Haiti

After Shirley and I were married, we returned to Haiti and 1983 and moved to the NW peninsula to work with small, struggling churches in that remote area. We spent 10 years training church leaders at 6 churches near La Coma and Boucan Patriot.

During this time, we realized that the Christian teaching materials available in French were of little help in the NW where most people spoke only Creole. In response, I began to write Creole Bible studies and Sunday School lessons. Little did I know that writing would later become my full-time ministry.

After arriving in Haiti in 1974, Shirley soon became the director of UFM International's House of Hope in La Pointe, Haiti. The HOH was a rural, 64-bed hospital on Haiti's north coast that treated children with Pott's Disease--a form of TB that attacks the bone. With a combination of bedrest, antibiotics, and surgery, hundreds of Haitian children were able to walk again.

Shirley also directed the Compassion International child sponsorship program for UFM's churches in Haiti, as well as working with literacy and many other projects.

There are so many needs in Haiti, and especially in the poor NW, that Shirley and I were involved in many kinds of ministry besides teaching. I installed wells, built schools and churches, built roads, repaired community water lines, etc. Shirley continued to work in community health and literacy, as well as home-schooling our children.

Missionary life in the NW meant 4WD to get anywhere, simple housing with a tin roof, catching rain for our water supply, outhouses, and no electricity except when we hauled fuel 8 hours off-road to occasionally power a generator. Many remote villages where we showed the Jesus film were only accessible on foot for by ATV. We loved it.