An update for our founder Elade:
Every now and then I want to give you updates from Haiti Operations which I know you like receiving. Our team continues to thrive in Haiti, in Zorangé, and Bainet. The situation in Port-au-Prince has not really improved in terms of security, but traveling to our area is safe and enjoyable (if you don’t mind off roading and I love off-roading. I can see John just shaking his head at me right now as he reads this message – “enjoying offroad”)
From the Spiritual Side
A few weeks ago almost 30 people came to Christ during one of our team’s outreach in Gandou where we built our second clinic.
Since then, a few leaders from our home church in Zorangé, have held bible study and conducted church services every weekend. So we’ve just added another church to our ministry and we are now at 5 churches (Zorangé or in Bigot (beego), Grande Savanne, La Colline, Douge, and now Gandou).
We are in the middle of organizing a yearly Women’s convention that will take place from May 10 to May 17. It’s a huge ministry that Vierge and Wilner’s wife (Ginette) started about 9 years ago and they continue to grow this ministry from our home church and they are very active in the community.
We are grateful for their passion and calling to serve the people in the community. A few months from now (July 2026 ), we will have our annual convention where all the churches meet up in Zorangé for a week of outreach and teaching.
Medical Updates
We’ve converted our clinic in Zorangé into a community hospital since May 2024, and we continue to extend our services. People do not have to travel to Jacmel to get hospital services.
We’ve extended lab services whereby we perform lab testing for patients referred to Jacmel, now they can come to our hospital in Zorangé or these lab tests.
In Gandou, the location of our clinic – there is a hospital that has been open for more than a year providing extended medical services. Foot traffic in our Gandou clinic no longer gave any rationale to have that clinic open any longer in that area. We have transferred our nurse from Gandou to reinforce our staffing needs at the community hospital in Zorangé, thereby closing the clinic as it was no longer needed in that community. But we are still using the location for the Gandou clinic as our new church location.
Education: Zorangé
We’re in the last few months of the school calendar and things are going well. We’re doing the typical stuff to get the kids to graduation (preschool and high school seniors, prepping the 9th and 12th graders for their national exam.
Our school continues to defy all the educational challenges in the country to be one of the best schools in the nation and the best in our state.
BUT we are at a crossroads.
In December 2025 I met with the parents to solicit their help to keep the school going.
Basically I told them we can no longer provide, basically, free education to the kids. I shared with them for the last 25 years we’ve been able to hire the right level of staffing and paying them to provide the best possible education to the kids. Funding for the school came from the US and we are seeking their support and collaboration to contribute toward their kids’ education.
It’s a challenge for every parent in Haiti because primary and secondary education in Haiti is private. Usually each family has one person living overseas that sends money to Haiti for education (my mother did it for 12 of us while she was living in the US . She had to pay our school tuition for me and my two siblings but also for another nine cousins who would not have had the opportunity to attend school if it weren’t for her.
That hasn’t changed. So when we started in 2000 there were very few elementary schools in the community; however, today because of our presence in the last 25 years, there have been a lot of primary schools that have been built – so in a way, access to education has been available. However there is still a need to provide access to a good secondary education (7th – 12th grade).
We communicated the new school fees to the parents but we know there will be some parents who won’t be able to pay them. We definitely need support from the State side as we make our way to be solely dependent on local school fees to pay our teachers.
The new school fees would enable us to be fully sustainable within 3 years (by 2029) – but that is based on some assumptions, that the number of students that leave will return and there will be a gradual increase of students by 10% year over year for the next 4 years.
Education: Leadership Academy Construction
We have made great progress in the construction of the Leadership Academy. We have built 11 rooms and these rooms have been prepared to receive concrete roof.
Construction is on pause as we await new funding. There is a plan to take a team to wire the Leadership Academy with people from PowerSecure and a few other partners organizations, once we have an idea about when we will be able to pour the concrete roof and build a few rooms on the second floor onto which to install solar panels, we will have a date for that trip.
There is a lot of excitement for this project and the possibility to have post secondary education in our community is truly exciting. With Starlink providing internet connections, we will be able to work with teachers/professors and professionals around the globe to take part in our education curriculum in Haiti. Technology wins because today I was able to take part in a parent meeting (video) at Zorangé in our church with me on a big screen and presenting to the parents and talking with the parents.
All of these things make me very excited and I know you too are excited because you know where we came from and how far we’ve come. Yet we’re not done. Our work continues.
Please pray for us to continue to find the financial support to continue to make payroll for our staff, not only this year but for at least the next three years as we continue to transition to be “somewhat” sustainable in Haiti. We know this is very difficult given the conditions in the country but it is our objective and plan to be able to sustain the work locally without total support from abroad – but we’re not there yet and I count on your support, prayers and finance.
