CAMP ELIM: HAITI

The island of Haiti is about the size of Iowa, with a population of over 8 million people. It is an extremely poor country, with unemployment rates of 65%. A working man’s annual income is only about $260 (US dollars).

 

January 2010. Camp Elim is presently being used as a refugee camp after the earthquake.  Keep them in your prayers.

Camp Elim Ministries

Camp Elim ministries has been in operation for 17 years. The school, pre-kindergarten through 6th grade, currently has about 225 students, with 10 teachers. Summer camps also draw many young people each year, with an average of 120 campers each week. There have been as many as 192 young people attending at one time.

Camp Elim is situated on 16 acres on the southwest coast of Haiti. It is only about 120 miles west of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, but due to bad roads, the trip takes about 5-6 hours by truck.

The compound includes a school with 8 classrooms, a dining hall, an open pavilion for church services, and sleeping accommodations for 140 campers in the summer. There is also a large guesthouse, a parsonage, a workshop and storage building. We are presently remodeling an old chicken house and a bakery to be able to accommodate 30 more summer campers.

Due to the large proportion of young people in this country, we were challenged to build another camp 65 miles north of Camp Elim near Jeremie. Fort Grand A’nse includes two schools, one in the mountains and another at a nearby church. We have hired 13 teachers for these two schools. There are also summer camps with nearly 130 coming each week.

The facilities at Fort Grand A’nse include a meeting room for 200, which also doubles as a dining hall, four cabins, and an administration building (which also can sleep 14 campers if necessary).

Some of the Haitian carpenters

 

Your Involvement

You can help by prayer and financial donations. Be assured that every dollar given goes to Haiti. There are also opportunities each year to go there with a team of others. If you would be interested, see Roy Tosch.

But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his
brother in need and shuts up his heart from him,
how does the love of God abide in him?
-1 John 3:17