Since 2009 Christ the King Church has been helping with an orphanage construction project in Haiti that was supervised by some Americans. This group hired Haitians to do the majority of the work. By employing the Haitians this way they were given an opportunity to earn money and develop their skills.
In 2011 God provided an opportunity for Christ the King Church to do some church construction. There are multitudes of villages that either have no church or the church is meeting in a very feeble building. With their limited resources they sometimes start building the walls and then get to an impasse with the roof. In October 2011 four of us went down and were able to put a roof on a 48’x 82’ building with the help of around twenty Haitians.
It wasn’t long before a missionary called and asked if we could help with the roof on another building that had been under construction for two years. Since then we have been scheduling our trips with a Christ The King medical team every three months. Typically we could use three to five Americans with varying levels of construction skills. The Haitians are eager to do the work, but we need men to watch and make sure the directions are understood. In each location we hire some of our regular trained men and ask the church to provide some volunteers. Since the team has grown in their skills and they understand what we are expecting, they can prepare the site ahead of time for our arrival.
Ongoing Ministry Opportunities in Haiti
Our trips are scheduled for the second week in January, April, October and the last week in June.
Our last trip was to the village of Grison Garde in a remote area that is not accessible by vehicle. Volunteers of every age carried 15 truckloads of sand and gravel across a ravine in spackle buckets, along with 2,500 cement blocks, 350 bags of cement and a truckload of lumber.
We were able on an eight day trip in October 2012, to build the foundation and start on the walls. In the following months the Haitians completed the walls and prepared it for a roof. In January we were able to return and complete the roof by Saturday in time for a Sunday service. What a celebration. The building will be used daily for an elementary school, a church building, and also serve as a community center.