So, you want to build a school.

This journal recalls 8 days spent in Les Cayes, Haiti and on the Haitian island of Ile a Vache (Island of the Cow). For several years now, I have envied my wife, Carole, as she and others have been going to Les Caye performing various mission activities ranging from medical and dental clinics to working along with missionary Nora Leon as she leads an elementary school and orphanage for 15 young girls at her site and oversees an orphanage of 15 elementary age boys a block away. Even though they live off site they get daily education at Nora’s. I have been saddened to learn of the harsh realities that exist there and on Ile a Vache where Grace Lutheran School of Ile A Vache is located and a Lutheran Mission has been in operation.

This spring, one of the men who participated in a trip came back and told me, “We just have to gather a team of men to go back to Ile a Vache and see their dream of a new school gets built”. Well the spark from that conversation led Wally, Ed, Art, Doug, Paul, Bob and I to plan for 8 days of work at whatever the Haitian mission leadership needed us to do to make the vision and dream of a school to educate as many as 500+ students a reality.

Pictured from left: Art Duffy, Doug Duffies, Ed Juris, Rev. Bob Hoffman, David Bowers, and Paul Lexow.  Not pictured here is Wally Senney.