We just heard from Jonathan and wanted to share good news.  Jonathan’s brothers and their families (Jeremy and Claude), Chester and Nehmie, Moses (Mois) and his family, and Jean Jacques and his family are all alive and well.  They are displaced from their homes, but they are alive and unharmed.  Thank God!  We will keep you posted with any new information we receive.

Also, Luke Remmer, our friend from HandsAcrossHaiti.org, will be on the Today Show this morning.

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GRATEFUL

First, we want to thank everyone for the continued prayer, phone calls, text messages, e-mails, networking, and fundraising that has occurred in the last 24 hours. We have been astounded at the immense support and encouragement that we have received.

The CPI GUYS’ RESPONSE

Second, we have been wrestling over how to respond to the extreme devastation in Haiti. Waiting for information from our Haitian partners has been nail-biting. We still have no information about the health of our friends in Chauffard, the safety of our friends in Port-au-Prince, or the condition of the new building in Chauffard.

It has been on the calendar for a survey and expansion trip with Personal Partners in late February or early March. Obviously the shifting of the land has shifted our priorities for the next 60 days.

To handle the many requests for immediate emergency support, we have set up our Earthquake Emergency Relief fund. This will help with our aggressive reconstruction and damage assessment efforts over the next 60 days. This will be immediately followed with preparations for a massive reconstruction and recovery effort over the summer with our current partners, The Crossing, and our new partnership with FPC-Vine here in Lakeland.

This is a restricted fund used solely for Earthquake Reconstruction & Restoration.  Please find out more and donate here.

HEEDING THE REQUEST OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE ORGANIZATIONS

1.  Jonathan Capre, who leads the CIM network of churches and schools in Haiti, will be traveling to Haiti as soon as it is feasible to assess how the people of CIM have been affected by the earthquake.  We have 4 CIM churches and schools that are in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas.  Jonathan will be our hands and heart to these folks until we can be there. He will also be able to assess the roadways and transportation options available for teams to travel to Chauffard in the next 6-8 weeks.

2. To ensure that our friends and partners can participate in our efforts, we have set up our Earthquake Emergency Relief fund. This will enable us to send a small team (as soon as it is feasible) to deliver supplies and assess the long term needs in the CIM communities where we work.  This assessment will help us plan for late Spring and Summer projects with our current partners, The Crossing Church, and our new partnership with FPC-Vine here in Lakeland.

The CPI Guys and our partners are committed to this reconstruction and recovery, especially in the rural and outlying areas where aide and support are unlikely to reach for many months. You can help instantly by donating, joining our team in the spring, or, if you are a medical or search-and-rescue professional, please see The Red Cross.

Thank You so much for all you have done. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Most Passionately,

The CPI Guys

Kenny Ellis &

Grant Nieddu

on behalf of our Haitian friends and partners who still wait breathlessly to hear from.

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Hello, All!

As many of you have heard, there was a series of devastating earthquakes which hit very near Port-au-Prince.

The National Palace (White House) was destroyed, as was La Montana Hotel where key U.N. workers were permanently residing. (We have stayed in La Montana before with the CPI and CIM teams.)

For now, we are waiting to hear from our team in Chauffard to fill us in on the status of our friends, the team, and the bldg there.

Stay tuned.–Grant, Kenny, Jonathan, The Crossing, Chester, Daphney, Claude, and the entire Haiti team.

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Update from Grant:

So, the team from The Crossing and a small band of CPI-ites have stayed their first night in Chauffard.

If you are reading this, then you are probably not there! You are probably somewhere nice and warm where there is internet access and a cup of coffee.

They most likely woke up to a chill that drives to the bone, damp clothes and muddy shoes, and one of the most gorgeous sunrises you can imagine. They also probably woke up knowing that they were in a place positioned to make a huge impact.

Needless to say, I am very jealous that I did not get to go on this trip!

But, those of us who periodically stay behind must take comfort in the fact that we are holding down the fort to enable the teams to go and make a difference.

On this trip, Kendal Anderson’s church, The Crossing and his entire family made it down. This is important to them in that they have done missions around the world, however they have been building toward incorporating the people in Haiti in their family and church’s ethos. They want to build a long-term relationship with the people of the area.

Along with them, Kenny, 2nd-timer Liz, and 1st-timer Brien Morgan all made it down. This was important for Elizabeth in that, though she knows Kenny from the first trip and some of our interactions, she is making a stride independently, expanding her confidence that she can travel and serve the field without her closest friends. This is a large point of growth for her.

This trip is HUGE for Brien. He has never left the country nor served the humanitarian and mission field to this degree. I am excited to hear his report on how things went. To those who have supported him: Thank You!!

Transforming Travel

It is our immense pleasure to build personal partnerships like these. Transforming Travel is so much more than we first expect. Many times, people expect a missions trip to be a guided tour of a oppressed area, hug some necks and feed some bellies, and, when it is time to leave, cry a little and head home.

The transformation in the hearts of the traveler is impacted so much more. This is evidenced by The Crossing’s commitment to the new friends they made and to sowing into the area. This is evidenced in the passion that Troyce and Liz served medically. This is evidenced in the fact that Brigs flew around the world to visit these amazing people. This is evidenced in the life of Kenny as he serves tirelessly in those in-between moments of life (looking for work, serving as a father, serving in the church).

Transforming Travel, we believe, transforms us for life. And, of course, our acts of service are more than just a “sign of the Kingdom” to Chester, Milo, Willie and our other Haitian friends. They make significant impact in the mental, emotional and material lives of those serving and those served.

Gratitude

So, I guess I would simply say Thank You. Thank you to those who have supported us and continue to support us. Thank you to the you, family and friends, who have made sacrifices big and small which has culminated into massive improvements for our Haitian brothers, and shapes the hearts of the missionaries. Your donations have made all the difference in our ability to serve, so thank you all.

Invite

And, we would invite you to consider being so much more than donating. The door is wide for you and your loved ones to join us on a trip. Just contact us, and we ensure that you will be challenged and transformed.

Electrically,

Grant R. Nieddu
on behalf of CPI Guys

###

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Hello CPI Friends and Fellow World Changers! Here is the update on what we are up to:

• The CPI Guys are working on a high-impact calendar for 2010 with several Transforming Travel Trips, awareness projects (local work that YOU can get involved with), and cranking out some signature CPI Guys videos and articles.
• CPI and The Crossing Church will be heading back to Chauffard, Haiti in December for a week long project including pastor training, food distribution, children’s classes and strengthening friendships!
• Elizabeth Carpenter committed to using her first marathon ever, the Gasparilla Marathon, to raise awareness for our cause. She has also created an amazing CPI Calendar for 2010 – more on that later!
• A new CPI Partner, Brian Morgan, will be joining Kenny on the December trip to experience Haiti for the first time and explore ways that he can make a difference.
• CPI will be hosting a week long project trip for Vine-First Presbyterian Church in the summer of 2010.
• Awareness is growing! Our Facebook Cause has 333 followers and growing. You can have your friends join here www.causes.com/cpihaiti, or by going to our website and signing up for our updates!
• Our new CPI Prayer Team is focused on a list of ongoing challenges and opportunities.
• We have also added a new page to the Education section, ‘Exponential Growth by Incremental Work’, by Grant.

Wow – that is exciting stuff! Real people making a real difference – here and in Haiti…that’s what we are all about!

Feel free to contact us to find your unique place in the mission!

Kenny and Grant
The CPI Guys
www.cpihaiti.org
www.twitter.com/cpihaiti
www.causes.com/cpihaiti (Facebook Cause)

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Economist Paul Romer spoke at TED and offered a profound idea for making sustained improvements on the development field.

The CPI Guys have been in agreement for some time on urging a movement of holistic development. Though the focus has been on comprehensive development for the individual (see our 5 Major Areas), holistic development on the city level would offer several great opportunities for sustained development.

Chartered cities could be a huge answer to this. One good example of this already under way would be Nouveau Kiskeya on the coast of Haiti.

Check out the video and comment to let us know what you think!

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(from the blog of Grant R. Nieddu)

I recently consulted two young people who had an AWESOME idea for a humanitarian service.

It was the best idea I had heard of in quite a while. They came to me to learn how to launch their project. I have some experience in launching nonprofits over the years and they needed some guidance.

I love innovators; creative individuals who put together new and exciting ideas that can serve others.

This dynamic duo had done just that. They already had the correct mindset of successful people; opulent, abundance-minded, and service-oriented. Yet, there was one problem.

They tried to consume the entire thing at once. They didn’t take it one bite at a time.

The trouble with many start-ups (humanitarian, non-profit OR for-profit) is that few get going with the concept of incremental growth.

Exponential Expectations

Many entrepreneurs are idealists. They see the glass as half-OVERFLOWING. They love the challenges involved.

These are great traits to have. Further, I doubt a start up will ever turn over their engine without them! However, it is a commitment to longevity that I have found gets a mission on the road to long-term success.

The problem with entrepreneurial idealists (humanitariansl i.e. you AND me) is that we expect exponential growth immediately.

I have never found this to be true. I DO believe in exponential growth. I ALSO believe that it will be based on a foundation, and foundations, I have found, are built incrementally.

Creating Credibility

Humanitarians, more specifically, DEVELOPMENT humanitarians, rely strongly on good will. That means that, in exchange for donors’ good will (their donations), they will be seeking and searching for credibility. They want to know that their investment will bear a return. (That return being credible results in your service.)

Credibility can be felt. And lack of credibility stinks. People can smell a fly-by-night from a mile away.

What does it take to build credibility? Incremental growth. A strong foundation.

A millionaire I worked for called it being “a twenty-year overnight success.” He was implying that what the world views as an overnight success is actually the result of incremental growth and foundation building over the long term.

Translation

Plan on the long term. I definitely believe that it takes at least a year of planning and preparation before you make your first peep about what you intend to do. Only then will you have the infrastructure in place to make good on promises (and build credibility.)

Do the nitty-gritty tasks that you keep hoping to recruit someone else for.

In terms of our organization, I spent the last year doing short trips to Haiti, some of them alone with no fanfare. No bands welcomed me. Now donations showered upon me.

Even more, it has taken almost 4 years of sowing, sowing, sowing resources into the field and into our own self-education about what Haiti takes. All this took place before I even showed up!

BUT, exponential growth DOES show up overnight. Just now we are seeing e-mail after e-mail asking for more info. New twitter follower after new twitter follower keep adding us. New church partnerships show up.

We see the years of incremental growth. All they see is a semi-finished organization, which happens to look and act exponential.

So, can you get exponential growth? Absolutely.
When will it come? After you have put in the diligence of incremental growth.
What will happen if you skip the incremental growth? You will get a flash-in-the pan success with little-to-no longevity. This works for the person who initiated it, but has very little lasting benefit for others involved.

Dig in. Plan on the long term. (This demands commitment, so count the cost!)

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This is a very encouraging story of the heroism that many Haitians carry.

Gueston Pacius, a native of Gonaives and Christian Pastor, Haiti, was noted by the Christian Chronicle recently as more than a hero of the faith. After flooding in central Haiti had stranded 37 people on his house, Gueston swam through muddy water, facing the possible threat of further flooding, to find food and possibly dry land for the people.

Read the article here.

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Could a group of people get more dire?

$19, the price of a decent lunch, cost a Haitian living in the Domican Republic far more than that. He was killed in a fued with someone he owed that money to.

It is for reasons like this that we are doing all we can to improved conditions in Haiti starting with our work in the Kenscoff area.

Read the Full Article Here.

When asked why we have chosen Haiti, it is situations like these that we hope to eliminate for future generations.

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GEOGRAPHY and HISTORY

• Eight hundred miles south of Miami by sea, Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.
• There are more than 8 million people within its mountainous 10,000 square miles, making Haiti the most densely populated and poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. The population is projected to reach 13 million by 2050.
• Haiti is slightly smaller than Maryland in size
• The people of Haiti are descendants of slaves brought over from Africa centuries ago. In 1804, Haiti became the first Black Republic in the world, gaining its independence by driving out the French colonists.

HEALTH

• One of every five Haitian children dies of malnutrition, dehydration and diarrhea.
• Approximately 280,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in Haiti.
• A recent report from the United Nations Development Program described health care in Haiti as nearly catastrophic. One of every three deaths in Haiti is that of a child. With most people earning less than $1 a day, many do without basic medicine.
• Less than half of the population has access to clean drinking water, a rate that compares poorly even with other less-developed nations.
• Drinking water usually comes from a polluted river, a ditch or open pond.
• Food is so scarce and expensive that most Haitian children receive less nutrition than the average American house pet.
• UN labeled Haiti the 3rd hungriest country in the world (62% undernourished)
• The median age is 18.4 years, and the life expectancy only 57.03 years

RELIGION

• According to recent estimates, Roman Catholics represent about 80% of the population. Most of the remainder belongs to various Protestant denominations, the largest being the Baptist (10%) and Pentecostal (4%) churches. Other significant denominations include Methodists, Episcopalians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Adventists, and Orthodox.
• Vodu/Voodoo, a traditional religion partially derived from West African beliefs, is still widely practiced, often in tandem with Christianity. Voodoo became an officially recognized church in 2001 with the establishment of the Eglise Voudou d’Ayiti (the Voodoo Church of Haiti) and has had a growing attendance since then.
• Voodoo is derived from a synthesis of African religious beliefs. The word voodoo comes from the Fon language of Benin (formerly Dahomey) in West Africa and means “spirit.” When Africans of various tribes were brought to Haiti as slaves, they brought with them their beliefs in spirits who acted as intermediaries with a single God Almighty; some of these spirits were ancestors of the living, while others represented human emotions and forces of nature. In time, a system of beliefs and spirits unique to the slaves in Haiti was formed. These spirits, or loas, are inherited or bought by families and can be called upon for protection and blessing.
• Although there are a number of protestant churches and NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) in Haiti, they lack the training, education and resources needed to flourish and affect community-wide change. One obvious example of this is how common it is for some Haitians to profess faith in Christ while simultaneously practicing and believing many aspects of the Vodu/Voodoo religion. The overall affect of this syncretism is spiritual confusion, fear and compromise.

EDUCATION

• Of the world’s 104 poorest countries surveyed by Oxfam International in 1998, only 3 countries ranked lower than Haiti for the availability of basic education.
• Although education is technically compulsory, public schools are few and far between and terribly overcrowded, sometimes with over a hundred students in a single class. As a result, about 80% of all students attend private schools. These schools are financially out of reach for the majority of Haitian families.
• 50% of Haitians (age 15 and older) are illiterate. This number does not include the hundreds of thousands of children who are destined for illiteracy unless there is deliberate intervention.

“Illiteracy is a kind of prison. Illiterate people find their progress in life blocked in every direction they turn. They see literate people moving about unhindered, finding good jobs, reading and writing letters, working in offices, helping their children with homework, taking notes in meetings, signing contracts, reading in church and studying scripture, enjoying books. All the while they cannot even read the directions on medication for a sick child.” -excerpt from BeyondBorders.net

ECONOMY AND WELFARE

• The country’s minimum wage is US $1.70.
• 70% unemployment rate
• The annual per capita income is about US$450
• Only one out of every 400 Haitians is formally employed (wages, hours & place of employment)
• Haiti has had the highest rate of inflation among all Caribbean countries.

AGRICULTURE

• Haiti faces a severe deforestation problem. In 1923 forests covered nearly 60 percent of the country; today they cover less than 2 percent.
• By agronomic standards, the majority of Haiti’s land (63 percent) is too steep for agricultural production, and only about 28 percent is considered arable.
• Chickens are the most common livestock, but some cattle and goats are also raised. The country’s pig population was decimated when African swine fever swept through Haiti in the early 1980s.
• Most of Haiti’s farmers work subsistence plots of land that produce small amounts of cash crops. Soil erosion and overworked land are major agricultural problems, while hurricanes and drought have also taken their toll.

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