• January 28, from 9 – Noon Grand Prix Workshop (Design and build)
• February 25th, drop in anytime between 9 and Noon – Mandatory weigh-in
• March 3rd, 11:30 – 2:30 RACE DAY!

Click here to see photos of the cars being designed and built in past years!!

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse. Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian ministry led by Franklin Graham, the son of Dr. Billy Graham. People across the country are filling shoe boxes with small toys, school supplies, hygiene items, and other meaningful gifts.

This Christmas season, a needy child overseas will receive our shoe boxes, along with Christian literature in his or her own language. What an opportunity to reach these children with a clear presentation of the Gospel!

Thanks to ALL those families who were a part of this exciting opportunity to share God’s love with a hurting child.

Midway children pray over the shoeboxes before they are sent.

On August 14, our Treasurer Chris Freiburg gave an update on our finances during the 11 AM worship service. You can watch it here:2011 Mid-year Financial Overview

Members enjoying good company and a variety of excellent chili!

We had a great time hanging out, breaking bread together and a little tag football to boot. Click here to see photos!!

Hint: When viewing most of Midway’s photo galleries, you can use your “arrow” key to move easily from image to image…

Barely two weeks into the New Year life for Haitians dramatically changed with 7.0 magnitude earthquake. As did many others, we went into immediate relief mode.We always describe ourselves as doing Christian community development and not charity relief, but this situation necessitated a temporary change in order to address the urgency of the moment. We have mostly phased out of that phase now; but because we are still receiving relief boxes from the US we are still handing many things out. Our L’Exode students are going to have one of their best Christmases ever this year thanks to all the generosity of supplies sent.

HAITI_SCHOOL_003b_11X17_web

I do have one quick request. L’Exode Secondary School (click on concept picture above for more information) is our main focus and to make it happen I need your financial help. I’d like for each of HCDF’s friend to give or collect $1,000.00 before January 12, 2011 so we can break ground on the new complex that I believe is so vital to the future of Fond-des-Blancs and the recovery and reconstruction of Haiti. I know we can do this. We have to do this. Thank you.

Jean
Once the immediate emergency response was finished we gave much prayer and thought to what our long-term response should be. Our main goal is to build a middle/high school. Many of the buildings that went down in the earthquake were schools. The community has been asking us for a secondary school ever since we first built the primary school. Now we have decided to do it and make it a boarding school so that any student that lives too far to commute can still be a part of the school. These students could be from the cities or from the countryside, but can’t walk or afford public transportation to get to the school on a daily basis. We are in the process of raising funds for building the school and dorms. We are receiving a lot of architectural and interior design help from some generous friends. We are very excited about a library of 2000 books and bookshelves that were donated by a French speaking library in Montreal.

Two things that were already in place and continued full force were the community garden and the work of the bulldozer. The garden was an experiment and went very well and is continuing. It grows many vegetables not normally grown in this area. Hopefully the farmers will begin planting these in their own gardens as well. The bulldozer has been in constant use for the last few months building or improving roads all over the Fond-des-Blancs area. It was also used to help clear a road after the storm caused by Hurricane Tomas. The water level of the river on the main road was too high so this secondary road was the only choice for a few days. The group would have never been able to catch their plane if the bulldozer had not been here to “smooth” the way.

The Caleb Institute has had to be redefined for the time being. The funding did not come through so Jean is disciplining only with the three students that are local to this area. He does this in a refurbished classroom at the school. The three students are very important to the ministry of HCDF.

L’Exode primary school went through a lot of changes after the earthquake taking in students from the city and adding door ramps upstairs to ensure the second story children could get out without having to squeeze down the stairway. These doors were possible since the school is built into a mountainside to which the doors can be lowered. The cholera scare has also forced us to add more places where they can safely wash their hands. So far cholera has been contained in our area. It has been brought in by people from the city, but the local hospital was able to treat them and also treat their families even before they had symptoms. It is becoming a serious epidemic in other parts of the country, but it is a disease that can be prevented with proper hygiene; so we discuss that with the parents and the students almost on a daily basis.

The presidential election problems are making it difficult to travel around Haiti easily, but with proper planning we can still do all that we need to do. Our son, Josiah, is scheduled to arrive on the 19th. He had to get special permission to leave his job at school early, but we want to get him home before the final official announcement from the election results that are certain to trigger another round of violent protest. We’d appreciate your prayers for Haiti, the decision of who will be president and for that person as he/she needs to guide Haiti into uncertain future.

Last May our son, Jacques, graduated from Berea College. He was expecting to be in the Marines by now, but past health complications have delayed his entry. We are still waiting for a final confirmation. Also in May our foster daughter, Manise, graduated from dental school in Nashville and is now practicing in Memphis. She stayed very focused and determined through the years and is now reaping the benefits. Lemec is still living and working in Fresno and Fonia and her family live in New Orleans. Jean and I were empty-nesters for a few months and then Jacques came home for a few months. He has been in charge of the ESL classes while here. We will soon be empty-nesters again.

Isaiah 40:28-31 “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.”

These verses are the comfort Haiti needs. There is a Creator and while we cannot understand why some bad things happen to some more than others we can have hope and receive His strength to do what is necessary.
Thank you for your continued prayers and financial support of us and our work in Fond-des-Blancs, Haiti.

Merry Christmas,

Joy Thomas

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November 2010 Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

As you know, the storm was not as bad as it was first predicted to be. We couldn’t be more relieved or thankful for that. Thank you for your prayers. It would have been another major disaster if the eye of the storm had hit Haiti with full force. Instead the eye moved all the way west of Haiti and followed the channel between Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. This was good news for everyone, but we are hoping the threat of the storm will remind everyone that the work from the last disaster needs to be moving forward much faster to ensure better safety for all the population of Haiti.

Jean and I watched the approach of the storm on the internet. Right up to the last moment it looked like the eye was going to go over the southern peninsula where we live, so we were trying to prepare for the worst. We were letting everyone know they could go to our old house, the school or the church or go to a neighbor with a stronger house. The storm arrived 12 hours earlier than we all expected, but thankfully no one’s home fell apart even though there were tons of rain and enough wind to do minor damage. We had at least three large trees in our yard that lost their top halves and the street was littered with large and small branches.

Monday and Tuesday had been vacation days from school and the rest of the week was scheduled to be exam days. We usually give three days for exams, but we decided to do longer days and push it all into two days. Wednesday was bright and sunny with no problems. Thursday morning looked iffy, but it was not raining and all the students came. By the time it started raining almost all of the classes had been released. I found the first graders still in class and insisted they be released even if they weren’t finished yet. They may have gotten rained on, but not too badly as the rain quit for a couple of hours that afternoon until it started later in the evening and didn’t stop for the next 18 hours.

A group of 13 volunteers had arrived October 30 to spend the week with us. We have four locations where we wanted to build homes. We were hoping they would be able to complete three of them. They were able to complete a two room unit and 3/4th of a slightly larger four room house. A member of the group left earlier in the week because we weren’t sure how quickly we could get them to Port-au-Prince after the storm to catch their scheduled flight and his job required that he be back. This left 12 people whom we insisted all should come to our home for the night. Our new home is across the creek from the guesthouse. We knew our small creek would become a raging river and we didn’t know how long it would stay impassable and didn’t want to be stranded apart from them. We were able to spread out on the front and back porches until the wind got stronger and then we all had to find a place inside. It actually never seemed too overly crowded. The ladies and I had a slumber party in our room while Jean and the guys spread out throughout the living area and the boys’ room; Jacques got some privacy in Jean’s small home office. It did not rain all day Friday, but enough rain had come Thursday night that the river did not get to crossing level on Friday so the group also spent Friday night with us. They had come with snacks for breakfast and lunch and I made them lentil soup for dinner.

They were scheduled to leave early Saturday to spend the night in Port-au-Prince and catch their flight home Sunday morning. They were packed and ready and then had to sit around all day because our cars couldn’t cross the larger river at Lhomond and the alternative road had fallen rocks and large rain crevices making it impassable also. We had recalled the bulldozer ahead of the storm from the mountain community where it has been cutting new roads since August. We sent it out to try to make the alternative route passable. It took all day and it was still the roughest ride Jean says he has ever done on our roads, but we got them out and they made it to the city by midnight

While we were taking care of the group Saturday morning, the school was having its regular first Saturday of the month parent/teacher meeting. We normally have a couple hundred in attendance; only 50 parents came, but we were thrilled and pleased with those faithful 50.

The whole country has given a huge sigh of relief that no part of the storm was as big or bad as we thought it could have been. On the other hand, it is still our hope and prayer that the work to get everyone out of the tent cities will progress even faster before another threat arrives.

We cannot thank you enough for your thoughts and prayers.

Yours in Christ,

Joy Thomas

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October 2010 Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

We have been on the go for the last several weeks. Many possible projects are being spoken of and worked on to move them forward to reality. The possibilities are all very exciting, but to do things well good planning and preparation are necessary.

We took a quick trip to the Atlanta to meet with two groups who will hopefully work together on a project that will bring electricity to Fond-des-Blancs. Everything looks promising on this, but we would appreciate your prayers as those in charge make the final decisions. While in the States we took a trip up to Berea to watch Josiah play soccer and visit with him for an evening. On our way back we stopped off in Knoxville, TN, for a scheduled visit with professors and students in the fields of engineering and architecture to discuss their coming to do field studies for a road paving project and surveying the land for the middle/high school we wish to build and a new housing development for teaching staff. Jean and I were excited to see how excited and enthusiastic they were about coming to Fond-des-Blancs. Their Fall break was just a few weeks after our visit and they committed to coming at that time.

They have come and left. Their time here was short, but they hit the ground ready to work to get all they could get done, done. I had a lot of fun being surrounded by so many intelligent, determined, eager young people and their professors. They collected all their data and are now back on campus putting it all together to aid us in a presentation for the paving project and plans for the school. As a personal bonus some of them also agreed to work on a design plan for cabinets and cupboards in my kitchen.

In the meantime L’Exode Elementary School and Preschool began the new 2010/2011 academic year. We are one of a handful in all of Haiti that opened their school doors in September. All the rest put off opening until mid-October. Some had reason and some waited because they could. We are very pleased and encouraged by our parents and students who understand that education and the number of days spent on it are important. We are also grateful for the teachers who were willing to start “early.” The footbridge we had built over the small river many of the students must cross to get to school survived strong winds and flashfloods, but it was not able to survive being slammed into by a large truck filled with charcoal. No people were hurt in the accident, but the truck and the bridge were destroyed. We had a new and improved one built and it was put in place for service during the first week of school.

(To donors who sponsor children at L’Exode: If you are planning to send a Christmas gift to your child and have not yet done so, we request that you make the gift small enough to fit into a large envelope and not a box. This will enable us to receive the gift without it having to sit in customs.)

We are excited about the possibilities for projects that will enable the community of Fond-des-Blancs to advance into the modern world that can improve their lives. Please pray with us as we wait on decisions and funding for these and other projects.

Yours in Christ,

Joy

September 2010 Newsletter

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August 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

“And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.” Gal. 6:9

Many years ago my sister brought a volunteer group from her church in Oregon to visit us in Fond-des-Blancs. A few years after that when I was visiting her in Oregon one of her friends from that group did a beautiful watercolor painting for me and in calligraphy printed the above verse in the corner. I have kept this painting in a prominent place in our home ever since.

It is easy to grow weary when His timetable is not always our timetable or when it seems most circumstances seem to be working against anything good getting done. Right now we are in a time when lots of things are not happening fast enough for the people of Haiti. Since the earthquake we have not stopped asking God for guidance in what is best for us to do in our community under these new circumstances. It turns out that what we wanted to do before the earthquake is what we need to be doing now. Some doors are closing and some doors are opening. We are trying to take the fullest advantage of those that are opening. We are looking at possibilities for further road improvements, electricity for the community, bigger agriculture projects, and more schooling opportunities.

Some small steps taken already apart from the crisis response were the success of the first community garden. We are still waiting for two tractors on their way to help more farmers. The bulldozer is now in constant use improving some roads and creating new ones. We recently received a library of 2000 books plus library shelves for the high school. They will be housed in the elementary school until we get the high school built. We have also hired a woman who will teach at the elementary school this year, but also begin putting together policies and curriculum for the high school.

Our first L’Exode students are now becoming young adults and in this new age of communication we are hearing from many of them which are giving us great encouragement. Mostly via Facebook; we have heard from students who are now in Canada, France, the Dominican Republic and the United States. All of them are in college or recent graduates. We have also had visits from several who are still here in Haiti and are doing well. It seems when you give children a good educational base they and their parents do whatever it takes to keep them going.

The one thing about aging is having more situations we can refer to when we have seen the evidence of God working in our lives. Reflecting on those times is helpful in getting through times that seem frustrating at the moment. We are not weary of being or working in Haiti even when progress is not easy. We thank all of you for your prayers and support throughout the years and now.

Yours in Christ,

Joy

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August, 2010 Newsletter
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Dear Friends and Family,

The months of June and July flew by us with lots of school activities and visitors keeping us busy.

Jean Francois and his family moved out of our former house where they had been house-sitting for the past two years and moved into their own newly built home. We have needed to use the big house as our guest house since the teachers had to move into our guesthouse after giving back their rented home to the owner coming back to Fond-des-Blancs after the earthquake. Some of the first guests had to help us get it cleaned and remove more of our stuff out of the rooms. One group came with a sewing machine which they generously left with us. While they were here one member of the group made curtains for what we are calling the VIP guest room and for the English Second Language classroom down at the school. A group from Georgia painted the upstairs rooms and a room downstairs. A group from Fresno painted the rest of the rooms, part of the outside and put up new screening. This work is transforming the big house from our old house to the Caleb Center where Jean will spend the next three years training six young men to learn to plant churches and do Christian community development in areas outside our current area of activities. We will be talking more about this in future letters.

This month marks six months since the earthquake. As usual, nothing is moving quickly. We know a lot of medical care has continued. We were very pleased to receive a visit from Ralf who is walking with a prosthetic leg and a cane; he is up and around with a good attitude. We also know that everything necessary was done to ensure students were able to complete the school year. The exam for sixth graders was only postponed two weeks which makes us very glad we did not delay in opening our school in spite of parent complaints at the time. The government decided to split the students of our area between two schools. The younger ones took the exams at L’Exode and the older ones took them at the government national school. They used to always do the exams at L’Exode, but went somewhere else for a couple of years. We are pleased they chose to return. The exams for 9thgraders and 12th graders will happen later this month and early next month. As you have heard, as part of our plan in the decentralization of Haiti, we are choosing to open a quality secondary boarding school in Fond-des-Blancs. We are still looking for funding, but have received encouragement for moving forward in the last few days.

We have been getting rain in the last couple of weeks. This is good for the farmers in the rural, but not so good for the families living in tent cities in the urban areas. Sometimes it seems like Haiti is bi-cultural with the city and rural people living very different lives. The rural has less employment and educational opportunities, but gives better possibilities of family life, shelter, and food.

CNN reported problems with getting things through customs. We are very much experiencing this. After CNN made their report, the Haitian prime minister announced that the custom people have been directed to allow registered mission organization’s aid supplies to be allowed out of customs immediately with paper work being done later. Please pray with us that this will be true. We have two containers of supplies we have been trying to get released for the last two months.

During the last week of July our church held its annual conference. Members from all the satellite churches transformed the preschool/kindergarten classrooms into dorm rooms where they ate and slept so they could attend the weeklong sessions. There were lots of amazing singing by all praising the Lord and lots of teaching. There was also an afternoon dedicated to entertaining the young people. The objective of the conference was for fellowship of believers and inviting unbelievers to church.

Josiah has been running the English language center since he came home for the summer. He is also playing in a couple of soccer tournaments. It has been a pleasure to have him here and we look forward to Jacques’ homecoming for the month of August.

Please remember to pray for the development and financing of the Caleb Center and the Secondary boarding school (which is a middle school and high school combined.)

Yours in Christ,

Joy L Thomas

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July, 2010 Newsletter

Dear friends,

Some of you are longtime friends of the Haiti Christian Development Fund’s ministry in Fond-des-Blancs, Haiti. Others have joined us since the devastating earthquake of January 12. To all of you, I want to say a hearty thank you. Because of your generosity we were able to respond to thousands of the victims of the earthquake with transportation, food and clothing. We have hired a number of the ‘refugees’ with needful and meaningful jobs. We altered our enrollment guidelines at L’Exode Christian School in order to absorb a number of the students whose schools and homes were destroyed in the city. We have extended the services of our Credit Union to make business loans to the newcomers into our community.

We had the dream of retaining over fifty percent of those who relocated from Port au Prince to the security of Fond-des-Blancs but we may be losing that battle. The level of investment required for creating the economic incentive for them to remain in the community is currently beyond our available resources.

We would like to turn Fond-des-Blancs into a model rural community that would be an attractive destination to those still suffering in the city. We need to establish the basic services needed for businesses to flourish, i.e. water, electricity, sewage, communication, etc. The Credit Union needs new capital to extend its lending capabilities to existing and new businesses. We need to layout the framework for new housing development to accommodate the new residents.

This letter is focusing on the need to expand the successes of L’Exode Christian Primary School into secondary education.

One of the sectors most affected by the earthquake is education. Thousands of students died as they sat in classrooms throughout Port au Prince and their school buildings collapsed on them. Some have reopened under strained condition. Others just can’t. Most of the students are living in the raw conditions of the tent cities. These young people are the future of Haiti and their education should paramount.

Our solution is to establish a boarding school here in Fond-des-Blancs that will offer an opportunity to those students to continue their education in a safe environment that is conducive to learning. Some of the characteristics of the school would include:

Excellence –Literally the best school academically anywhere in Haiti.

Connected –This is the electronic age. The school will partner with other schools around the country and the world; every student will have constant access to the internet.

Socially active –Whether in the arts, sports, community integration.

All in a Christian atmosphere that aims to give every students from every walks of life an opportunity to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

We would like to open this Fall. This is a tall order. There are buildings to construct; staff to hire, enrollment to process. All require a ton of money. Visit our website (www.hcdf.org) for more detail on the vision for the school. We want to have $200,000.00 on hand to start construction; thus committing ourselves to the project. If you can underwrite the entire project, we will start tomorrow. If all you can give is 5, 10, 25, 100, 1000, etc… do it today. We will keep a progress bar on the website to keep you informed of how the drive is coming along.

I really need your help. Send whatever you can today and help us insure that Haiti does not lose an entire generation of young people.

Yours in Christ,

Jean L Thomas

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June 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Summer everyone. We, as a family, enjoyed the month of May. As a Mother’s Day gift to me, Jean sent me to see my mother. My sons have planned surprises for me all the time so I learned from them and surprised my mom with my visit, with my sister, LuVonne’s, help. I bought flowers and balloons and had my sister drop me off around the corner from mom’s house. LuVonne went to our parent’s door as expected, and then I showed up at the door hiding behind the balloons. Both of my parents assumed I was a florist delivery person and did not realize it was me until they heard my voice say, “Surprise!” I spent a week dividing my time between my sister’s home in the Willamette valley and my parent’s home on the northern Oregon coast. It seems I brought the sunshine with me and we had great weather for lots of walks.

I then flew to Atlanta where I met up with Jean. Our son, Lémec, joined us and we could drive together to Nashville, TN, where we attended our foster daughter, Manise’s graduation from dental school. Her birthday is this month and she is in her mid 30’s. She was born in Fond-des-Blancs and was 11 when we moved here and she became a part of our family. After 6th grade we sent her to Port au Prince for her secondary education. We did not pay for her under or post graduate studies, but we helped her get to the US on a student visa and then another family helped her with her continuing financial needs. We are proud of her because she took every opportunity presented to her and worked hard to take full advantage of each one, and now she is Dr. Manise Labady, DDS.

Even before her graduation ceremony was over we had to leave to drive to Berea, KY, to attend Jacques’ college graduation the next day. We were able to attend both his baccalaureate and graduation ceremonies. He was very excited to be graduating and had everything very well planned out for us such as where to park, where to walk, where to meet him and when. He is completing one more class and then will join us for a few weeks this summer before reporting into the Marine Corps in Virginia.

A couple of days after the graduations we flew back to Haiti. Josiah flew with us to spend most of the summer at home, and at the airport in Port-au-Prince, we met up with two young women from Kansas who came to spend a week with us. It felt good to be back in Haiti, but still shocking to drive through the devastation. There always seems to be more tent cities, but we did also see some signs of clean-up work taking place. We gave the girls a true Haitian traveling experience by having two flat tires on the way home and had to make a slight detour into one of the smaller towns on the way home to get one of the tires repaired. We did not get back to Fond-des-Blancs until late that evening, but they remained good sports about the ordeal and continued to be flexible and of good cheer throughout the week. They helped clean out Jean’s office at the old house so we can make into a guest room for visiting speakers to the Caleb Project. It was also the room where we had our bookshelves that leaned across the door during the earthquake. Fortunately, the room had a second door through the bathroom. They helped carry out all those books which will eventually find a home at one of the schools.

I asked for prayer for Ralf who broke several bones in one leg and lost the other leg as a result of injuries from the earthquake. He has now received an artificial leg and is learning how to walk with it. We have many students who came to us after the earthquake. Many of them are staying, but some had to return to their initial schools because that is where they were signed up to take their final government exams. The exams for our 6th graders will be June 30 and July 1. This is only a two week delay from the original date planned for the exams. For L’Exode students this will not be a problem as we were only closed for two weeks. I hope that those who didn’t get back to school until April will be able get a lot done in the next few weeks. Please continue to pray for the students of L’Exode and the rest of the students of Haiti.

We have many items that have been purchased to help us with our ministry here that need to be shipped to us. The last time we did a lot of shipping we lost several items. We are changing our methods which should help, but would still appreciate prayer that everything arrives well and in a timely fashion. We have two farming tractors, a container of supplies and a 6000 French books library needing to come.

We have already begun a farming cooperative. We are seeing both success and failure. We are successfully growing many vegetables that have not yet been grown in this area before, and hopefully we continue to learn from the failures.

Unfortunately, our new pastor was recently in a motorcycle accident and he was not wearing a helmet. He was severely injured but seems to be recovering well, but we are taking him to a neurologist to make sure he does not have head injuries that cannot be seen, but can still affect him. Please pray for him also.

We have many volunteer visitors coming this summer. We always look forward to visitors coming. Pray for safe travels for all of them. I will try to begin writing more often again to keep you updated on how things are going for everyone and everything. Perhaps if I write more often the letters can be a bit shorter.

Yours in Christ,

Joy

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Make sure to visit the Haiti Christian Development Fund homepage at
http://www.hcdf.org
Haiti Christian Development Fund
Box 934696
Margate, FL 33093-4696
954-727-3681