As we wind down 2020, many thoughts to look back on and many more for the future. In the beginning 2020, the kids were in Oregon and Linda and I were trading places every few weeks. The kids and I spent most of the year in Oregon trying to get back to Haiti, before finally arriving in August. Once we arrived, most of my time has been spent repairing things that had issues; The generator had a dead battery, the gas in the pickup was bad (I had to completely remove the gas tank from the truck to clean it), Linda's KitchenAide had bugs in it again, and many other minor items were in need of attention.
 |
| Inside KitchenAide |
 |
| Toyota gas tank |
We also returned to a rat infestation. They are mostly staying outside now, but they are quite comfortable just running around the yard in the daytime. I have had ten traps set up outside for over a month and only caught one rat. This has been very frustrating. I have tried multiple different types of traps. They seem to learn quickly, and are reproducing faster than I am catching them. I have looked for a BB or pellet gun to buy, but they are not easily found here. I was told by another American that they must be registered like a regular firearm (this is very expensive). I am going to try to make some alternative.
In March, Linda took second place in her second bodybuilding competition. This is a great accomplishment. She has worked hard for this, and we are proud of her. It has been a great way to promote the gymnastics, as well as the fitness training business she is running. We have stopped gymnastics for December, and look forward to starting again in January.
As you might remember from an earlier post, the Haitian government has been manipulating the exchange rate for the currency. They injected US dollars into the economy to bring the exchange rate down. The exchange changed from 115 to 60 in just a few days. This made everything effectively twice the cost for us in Haiti. The current exchange rate is 67 gourdes for a US dollar, so for those of us with US money everything is still about 40% more expensive than in September.
We were privileged to bring some Christmas party supplies up to be sent out to Sonis and given to the students. The motorcycle road is not yet paved all the way to the village, but we hope to see that completed soon. We are hoping to get supplies to the village on motorcycles instead of carrying everything in.
 | |||||||||||||||
| Christmas party supplies |
As we finish this crazy year, please pray. So many of our supporters have been affected by the COVID-19 restrictions and we are receiving a lot less support (down 75-80% from last year) This coupled with the exchange rate, we are really feeling the pinch. Please prayerfully consider supporting the work we are doing here in Haiti.
