January 31, 2011

About Haiti:

Haiti’s farmland is some of the least productive in the world. Widespread deforestation and poor environmental controls have stripped most of Haiti’s hillsides bare, the best topsoil washed downstream long ago.  And demonstrated as recently as 2008, alternating spells of drought and tropical storms can wreak havoc on the country’s large number of small-scale subsistence farmers.  Agricultural development programs are one of the most practical types of ministry in Haiti. If feeding programs are essential for short-term and life-saving relief in Haiti, then agriculture projects are essential for long-term improvement. Without them, there will never be lasting “relief.”  NHCM is working to develop agriculture initiatives ranging from reforestation, to food production, to fish farming, to clean water projects.

Quick Facts

• Only 2 percent of Haiti’s forests remain.
• 71 percent of energy used in Haiti comes from charcoal.
• More than half of Haitians have no access to clean water – 17 percent still filter dirty water with a cloth just to drink it.

Spiritual Prep: 

We are watching the world change before our eyes.  Not that it hasn’t been visible before, the extreme nature of it now calls for our attention.  I have been to Egypt and understand the cry of the people for a better life.  A gift we have been given in the United States, is a country founded on the freedoms granted by a Creator and governed by men with our consent and that it can be abolished by us if it becomes destructive to that end.  (Declaration of Independence, 7/4/1776) 

I pray that as the Egyptian people peaceably march for that same right of self determination, the tyranny of the extremeist will not fill a void and become the only hope and voice for a people desprately in need of wise leadership.  I pray for an extra measure of wisdom upon our leaders in the days ahead.  Lord, calm our world and silence those who would prey upon the situation.  In You I ask, Amen

Training Prep:

Bike night.  Looking to do an hour.  I am a little sore from the weights.  Moved up to more weight gradually but can tell I am at the right level for a while.