ECHO--Sharing ideas and experiences

ECHO (Educational concerns for hunger organization) is a non-profit, faith-based organization whose vision is "to bring glory to God and a blessing to mankind using science and technology to help the poor." One of their main goals is provide access to documents and other information for those who are working in agricultural development. Jenny and I were blessed to be present at ECHO's campus in North Fort Myers, Florida, from February 3rd through March 18th. We had great fun sharing stories and experiences with ECHO interns and ECHO staff members. I have been benefitting from the resources that ECHO offers since my first experience with them at their annual agricultural conference in 1996.

http://www.echonet.org/

Below are photos and explanations of some of the ways we were able to share information and ideas in very practical ways.


Cistern made from tires, as part of the Haitian house "yard" at ECHO. Noah Elkhart (see explanation below) agreed to try out a modification of a technique I learned from folks at COSECHA (see, for example, article, http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/magazines/global/using-every-drop-of-water/what-we-have-learned)

The tires are smaller than the ones I learned to use from the COSECHA technicians, but the principle we used are the same. The four tires have part of the two inner walls cut out, then they are sealed together with roofing tar and 3/4" nails. Noah made the base from cement blocks and motar, with a spigot built in. I still need to hear from Noah as to whether the cistern leaks or not.

Beth Doerr from ECHO, showing Keila (and Mark and Jenny), a pump system that is simple to make, easy to use and quite durable. This one is applicable when the water table is fairly close to the surface, wtihin 20 feet, I believe. One of Beth's multiple duties is to organize the work of the interns and assure that they are learning and sharing what they learn to the maximum. Beth also manages ECHO's appropriate technology pavillion, which is an extensive, hands-on resource for straightforward technology that farmers with limited resources can apply in many contexts.

A rural kitchen in Haiti. This is the image the ECHO intern, Noah Elkhardt and I used to develop a plan for a Haitian rural-style house in the area of ECHO called the Global Farm, which showcases agricultural systems from a number of different climatic zones in the tropics. http://www.echonet.org/content/globalFarm

Noah (green shirt inside the house) working on the Haitian house, an example of common construction techniques in rural Haiti. Noah is responsible for the roof-top gardening area of the Global Farm. Ruth Portnoff (middle, green shirt) is another ECHO intern, responsible for the Rain Forest area.

Rather than native Haitian woods, which are not available in the swamp forests surrounding ECHO, we used treated lumber. Species used for the corner posts used in Haiti for this kind of house would be 4-6" diameter logs of mesquite, or "bayawonn" (Prosopis juliflora), blackwood, or "kanpèch" (Haematoxylum campechianum) and possibly for the corner posts, simarouba, or "Bwa blan/Fwenn" (Simarouoba glauca). Wood for the main pieces of the roof would often be 4" eucalyptus logs (Eucalyptus spp., but most comonly E. camaludensis). "Bwa blan" (S. glauca) logs might also be used for the roof cross pieces.

The 2-3" slats used for nailing on the tin roofing would normally be cut from mango (Magnifera indica) boards. In ECHO, Noah used bamboo because bamboo is readily available on the Global Farm, and because ECHO staff has access to electric drills, that can drill through the bamboo without splitting it. In rural Haiti, this part of the roof, together with doors, windows and the framing for the doors and windows, would be the lumber components that would have to be purchased. A typical house might require approximately 2 1/2 dozen mango boards, about HTG 4,500 (haitian gourdes), or $US 112.00.

The base, rather than using cement blocks, would be made from rocks, mortared with cement, when possible, but they could also be mortared with clay and sand. This border would hold fill dirt, raising the floor of the house up out of the extreme wetness during the rainy season. When the family has some additional funds, they would cover the dirt with a thin layer of cement to seal off the dirt floor and make the house easier to clean.

The walls of the house are woven bamboo. In rural Haiti (Hinche, Central Plateau), the walls would be woven like this, but farmers would split small chunks of 1-2" logs, such as leucaena or "lesena" (Leucaena leucacephala). If the structure is something like a kitchen, the walls would not be plastered, but the main house would be, using a special soil of heavy clay, preferably a white clay, when possible.

Outside the house, to the right, are benches for vegetable tires, old tires turned inside out that folks in the Central Plateau of Haiti, and some other areas, are using to produce vegetables. Getting the tires up off of the ground keeps animals away from the valuable plants, makes it easier to weed them and check them for insects, and makes it possible for small amounts of water to be used effectively. Using the tires also allows family to gain total control over the productivity of the soils, adding relatively small amounts of manure to improve production, as they see the necessity. The vegetable tires are also an excellent way to make use of the family's urine, which is almost always collected during the night inside the house. Diluted betweenn 5 and 10:1, the urine can help double vegetable production, depending on the type of vegeble being grown--leafy vegetables respond more than "fruits," for example, spinach or amaranth watered with urine will generally show a more dramatic response than green peppers or tomatoes.

Noah was planning on using at least two of the tires for redworm production, which is another excellent way for households to make use of kitchen and animal waste to produce low-labor compost that is highly effective in increasing vegetable production.

Keila at the beach with Claire, the daughter of the Global Farm's Mountain Intern, Matt, and his wife, Anna. The ECHO interns made our stay at ECHO a lot of fun, as well as providing a lot of information and ideas that I am starting to share with the Road to Life Yard and Moringa production crew members in Haiti, via internet.

In the States

Eating a meal together with the interns at ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization). Jenny and Keila and I served at ECHO in North Fort Myers, as missionaries in residence.

Jenny and Keila with Jenny's parents, in Managua, Nicaragua over Christmas.

Hey Friend,

It has been a whirlwind period since Jenny and Keila and I were in Nicaragua over Christmas, spending time with the Nicaraguan part of the family. That time was pretty relaxed, and even included a few days in one of my favorite places in Nicaragua, Pearl Lagoon, on the southern Atlantic Coast.

But once we got back to Haiti, January 18th, we had just two weeks to finish dotting i 's and crossing t's before heading to the States for at least seven months. Somehow we got the most important things done, and ourselves and Keila packed, and we headed north on February 3rd.

It was a long trip, but made a bit easier by the fact that this flight we had a seat of her own for Keila.(That also allowed us to carry more luggage, which was fortunate. Keila's ticket may end up paying for itself.) Our destination was not my parents' home in Ohio, but rather Fort Myers, and specifically, an organization called ECHO (Educational concerns for Hunger Organization: http://echonet.org/). A longtime friend from ECHO, Danny Blank, picked us up at the airport and delivered us to our temporary home, where we were welcomed as missionaries in residence for a month and a half.

Arriving late, with no food in the house, the young men and women working as interns at ECHO welcomed us into their homes for dinner. It was to be one of many meals we shared with the interns, and was particularly special because we found other guests from Guatemala, who spoke Spanish, as well as one of the interns with experience in Haiti, who could speak Haitian Creole with us. We were far from family, but at least linguistically, we felt immediately at home.

We got to cross the sunshine skyway bridge over Tampa bay on our way to speak at Hope Presbyterian Church in Clearwater, Florida

The next six weeks were full, and for me, included ten days of speaking to a multitude of folk in Presbytery of the James (including Richmond, Virginia) and Presbytery of the Peaks (mostly in Blacksburg, Virginia). We also had the chance to visit as a family with folks at Hope Presbyterian Church, in Clearwater, Florida, near Tampa, that has supported us for two years now. It was an all round good trip and a very beautiful drive along the coast to and from Clearwater.

One day, Jenny and Keila and I had the chance to go to a beach south of Fort Myers, with friends from ECHO. Keila was thrilled. Jenny and I were quite happy as well, although the water was not yet terribly warm.

The time at ECHO seemed to end extremely abruptly, although not without signs of our having been there, which we'll mention in the next blog. Now Jenny and Keila and I are home in Ohio, with our family family, versus the folks at ECHO who in a short time became very good friends and something much like family.

There is still much to do, not the least of which is getting ready for the new addition to our family. Jenny is due the beginning of July. And no, we do not yet know the gender, although as my Dad says, there is very nearly a 100% chance of it being a boy or a girl. We have also applied for residency for Jenny, which was tedious and complex, right from the start, and will involve a number of additional steps. And of course, there are many churches to visit and friends to catch up with.

Thank you, all of you, for all of your prayers and your support. In December, Mom compiled a list of all the churches and individuals who are part of our mission. I wish it were possible to make a personal connection with each one of you. Please know, at least, that we are overwhelmed by your generosity and grateful for your presence in our lives.

In Christ,

Mark, Jenny and Keila

One year later: re-edited

Septembere 2010. A team of MPP (Mouvman Peyizan Papay--Farmer's Movement of Papaye) members put together sacks of basic food items for families in the Central Plateau area who were still caring for relatives who fled Port au Prince after the earthquake in January. The food was purchased with funds MPP received as part of a comprehensive response and recovery program financed by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).
It's easy for Jenny and me to remember where we were one year ago today at 4:45 PM. We were in MPP's cyber center, working on e-mail, together with Mulaire Michel, my Haitian supervisor, and one or two other members of MPP (Farmer's Movement of Papay--Mouvman Peyizan Papay). Jenny was the first one to identify the shaking we felt. "It's an earthquake" she said. Jenny lived in Managua, Nicaragua for over half her life, where minor to moderate quakes are common. Managua itslef was hit in December 1972 by a 6.2 quake that destroyed much of the city and killed over 5,000 people.

Before the earth stopped shaking, Jenny and I told Mulaire, "God help us if the center of that was near Port au Prince." More than once we'd looked at the houses built on houses in Port and wondered how they would ever stand up to the earth moving that happens in Managua. "Thank God," I had said to myself, "there are no earthquakes here in Haiti."

Working in Nicargaua for six years, I was impressed by the quality of construction that is required by law there. All buildings have at least the minimal requirements for surviving a quake. In Haiti, construction workers do amazing things with very limited resources. The house Jenny and Keila and I live in in Bassin Zim is a wonderful example of this. But earthquake resistance requires good building materials and solid engineering, not just ingenuity. In Haiti, professional expertise is hard to come by and quality materials are extremely expensive. People flocking to Port au Prince looking for a better life, for health services, for jobs and for decent education, live where they have to and build however they can. And the Haitian government has never cared enough to enforce any type of building codes, whatsoever.

December 23rd, 1972, 5,000 were killed in Managua, Nicaragua, 20,000 were injured and over 250,000 were left homeless from the 6.2 quake. January 12th, 2010, after less than 50 seconds of a 7.0 quake, over 200,000 Haitians had died or would perish under the rubble, at least 300,000 people were injured and over one million left homeless. During the next three or four months, approximately 800,000 refugees would migrate away from Port au Prince, looking for homes and some kind of security. Many came to the Central Plateau area, where MPP has been working and growing for more than 35 years.

In Papaye-Bassin Zim, we started hearing the stories Wednesday morning, January 13th. Lele, the brother of Moceline, the woman who has been working with Jenny in MPP's health clinic, was on his way out of Port when the quake struck. He was in a pickup truck that serves as public transportation, and everyone in the truck, including the driver, thought something was wrong with the truck. So the driver stopped, and everyone quickly got off. Some ran into a nearby building. Lele was blocked by other folks running past him, and didn't get into the building. Seconds later, he told me, pieces of the building collapsed and some of the passengers were killed.

Fenes Louis was in Port when the quake hit. Fenese is the MPP driver who always brings Jenny and Keila and me to Port for errands, or to catch a plane out. Fenese often took naps in an alcove under MPP's former office on Delmas 39. He usually parks whatever MPP truck he's driving in that space, but this time a truck from another organization was parked there. Fenes thought about just climbing in the other truck for his late afternoon siesta. But in the end, he didn't. He left to do some other errands. Half an hour later or so, the MPP office building collapsed and crushed the other vehicle. No one working in that office died, and only one or two suffered minor injuries.

Most of the stories we've heard have been from the friends who survived, and all the stories seem miraculous. But some stories have imbedded in them the anquish of the tragedy. Veline Saintilmond, the assistant coordinator for the Road to Life Yard and Moringa project, told me about her niece, Shelley, who was at school in Port when the quake hit. Shelly is in 8th or 9th grade, and she and her classmates always received their classes on the third floor of the three-story private school building. When the shaking finished, Shelley told her aunt that she came to lying on the floor, with an aching head. The building had collapsed completely, but somehow, she says she doesn't remember how, she mader her way out of the ruins of the building, into the street. There were no stairs left, but she didn't need them. The "third" floor was now at street level. Only those on the third floor surived at that school.

People ask us if we were affected by the quake. In the sense they mean, no. We felt the shaking, but even our house, built of crumbly blocks, weak cement and little rebarb, suffered no damage. When Jenny and Keila and I drove home that Tuesday evening, I fully expected the house to be in shambles. It wasn't, though, and no one else in Hinche, Papay or Bassin Zim lost their homes, either. But for the last year, we have had to live in a country where over 3% of the population perished in less than one minute. Just for comparisons sake, if something like that happened in the States, it would mean somewhere around 8,400,000 men women and children. That is inconceivable to me and to you, and so is Haiti. When I'm asked to talk with people about the situation in Haiti, it is still very hard for me to get the words out, "Over 200,000 people died."

In Nicaragua, with a fraction of the mortality and homeless, the earthquake of 1972 is still seen as one that country's defining moments. I have worked in Haiti for a total of over eight years, and been involved with Haitians in one form or another for some seventeen years, since grad school at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. But I have no idea how exactly the tragedies of this past year will work themselves out. Besides the earthquake itself, Haitians suffered from hurricane Ike in November, and a cholera epidemic that began at the end of October. At last count, over 3,800 people had died from that scourge. Elections in December offered some hope of change, but only brought new despair when current government officials cynically twisted the results in their own favor. And now, one year later, in Port, Léogâne, Petit Gôave, Jacmel and other communities clustered around the quake's epicenter, there are over 1 million people still homeless, or with totally inadequate housing, i.e. a house with a tin roof, but with walls made from the original tarps provided by the international agencies.

As this day ends, and the people of Port au Prince, and all of Haiti, look to the new year, things do look pretty grim. But we can count on at least three sources for hope. One, is the strength of the Haitians themselves. They are the descendants of the a people who threw off the yoke of slavery and declared for themselves the right to live free, in a country of their own making. The people we know are deeply affected by what is happening in their country, but they continue to live their lives with love and laughter. We have often seen our friends and neighbors at their best when they are dealing with the worst.

The second source of hope I see are organizations like MPP, working at the grassroots, helping farmers and their families, providing them with tools to build better lives, including the ability to demand that political leaders act with integrity. Members of MPP voted heavily in December, and it is their witness, together with resistance from many other sectors of the society and the country, that has so far prevented the government from completely and unabashedly stealing the elections.

Finally, and most importantly, I find hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, who died to create a holy space for our salvation, our total salvation, mind, body and soul. Christ's miraculous resurrection calls us to live our lives free from despair. Christ conquered death and we are promised that death no longer has any power over us. Haiti's resurrection will be no less miraculous, and is no less certain. Our friends, our neighbors and our work partners are already witnesses to that reality.





Here are a couple of websites I found that had clear information about the exact location and the extent of the quake.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010rja6.php#maps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake

Jenny, Keila and Mark

Jenny, Keila and I reached Managua, Nicaragua last night around 7:30 PM. We had an uneventful trip from Managua, except for the family sprint we had to make in Panama city to get from the arrival gate to the departure for Managua. By the time we stepped off the plane, they were announcing the last call for passengers for the Managua-Guatemala City flight, and we still had to wait for Keila's baby carriage which was still stashed under the plane. Jenny walked a fast walk with Keila while I waited for the carriage, then I took off running after them.

If by chance, the two people I knocked down as I ran by loaded down with two laptops. a medium-sized carry-on and Keila's carriage are reading this, I'm very sorry.

In Managua, when immigration deterimined that we were flying from Haiti, they had members of the well-organized Nicaraguan Ministry of Health pull us aside in order to give us prophylactic medication to make sure that we are not carrying the cholera bacteria. The medical personnel that treated us noted that one mother said her son would never take the pills. "But he did," our doctor said, "I had to take the pills, too, but, hey, it worked, you know?"

Jenny and Keila and I are well. Our friends and work partners in Haiti are also generally doing well, which is amazing. We've made a number of hospital runs with the crew truck, but crew members and close friends are doing all right.

But cholera has hit people hard in the whole area around Hinche-Papay-Bassin Zim, where we live and work. Please do keep Haiti in your prayers and especially, pray that there will be fundamental changes in the government. It has been a government of the wealthy for a very long time. It continues to be so. Preval, the current president, went to great lengths to make sure his people won the elections this past November 28th. The hope of Preval and his fellow party leaders was that there would be few contenders. But there were many valid contenders, and they were all far more popular than Preval's candidates (the "Inite" party). So, when the partial results indicated that almost all of the Inite candidates were frontrunners, the fraud was evident and the response was immediate, with protests and riots just a couple of weeks ago. This past Monday, the government was supposed to announce the final results, but they chickened out. Now? Who knows.

In terms of the cholera epidemic in Haiti, my sense is that many people consider the cholera epidemic to be a result of the thousands of refugees without adequate sanitary conditions in Port au Prince, Leogane, and other cities near the epicenter of the quake. That is not the case. It may not have made the mainline news, but the epidemic started in the Artibonite valley, which is a region north of Port au Prince where there was not heavy damage to the houses and there have not been large camps of refugees in tents at all. As my friend, Robert Morikawa notes, the cholera epidemic didn't start until 10 months after the earthquake, and it started far away from all of the most heavily affected areas.

In fact, there are many good reasons to suspect that the source of the cholera epidemic in Haiti were United Naitions troops from Nepal,stationed in Mirebalais at the head of the Artibonite valley. Sanitary conditions at the UN military base in Mirebalais became abominable, based on several news reports, and as a result, raw sewage began seeping into the Artibonite river watershed. The worst seepage began in late September or early October, just weeks before the first cases of cholera were identified in St. Mark, where the Artibonite drains into the Caribbean sea.

Two additional notes about the cholera. First, in March 2010, concerns for a cholera epidemic in Port au Prince were minimized by world health organizations, noting that cholera had never been present in Haiti and was considered unlikely to show up, because the vast majority of the aid workers coming to help with earthquake relief were from countries with good sanitation. Second, CDC (Center for Disease Control), out of Atlanta, Georgia, has positively identified the type of cholera present in Haiti as the southern asian cholera, endemic to such countries as India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

There were protests against the UN forces in early November, which the UN passed off as politically-related. There may have been political implications, but the fundamental source of the anger was the fact that the UN is a foreign military presence which has now caused the death of over 2,500 Haitians. Biological warfare, or simple incompetence, it has made Haitians victims yet again.

Flooding, earthquakes, cynical and self-interested political leaders, and cholera spread by the United Nations foreign, troops. Violence in all its forms is unproductive, but what can people in Haiti do to get the world to really listen"?

If it takes burning tires, I do wish the tires they burned would be the ones we can't turn inside-out anyway.

Many blessings.

Some links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12021400

http://fiusm.com/2010/12/03/united-nations-refuses-to-accept-responsibility/

Haitian Elections 2010

The Toyota Landcruiser that normally serves MPP's project, The Road to Life Yard, provided tansportation for voters during elections yesterday. Voters were enthusiastic, walking hours to get to polling stations and then waiting hours more, at times, to get the chance to vote.

Polling station, Los Palis (Third Section, Hinche, Central Plateau)

Elections in the municipality of Hinche went fairly smoothly and without violence. I hung out with Fenese, the MPP driver who used the project truck to help transport voters to and from polling stations, and to help deliver food to MPP election observers who were stationed inside the polling stations to help make sure that the voting was done fairly.

MPP carried out an incredibly intense and well-organized process of motivating rural farmers and their families. MPP also helped train and motivate election observers. The results were very apparent yesterday. The ill and the elderly, women with nursing babies, made their way down the mountains to cast their ballots.

It is possibly the most exciting thing I have had the privilege to be part of in my nearly seven years of serving with MPP.

While many of the political parties literally paid voters to vote for their candidates, MPP leaders and organizers held rallies and talked, sometimes community group by community group, explaining their ideas, as well as listening to the hopes and dreams of the rural participants. It was not democracy as we know it in the States. Exposure to television is mostly limited to the World Cup and newspapers in the rural areas don't exist at all. An illiteracy of 49% is also, of course, a huge factor. How do you get a message across when people don't read and don't have television? Even radios are limited by the batteries that people can afford to buy.

In the end, many people decided that as members of the Farmers Movement of Papay, they are first and foremost members of an orgainzation that is truly working to make a difference in their lives, and they voted in faith that the candidates that MPP endorsed would work with the same vision.

It was an experience. There were many reports of relatively minor fraud in the polling stations in Hinche where Jenny and I had Haitian friends who were working as election observers. In part due to their vigilance, in most of those stations, the voting remained under control. Unfortunately, word is that their was widespread fraud throughout most of the rest of the country.

One report that I just found on Internet (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/11/haiti-election.html) suggests that the turmoil was related to the problems of the country, the chaos related to the cholera epidemic and the after-effects of the earthquake. But that is not the analysis of the leaders of MPP. Together with all of the leaders of the main opposition parties, they point the finger at the party of the current government--Inite (Unity). Fanfan (Philefrant St. Nare, MPP's candidate for the Haitian Senate) told me that the government thought they would be the only participants in the elections. When they saw that they could not slide back into power without a struggle, and then found out that they could not buy the people's vote, they decided to win the elections through fraud, or cause enough chaos that they would have to be annuled.

What will happend next? Only God knows.

As you pray for Haiti, please pray for the poor farming families who voted with their feet and with their hearts. Pray that their efforts may not be in vain and they will find new hope, beyond, perhaps, all expectations.

In Christ,

Mark, Jenny and Keila

Cholera Update

Hey Friend,


Just a note to let you all know that Jenny and Keila and I continue to be blessed with normal health. We continue to take normal precautions to prevent intestinal problems, including, and especially, to prevent a close-encounter with cholera. Please continue to hold us in your prayers, and all Haitians, as they struggle to deal with yet another tragedy.



Cholera, floods, the earthquake, all of these tragedies are caused or affected by poverty and poor governance.

The current cholera epidemic has been magnified by the lack of clean water for drinking, cooking and bathing, as well as inadequate sanitation. The response to stem the epidemic is hampered by poor infrastructure and inadequate medical facilities. The reported death toll may, in reality, be as much as twice as high, according to a conversation Jenny and I had with Chavannes Jean Baptiste, the executive director of MPP (Mouvman Peyizan Papay--Farmer's Movement of Papaye). Because roads are bad, public transportation in many places non-existent and public health centers few, many of the victims never receive any medical assistance and their deaths remain unregistered.

Many efforts are being made to spread information that can help stop the spread of the disease. Messages and information are being broadcast via cell phones and via radio stations about how to prevent and how to treat the disease. But lack of basic education is a problem. With over 45% of the population over the age of fifteen unable to read or write (google: haiti literacy), there are many basic concepts that don't translate easily. What does hand washing mean to someone who knows almost nothing about microbes, viruses and bacteria? Without solid understanding of disease mechanisms, it is also easy for many diseases to be understood as the effects of witchcraft. And witchcraft of course, can only be treated by witchcraft.

A Haitian friend I was talking to yesterday asked why the government wasn't organizing health brigades to go out into the countryside to share information and resources. Wilfrid asked why groups of young people couldn't be going house to house to really give people a sense of the urgency and effectiveness of the methods for keeping themselves healthy--providing, house by house, packages of powdered chlorine for treating the water, and packages of mineral salts for making rehyrdation fluid. National and international agencies are working with the government to treat the sick, but really, only a national effort, coordinated and energized by the national government can have the kind of extensive and profound impact needed to change the underlying causes feeding the epidemic. Haiti does not yet have the kind of people in government that are willing to make that happen.

National elections are a week from Sunday (November 28th). This may not be a good time for elections, but it may be, too, that they will offer the country hope for real change. Keep us in your prayers, keep the people of Haiti in your prayers.

Thank you.

Mark, Jenny and Keila

News about Interpretation Assignment 2011

Jenny, Keila and Mark, in Managua, July 2010. Photo by Hypatia Bent

Hey Again,

Another note to let you all know that Jenny, Keila and I will be in the States from February through, approximately, June, 2011. For those reader who are members of churches who provide support for our work with MPP (Mouvman Peyizan Papay--Farmer's Movement of Papaye) we would be happy to work on scheduling a visit to your church or your presbytery.

Please contact us through our PC(USA) Mission Connections website:

http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/missionconnections/hare-mark

We will also be trying to put together an updated address list of supporters. Once that is put together we will mail you all information about possible dates you could host us, or me. We will be working on getting residency in the States for Jenny, so she will not be readily available for travel.

We will be serving as missionaries-in-residence at ECHO during February and March, so during that period, we would prefer to focus on churches in the vicinity of ECHO's center in North Fort Myers, Florida (southwest Florida, just north of Naples). We currently have an engagement from February 19th-February 25th.

We look forward to hearing from you!

In Christ,

Mark, Jenny and Keila