Dear friends,

Now we have the middle of March already and since a while I wanted to send this mail. But today I will give you some highlights of February.

February is always a busy month. The gardens are promising us a good harvest. The sad thing was that we lost about 2 months due to the flooding and too much rain. But now we are very thankful that there is bountiful harvest!

February is also the time for midterm testing. There’s a lot of tension on campus because some students suddenly realize that maybe they should have studied a little bit more. Now, they’re all waiting for the results by the end of the week. Please, continue to pray for our young people, because it is not easy to balance work and study. Next week we will starting with the second semester but also accepting a new class of students for the spring term.

February we celebrated the third year anniversary of one of our intern’s churches. Frantz was the godfather and was invited to preach on this special occasion. The church is in the area hit severely by the hurricane in Oct 16 and until now there’s still a big need out there.

Februar is also work team time where we received a group from the Midwest to help with maintenance at SEED. One of the highlights was a visit to the island seeing what our intern is accomplishing there and church at another intern’s church in the country.

February was a highlight for Manuel because he was raising 8 German Shepard puppies. He’s still very busy with his chickens from breeding, hatching until laying hens. We are still waiting for a final word on his student visa. Thanks for your prayers.

Beginning of March we celebrated the graduation of Luxama, a young man who lived with us for the last 4 months. He is studying to become a teacher but took Bible classes and finished them successfully. His family is very proud of him. They have 8 sons and are thankful for all the help they can get.

Beginning of March I flew to Minnesota because I had a free ticket. I am visiting Daniel who is in his 4th year. He still needs another year in order to finish all his courses. Now we are taking care of some things like new passport, in summer student visa renewal and some clear direction for his studies. A big prayer request.

At SEED we are still waiting for a decision about the bypass and the land issues have not been resolved yet.

Thank you so much for your encouragement and for your prayers. We really need them. We will keep you posted.

May the LORD be with you and bless you richly,

Doris (Minnesota) and Frantz (Haiti)

The kids aren’t bothered by not having a roof!

We got a big smile out of grandma!

Workteam from the Midwest visiting the intern on the island

Still many churches and houses to be repaired

Busy students working their plots

New life on the farm

Best cucumber plot

Clinic exam (castration)

A class of first graders visiting SEED

Frantz preaching at one of our intern’s churches

Dear friends,
As promised, attached find some pictures about the evaluation of our interns. Twice a year, Frantz, Arsene (assistant director), Dr. Destines (vet), and George, our chauffeur are going out to visit and evaluate our 26 interns spread on the Southern peninsula.

Arriving at the extension post everyone involved in the program meets at the church. After devotions, people are sharing about their experience with the interns and the SEED program. The goal of the internship is not only to gain experience but also to awaken people’s interest in develpment. The positive aspect of this program is that everyone is welcome and the intern is there to be a testimony to the whole community. As Jesus has told us to go into the world and be his disciples.

Different sites will be visited after the program and the intern evaluated. In the last months the emphasis was on soil conservation and reforestation. Vegetable production is in most of the communities not possible due to the heat. As you can see in some of the pictures it looks really dry. Many areas did not have any rain since several months. Please pray for rain!!!

Before leaving people can take some seedlings along; among them cedar, mahogany, mango, papaya, oak, etc. Hopefully they are taken care of well and not being used for charcoal later.:-(

We were very thankful for the Lord’s protection on the evaluation since most of the roads are not asphalted but very treacherous. We are also very excited that we see a real interest in the different communities where people want to improve their lively-hood and work against erosion.

Thank you all for your prayers and your encouragement. Have a blessed Sunday. May the Lord be with you in the coming week.
In His Service
Frantz, Doris, and Manuel

PS: Daniel has decided to attend North Western University in St Paul, MN. We are very pleased with this decision. We’ll tell you more in our next update