Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Claude & Angels

 Claude & Angels. blurb not blog

We are in the process of sending tuition money for the coming semester so that means lots of emails, texts and phone calls. The prices are never the same or due at the same time. It is Haiti.
Following a lengthy apology for asking, Fedner said he needed $50.00 US for an engineering project at the same time he needed the $350.00 for the semester.  He said he was not attending seminars and explained those are extra credit tutorials that professors do for a price. Projects are required for graduation. A few months ago we paid for some tests and exams because he had developed a loud continuous noise in his ear that was very distracting. His parents had taken him to a doctor but did not have money for a specialist. He still has the noise but says it goes away sometimes.
He also gave me the news that prompted this note. Boss Claude, the young man who made 3000 prayer angels for us after the 5 hurricanes, is his cousin, which we knew, but did not know that he has been very ill.  Last I talked with him his wife had left him with their 3 children and gone to the Dominican Republic to work. He looked very sad and underweight then but now is dying. Fedner said he is praying to die.  Fenders’ parents are caring for him and his children.
Guess, I want to say, if you happen to have one of the angels, please hold it and pray for this fine young furniture builder, father and businessman who has no will to live, now. No more Claude; no more angels. I gave him the pattern and he registered his “mark”. He is the second of the young businessmen to die since we left the island.  They die young in the remote areas.
Enickson starts his last of 10 semesters in May.  His engineering major is Computer Science and has been the priciest of all. Of course he has needed more equipment and bigger projects. I spent a week with him and Gamaniel, another Civil Engineering student, in November. They are now such professional young men. University in Haiti is serious business.  They cared for me as if I was royalty and make me promise to let “everyone” responsible for their education, know how grateful they are.
Another Nursing Science major has 4 of his 10 semesters left and that is our last university student who will graduate with assistance from Round Up For Hunger funds, angel sales, and support from individual congregations.
The ten other students in vocational training, college and High School will be graduating in two years. Only one has had issues with grades. We were unaware his first year was spent as a restovec for his aunt who refused to feed him if he did not do “special favors”. At the end of the year he returned to SaP as a skeleton. We enrolled him in a school that provided meals and he has done well since.

Joe goes in June with the Andover team and will visit the orphanage in Ansagale that is in dire straits now; he will talk again with staff at the Guest House that we hope one day to have a micro lending program for; and look at the clinic in SaP that is now open full time. He probably will not see Boss Claude. Dang.