a tax receipt.

Well, I think I’ve covered just about everything. Thanks again for your encouragement and prayers. I would love to hear from you!

Bondye beni nou (God bless you)!

Janelle Peterson