Due to not wanting to loose this email before sending it, I will not be spell checking this document, please disregard the many following typoes!

Having spent over and hour and a half typing a very long update yesterday, only to have the city power go out just as I was about to post my message, I am not so detailed orientated this time! I lost everything I had written, but I learned through it. I learend that the many experiences I have had that I was writing to share with you about, are no less valuable simply because I could not share them with you through my email. Actually, it helped me to realize that the experiences I have had are even that much more meaningful, simply because I am learning how to value the moment simply because I exist. Not because I have to create, construct, plan and carry out some marvelous or extravagandant experience to be able to share with others in order to validate the worth of my experience. Nope. My experiences have been rich. Very rich. I only wish you could be here with me to experience them with me.

For example, this morning, I was up at 4:30 AM to prepare for the 5 AM morning prayer time. After that I did my work-out, hugged all of the boys good-bye for school (they leave the house byt 6:30 AM to walk to school) did a time of personal meditation, had a leadership meeting with Claude, Melchee and Julmiste and then headed down to town. Before ariving here at the internet cafe, Claude and I stopped at the, "sisters of Charity," home for the sick and abandonded. This is a home that Mother Theresa started up. It was good for me to walk through this home.

This is a home for the abandoned, neglected, very ill and mentally challenged. I met many very ill people, babies, adolescents,adults and geriatrics who have diseases ranging from TB, AIDS, Malaria, Typhoid, malnutrition etc. MOther Catherine showed Claude and I around today and gave us a very in depoths view of the program. Some of these children have fluid on the brain, their heads are swollen so largely. Some of the residents are mentally challlneged,, and although they are clean, they are covered in flies as there are not enough workers to spent invidivual one on one time with every resident, and this particular resident cannot lift his arms, or stop smiling. Therefore, flies covered his mouth, rested on his eyes, andswarmed all around him. He has no function and cannot fend them off. I went over and gave himn a big hug...his never ending smile became that much bigger...

Many great changes have been taking palce at Trinity/ Claude and I have been working together with the directors of the home, Melchee and Julmiste to create a program with structure and order including disciplinary actions/rewards, organizing chores, who does what when, detailing community living expectations amoung the boys etc. This is a challenging process at times when you accept a role with no rules, no expectation and no guidelines to follow, other then using your own intuition and gut feeling that leads you to make the neccessary decision that seem best for that moment. Teaching two Haitian men in their mid-twenties, who have been like a father to the 19 boys for the last 6 years, leadership skills, and general living skills when you do not know the language, is quite a task! Nevertheless, it is happening. Already in the last few days we have made significant progress. The house is in much better order, we have ordered supplies to build more shelves and dressers and cabinets, we are buynig baskets in order to better organize things, we have establisheda code of conduct and honor for the boys to live by that enables them the opportunity to not only learn to respct those in authority over them, but themselves as well. Remember - these are street boys, some come from gangs...some from very harsh environments...they have a lot to learn! WIth that said, I am so proud of the boys already. They are taking the cues and utliizing tools they are given and making good progress.

We have a soccar field directly next to the home. Trinity House ownsalarg peice of land that will be built on one day when we expand. In the meantime it is being used as a soccar field. Claude generously dontated money to have a bulldozer come and plow the soccar field flat, as for thelast week the boys have been out there with brooms attempting to, 'flatten,' the field and level the grounds. Monday-Thursdays at 4:30 - 6PM the boys of Trinity House as well as many local neighborhood children are taught how to play soccar. The same 25 year old handsome young Haitian who teaches the local neighborhood kids school through the Trinity House outreach program, is the soccar coach as well. The kids are absolutely thrilled to be able to have this new field!

The outreach to the local neighborhood children consist of approximatly 15 children. Most of these children are very malnourished and find it difficult at times to concentrate. Unfortunatly Trinity House does not currently have the f unds to have a feeding program for these kids. They are sent home after school having arrived to school with no food, only to leave to go home, to little if any food at all. Every day they come running to my door as they know I always have a supply of cnady on had. "Mwen Grangou!!" (I am hungery!) they say. My heart is broken. I cannot do enough...but I continue to hold and love and assist these children anyway that I can in the given moment.

Yesterday I prayed for a divine appointment. Ask and you shall recieve. I was in a l,ocal bank and saw a white man...(not many of those around!) I said, "Bon Swa!" (good MOrning!) and he replied with a "hello!" I walkd around the corner only to return back this white man, asking him where he was from. Long story short, this man is here in Jacmel, Haiti with Youth With A Mission. He is a staff member from the Wisconsin base, doing their outreach here in HAiti. THere is actually an YWAM base here in Jacmel that is staffed by 5 other people,one man I met from Virginia. I myself did a Discipleship Training School through Youth WIth A Mission in Townsville, AUstralia in 1998. I know YWAM very well and having met other YWAM'ers, is essentially meeting family. So once again, I have found more family, even here in Haiti, and am looking forwards to going to visit them and their base this evening.

The weather is warming up. Nearly daily I take the kids to the beach. Two days ago the boys all recieved haircuts, they are now all nearly bald. Having ten naked bald headed black Haitian boys swimming under the glaring hot sunshine in the ocean makes for a difficult time of recognizing who is who! The beach is visible from our home,it is about a five- ten minute walk to the ocean. It is a scene from a ad for a Caribbean vacation. The natural beauty here is extravagant. You would never know that the way American media portrays Haiti.

Yes there are protests going on due to the elections, the planes quit flying again and many roadsare blocked off, creating the impossibility of peoplegoing anywhere. In Jacmel the demonstrations are not bad. Port Au Prince and some of the larger cities are having a lot of political unrest. I am not affected too badley here, fortunatly there is no violence or outbursts taking place at this time.

I will post this quickly asI am afraid of loosing my work again. The power has been on a long time, its due to be shut off anytime now. I love you all and I am very happy to be able to report to you that things are well.