Kofael: Ankourajman

Thank you so much to all those who donated and prayed for our Kofael families as the new school year began in Haiti October 1st. One of the biggest hardships for many Haitian families is to be able to purchase the necessary school supplies for their children to attend school as well as come up with the school attendance fees. The Haitian government has actually delayed the start of school the past three years until October giving the reason that they are trying to give families time to come up with the money so that more children will be able to attend school.

The women in our Kofael program struggle to meet their families basic living needs so paying for school and school supplies is a huge hardship each year. The past two years we have held a small donation drive in order to purchase some of the school supplies that will encourage the women as they strive to meet the needs of their families. Our budget to be able to do extra things is currently nonexistent after the recent hurricane in Haiti last month. Three of our Kofael families lost everything and are having to start over. Due to the hardship in paying back loans over items lost in the storm (that they can no longer sell), we are trying to cover some of their loan cost until these women can recover a bit. Therefore the money we needed to purchase school supplies was not available as school was quickly approaching. The other board members came to me very discouraged over this. We prayed and asked the Lord to provide through others so that we would be able to encourage the women and would be encouraged in our efforts as well.

We were so encouraged when the amount we needed ($200 U.S.) to purchase school supplies was donated by the last day needed to purchase the supplies in Haiti before our meeting on Saturday, September 29th...the weekend before school started.

Thank you so much to those who donated to this cause! I wish you could have seen the joyful smiles your generosity brought forth! One of our women received an additional blessing as her microbusiness through the loan we provided her is selling school supplies! Guess who we bought the $200 worth of supplies from...one of our own! I think we bought her out! What a great month for her family! What an encouragement ("ankourajman" in Creole) to all of us at Kofael!

Here are some pictures so you can share in our joy!

Frantz excited about handing out the school supplies.

The women were very happy to receive these blessings.

Everyone shared in the supplies as all the women have children, grandchildren or relatives they each help provide for so the children can attend school.

Women patiently waiting for the meeting to start.

Frantz sharing about the organization program expectations, announcements, and question/answer time. We do this at every meeting each month and then those that have received microloans pay back their monthly portion toward the end of the meeting (allowing those who are new to the program to leave if they do not yet have a loan to pay back).

My daughter Esmée helping to pass out the supplies.

We also had a donation of clothes that the women passed around, each selecting one thing for themselves. Every now and then we get to surprise them like this! They never know when we will have a surprise so this is motivation to make the scheduled monthly meetings!