Dear Friends,
This Thursday, March 4th, our third (in the past 6 months) box-truck, packed top-to-bottom, front-to-back with project supplies, will be loaded up onto a cargo ship in Florida and begin to make its way to Haiti. By the end of next week it will arrive at its destination port in Haiti and we will begin our work in getting it through the customs process which is a lot of work and can sometimes take awhile. But our last two shipments came out fairly quickly and we’re hoping for the same thing with this one.
On the truck are more biochar (soil remediation) study supplies, along with furniture and equipment that will add the finishing touches to our outdoor classroom pavilion at Life Garden, just in time for our Spring Agriculture Conference in May.
Getting these trucks from Michigan to Haiti is work enough, but typically isn’t all that rushed of a process. Once the trucks are in our hands in Haiti, however, it’s “all hands on deck,” getting the supplies unloaded from the truck, loaded onto the boat, and sailing it over to the island, unloaded from the boat and then transported to either Life Garden or the Starfysh House.
The process can be a bit of a spectacle, especially when the boat arrives to the island with all the supplies in plain view for everyone to see. And, while we try to avoid a spectacle, I must admit that I think there is value to the buzz of whatever positive things may be happening on their island. I call it “hope.”
Hope is good. It’s an expectation of good things, pulling us forward to the future. Pray with me for a good future for La Gonave.
Steve Edmondson
The first supplies truck of 2021 ready for its journey to the Florida shipyard.
