This last month we had a wonderfully interactive time with the Creator God and fellowship in His Son as our groundskeeping crew worked together on several projects aimed at beautifying the entrance of our maturing HAFF campus. Despite a very tight budget we felt God urging us to trust him that NOW was the time to put some dignity back into our surroundings. As we prayed, God led us step-by-step, opening our eyes to the free resources in our natural environment or which were buried in various storage depots.
In the late seventies parents helped bring rocks in to build the original foundation of our school buildings. There was gratefulness and pride in creating one of the first secondary schools on the entire Central Plateau. Similarly creating beauty at the entrance of our ministry brought us renewed hope in God’s ability to repair brokenness, even in poverty stricken and violence-ridden Haiti today.
Unsightly foundation without stucco; eroded land slanting off to the left
In recent years we reroofed and painted our administration building for the first time. This exposed the unsightly foundation which was never stuccoed or painted as other needs took precedence. Particularly to Haitian eyes it has always looked very unfinished especially on the side where we enter because the land slopes increasing downhill, exposing more and more of the foundation.
A retaining wall made of river smoothed rocks found around HAFF
With no money for cement and stuccoing, God gave us the idea of hiding the ugliness by building a retaining wall. He pointed us to the particularly unique resource of variously-colored, smooth, water tumbled rocks that are a mysterious part of our otherwise heavily-limestoned environment. We scoured the campus especially for the larger rocks, often finding them as part of old gardens or other long forgotten decorative borders. Each find became a special treasure from God.
Retaining wall with small river rock canal and lawn
The new wall next drew our eyes to the rain ravaged ground in front of it where years of erosion had exposed many rocks and large tree roots and nothing could grow. Directly under the edge of the roof we put a foot wide channel of smaller colorful rounded river-rocks, which provide multiple surfaces to slow down the powerful roof runoff during torrential rains.
Colorful plants with variegated leaves -- all called "flowers" in Creole
Since the wall is under the eaves and never receives water, we didn’t need to use mortar to cement the rocks together to hold in the soil, though we therefore can't plant anything in it either. However, it is an ideal place to maintain colorful plants in pots which can be traded out with new plants when they get too big or unsightly. HAFF is rich with a variety of colorful plants, many not readily seen in the community.
Gazon lawn bordered by Moses-in-the-basket and light colored river rock
Next, on the other side of the pebbled channel we wondered if we could create a lawn that would not be ripped apart by fast-flowing run-off. God pointed us to the vast resources in our compost garden containing years of decomposed leaves and grass and graded piles of the inevitable limestone rocks. Only after assembling three layers -- small limestone pebbles, semi-decomposed and then decomposed soil -- did we realize we had created a living sponge with multiple air spaces to allow water to gently percolate through and nurture the roots of our local landscaping sod called “gazon”. This luscious grass remains green all year and quickly spreads to form a very thick and tough carpet even across well-traveled paths.
Twenty years ago, we had no gazon at HAFF, but several landscaping projects later, we now even have a reserve from which we dug these squares of sod. For further erosion protection around the gazon we planted a native border plant sometimes called “Moses-in-a-basket” which we in turn protected by a border of lighter colored river rock.
Daily Devotions for Guards and Grounds Keeping Crew
The best part of putting our ideas and muscles together in this project, was that we started a new habit of beginning every morning with song, devotions, and prayer with a longer Bible study once a week. This time is very precious to every single worker involved as they have few other small groups in which to discuss Scripture on a deeper level. Our study of love and unity in the body of Christ, has already led to signs of greater compassion and forgiveness within the group.
Please pray that Christ's hope and renewal can continue to bless our ministry
Thanks for sharing our joy in this adventure of trusting and working with God as he revealed beauty and abundance in people and places we had previously often seen as ugly and barren. Please pray that HAFF can continue to show that the foundation of true riches is found only in a Christ-interactive life of prayer, trusting and action.
(Be watching for details on our second God-interactive project, the creative refurbishing of the oldest building on campus! See how the original house of our founder Lila Clark takes on a new purpose!)
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