For the second year in a row, our vacation bible school (VBS) has chosen to help support the wonderful people who live on the Island of La Gonave.

We received this letter from Dori Rothenthaler, an RN from Grand Rapids, MI who recently returned from her first trip to La Gonave. She has kindly given us permission to share it (we added the pictures). We think you will enjoy it. Here it is, unedited, and in its entirety…

A few weeks ago, eighty-five children way up in the mountains of La Gonave completed their very first year of school. Ever. They started with nothing, essentially. To house it, we found a dilapidated and abandoned, tiny old church building that was pretty much unsafe.

Looking out my office window, I watched some workers open up a fire hydrant and walk away. For the better part of the day I watched a 50-foot gusher of water land uselessly in the road. Must’ve had their reasons. “Cleaning out the lines,” I figured. Someday I’ll ask them.

I sit in my green Adirondack, book in hand, but dozing off. Sensing something, I don't know what, I crack one eye open to see an inchworm just inches from my face, having descended from one of the tall oaks in my backyard.

I've tried to sit down and write this post numerous times, but for some reason nothing ever seems quite right to describe what we did in Haiti. So, I'm going to try a different approach.

A man from Pikamabe showed up at the Starfysh house a few weeks ago to ask if we could give them some water filters–they had had several cases of cholera in their village.

Since the beginning, folks have asked why we spell Starfysh the way we do. Their question, simply: "Why the 'y'?"