November newsletter

Buxman Happenings and Aid In Action                            November 2010
 Welcome to first mailed letter in a long time and first ever for all of you for Aid In Action. As most of you know, we have moved back to the United States after the earthquake in Haiti. The boys came home first, then Lisa and Don later in April. There are a couple of reasons with the foremost being stability and education for the boys, realizing that it is not good for them to switch back and forth in schools at this age in their lives. Also, we did not want them to be exposed to so much of the realities of the disaster and while we had ongoing ministry there we could not live in two countries as a family. We have been working and supporting ourselves since then. Haiti and ministry to the underprivileged around the world has continued to be a passion of ours and just because we now live in the USA does not mean we could not be involved. After much prayer, counsel and thought we started a non-profit organization called Aid In Action. It is a registered 501 3c and all contributions are tax deductible.
                               The mission of Aid In Action will be:
Help meet basic needs of the poor and needy, especially women and the children
Coordinate and  lead teams of construction, medical, dental, vision or educational
Help people connect with a different culture
Serve the needs of all people regardless of their beliefs

We helped lead a team from Crossroad Greeley Church in July to the Simone/Pele area, which is a very poor slum area. The team did children’s ministry, built church benches and put a new roof on the tent city church. The pastor was a patient of ours after the earthquake and we have built a relationship with him. His name is Pastor Exil, his church, school and his house collapsed and he was trapped inside. Here is a picture of Pastor Exil and me sharing a cup of coffee in the tent city church.

I returned to Haiti the first of October as a tropical storm had ripped the tarps off the church and damaged the roof structure. They had salvaged some of the tarps and fixed the roof as well as they could and then we purchased tarps so it could be covered again.
 With you help and support here is a short list of what Aid In Action was able to do while I was there.
Financially support Pastor Exil and his family for 2 months
Purchased paint for the benches, tarps and pipe for the roof, and speakers and microphone
Financially supported for the next few months the children’s ministry of about 60 children
Gave money for continued rebuilding of Pastor Farem’s house which will finish it
Beginning to assist Oriol with his home, he is one of our Haitian workers there

We are planning a trip to Haiti around December 4th through the 11th to erect a used military tent for the church  that will with stand up the weather there, possibly one similar to the one pictured.




In addition, we will be building a house for Pastor Exil and his family. Below is a house that we probably will be using as they are sold in Haiti and come in complete kits.              These are modular kits are made there so that the local Haitians have employment and are helping their own country. This house can be made into 3 or 4 rooms. Materials are pressure treated lumber and a metal roof including a concrete floor.

While on this trip, we possibly could do children’s programs or a medical clinic depending on the members on the team. Please consider joining us on the next scheduled one in February 2011.

 We are excited that Aid In Action moving forward as it had its first board meeting in September and here are some of the future goals and ideas that they have come up with:
Purchase property or a building that would become a permanent place for the church and school
Set up a sponsorship program so many more children can attend school
Educational programs and support for women and children
Support for Lisa’s program of training midwives in Guatemala. She will be there November 1st through the 11th and has been asked to help start an educational program for the traditional midwifes in the villages. Once this program is established, will be the pilot program in other countries.

Aid In Action needs you and your continued support to accomplish these goals. We all are giving of our time and no salaries are paid, leaving all money to go to these projects and people. The approximate costs for the projects that we will be doing in December are:

Tents for the church-----$2500 plus $500 shipping and customs.

House for the pastor----$3000 plus $1000 for tile or concrete inside and a patio.

$300 to finish repairing Oriol home

$100 per month for the children’s program

Please send you donations to:

Aid In Action
P.O. Box 337463
Greeley, CO. 80633

Also you can see more pictures and stories on http://buxmanhaiti.blogspot.com  

                                                       Or contact us at

Don  @ 970-301-6038                                          1900 68th Ave  #702        
Lisa  @ 970-396-3822                                           Greeley, CO. 80634

Thank you for being part of this and may you be blessed,



Don and Lisa Buxman

July trip and Pastor Exil

Pastor Exil's temporary church

Steve Wilcox and Seth Guin work on benches.

I, Don got to go to Haiti in July with a team from Crossroads Church in Greeley. While I was with Heartline Ministries after the earthquake I got to know Pastor Exil that was injured in the quake and was at the clinic for a while. He from Citi Solay slum area and had a church/school and his home in one building, it collapsed and fortunately he was the only one inside and he only injured his hand and eventually lost one of his fingers.  When Pastor Arnie from Crossroads and I visited him in March they had erected a temporary church with tarps, rebar and scrap tin to hold services in. It in is one of the tent cities and his tent house is on the backside of the church. There were a couple of benches made of scrap wood and a couple more made out of PVC pipe on the ground for kids to sit on.  Being from down in the poorest area of a country that is the 3rd poorest in the world they do not have the means to rebuild or even put benches in their church.

 It was Pastor Arnie's desire to partnership with this church and help them as much as possible. We built church pews and fixed the temporary roof with more tarps and pipe to hold it up. The team also held children's ministry programs in the mornings. We also showed the "Jesus" film one evening to 300+ people in the community there as Pastor Exil and the leaders used it as an evangelistic outreach.

Here are pictures inside the church with the new benches and the "new roof" on the church. It keeps the rain out and the owners of the property will not let anything permanent be built as they fear they will lose their land if they do.

We also took down donated wedding clothes to be worn loaned out to those needing them for their weddings and they promptly scheduled 3 weddings held together for us to attend in the church while we were there.

This is Oriel, a special friend of ours there and security guard and guide for us in this part of Port Au Prince. He is wearing a suit we brought down. Oriel will keep the clothes and be in charge of the loaning program.

Here is a picture just outside of the church, these are individual homes or tents usually made of tarps that have been given out by aid organizations in Haiti.






Aid In Action is now hoping to take a team into Haiti possibly in December and build a new house for Pastor Exil. This will consist of removing the rubble of the old church/school/house and then building a new home on in that space.  We have been looking into the possibility of buying property and building a church in the area there. This would take time, possibly two years, to make sure everything is done legally and to avoid problems in the future. A 100' x 60' metal building with concrete floor, benches and school desks and the land  could cost around $100,000. So many lives could be touched and ministered to in these slums of Haiti that many aid and mission groups avoid going to. Please pray for God's direction on this with us please.

Here is Pastor Arnie and Pastor Exil standing on the collapsed church/school and home.








Pastor Farem, Pastor Exil and his congregation and the are around Citi Solay are what God has laid on our hearts at this time.

Get to know Pastor Farem

Pastor Farem and his family live in Port Au Prince, Haiti or used to. They now live in an open field in a tent shelter with many other families. We have known them since 2000 when I made my first trip to Haiti on a short term mission trip. We have grown to love and care about them very much. Farem is a Mennonite pastor and like most pastors in Haiti he has work to support his family as the church pays him very little. I worked with Farem when we lived in Haiti in 2005 - 2006 drilling water wells and doing construction, he speaks English but his family does not. He and his wife, known as Madam Farem in Haitian culture have two children and also have taken in a nephew that his family can not financially afford to keep. The pictures above were taken last November at their home when they had invited us over to their home for Sunday dinner. He had lost his job and had asked us if there was anyway that we could employ them. I appreiciate them asking for work instead of a hand out. We were  not able to help them with employment but were looking for ways to employ them if we could.

  When the earthquake hit on January 12th the family was at home but all escaped injury as the house did not crumble down but it was damaged beyond repair and unhabitable. The family went to an open lot in the neighborhood and has lived there in tents and shelters since the quake. Through the help of our supporters we have given money to help start the tearing down of the house and start rebuilding. It will probably take around $7000 to rebuild the home to a safer hurricane/earthquake resistant structure.  

As you look at the pictures you can understand why they would not want to sleep inside these homes especially when there are aftershocks that come at any time of day or night and you can never know how much more till the whole house comes down.

  I (Don) will be going to Haiti from July 1 -10 to help lead a construction/childrens ministry team and I plan to help Farem with more finances for his reconstruction. If you want to help this family please let me know or send your gift to:
Aid In Action
P.O. Box 337463
                                                         Greeley, CO. 80633
Please join us in aiding a fellow brother in Christ so he can minister to so many that are struggling in Haiti.

Letter via email to those on our mailing list

Buxman Happinings 5/25/2010
We want to bring you up to date with what the Lord has brought us through and where he has us now. We have been so blessed to have you on our team as we have been through a shake-up in the last several months. I will try to do this in a short but concise way.
We had moved back to Haiti working with Heartline Ministries in October and we were getting settled and getting adjusted to life there. Lisa became very ill around Thanksgiving time with an intestinal infection that required a hospital stay there. We returned to Colorado in mid December to get higher quality care. The infection finally cleared up and with a drastic change in her diet (gluten free and dairy free now) she regained enough strength for us to return the 5th of January. On January 12th at around 4:45 PM, the earthquake struck, lasted around 45 seconds and devastated the country and killed 230,000 + people. Praise the Lord that our home, all of our working partner’s homes and our ministry structures stood with minor damage. We knew that our families, orphans, workers and those we minister to were our first concern and immediately moved the orphans to our home as it was the most secure as their walls had fallen down. With numerous aftershocks, death all around and chaos we decided to get our boys evacuated to the states two days later. Thanks so much to all of you that helped them with so much as they left nearly everything behind when they arrived here.
Within six days after the quake we at Heartline had transformed our women’s center into a clinic, had medical supplies and medical staff from the States up and running. We transported victims from the slum areas to our clinic for treatment and then took them back again. About 1000 patients were seen in the first couple of weeks. On the 20th of January, Lisa was an escort for the orphan children that had gotten humanitarian parole visas to be with their forever families and then came to Colorado to take care of the boys, get them in school and find a home to rent. Don stayed and worked in Haiti until the 18th of February and then came home to family for a few weeks.
The earthquake not only shook the earth but lives and ministries there too. Heartline is running a medical clinic and hospital that it did not have before the quake. There are no orphan children now; the women’s center was shut down for a couple of months before it started operating again.
Our lives took a turn too. We mostly are concerned for our boys as it is scary for them to live there in that house again, also with Shane and Trent in high school it is a critical stage and do not feel good about taking in and out of schools. Home Schooling is difficult in the high school years and even more difficult there with lack of educational resources to do it well. Our boys are settled back in and doing well now.
So here is what we are going to do……..
　
We still have a passion and desire to serve in Haiti and will do it from here. We want to still support the missionaries that we have been involved with there along with the many Haitians that we have come to know well. We plan to do that by starting a non-profit organization with a focus on specific needs of individual Haitians. You will be able to track you donation to a specific project or family and see the results. This organization will be funding source for rebuilding homes in Haiti, supporting projects and organizations and also taking in short term mission teams to do work projects. We want to help people to experience Haiti and have a connection to the place we love so much. We are already helping coordinate two trips this summer and probably two more later in the year. These are focusing on working with existing churches and pastors there and doing construction, evangelization and children’s ministry.
We will not be under the umbrella of Heartline Ministries any more as we would need to be full time to meet their criteria. We do continue to have a good relationship with them and part of what we will be doing will support their ongoing mininistries. Here is the new organization.

Aid In Action
P.O. Box 337463 Greeley, CO. 80634

We already have this registered as a 501(3)c and will have a bank account opened as soon as possible. ALL donations will go toward ministry as we are working to support ourselves while we are stateside. You can also start sending your money to the address above, Heartline Ministries will continue to receive money for a while, and then they will transfer it to the new organization.
We are initially focusing on Pastor Farem and his home. They have been close friends of ours since 2005, everyone in the family escaped injury but the house was mostly destroyed. We have given some money to start the rebuilding and it will take about $5000 to finish his home. We will be connecting with others also and will highlight them later.
At this time, you can access our blog site at http://BuxmanHaiti.blogspot.com to see pictures of Pastor Farem and his home. We soon hope to have a website up and running. We will have an advisory board and if you are interested in serving on it, please contact us, as we would love to have you on the team.
Once again thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you have done and also staying with us during this transition, words cannot say enough. I do believe that one day in eternity you will see the fruits of your giving. Call or write us if you have any questions.
　
Don, Lisa, Shane, Trent and Joey Buxman
970-301-6038 Don’s cell 970-396-3822 Lisa’s cell
Bux8@aol.com

Sorry

Here is the back of the C-17 plane that our military are transporting U.S. citizens out in after they had unloaded supplies. Lisa and the boys flew out on these.

This is a C-17 transport plane from our Air Force that I have been real close to as I pick up supplies from the airport. Awesome plane!!!

Sorry we haven't kept this up to date. Lisa has not had Internet and I (Don) have not taken time. I do write on Facebook at times so if you want to friend me you can see some updates there.

Since the quake we have had between 8 and 18 medical personal and guests here as they help us work the medical clinic. We had seen around 1000 patients in the first two weeks alone. They are from the slum areas that we work in or in our neighborhood. The slums had not had care or attention until last week by any of the big organizations or rescue teams. They generally are the last to get food and water and medical care because many are afraid to be there.

Lisa has been real busy with helping the boys get back into school, setting up a house to live in and trying to bring some normalcy and stability to their lives. They have seen and been through a lot that they need to process.

You have all seen the pictures of the destruction and damage here and I don't want to dwell on that but show and tell of other things, the good things happening. There is a spiritual awakening going on and the Haitians are have 3 days of fasting, praying and repentance for their country. It is rumored that the President of Haiti is making a declaration for this but has not been confirmed. In our make shift hospital there is a girl whose dad is a pastor and comes and leads all of the patients in pray and singing. Try that in the states!!!

God has brought in wonderful medical personal for just the right time for the cases that we will have during their stay. So many miracles that happen each and every day that are only God things. The Haitians are so thankful for all that the Americans are doing for them.

A large percentage are afraid to go back into their homes even if they don't seem to be damaged and are sleeping outside in their yards, at a open field, next to the street or outside of Port of Prince in the mountain villages. Need to get off but will try to do better updating.

My amazing husband

The group from Colorado!

Don doing his'grunt' work! : )

He will tell you that 'he is just the grunt guy' but we all know that he is invaluable! He is hard working and no job he will not do - well he was not real excited about helping a patient go pee ; both of the patients hands were wrapped and really only one could be used.. ya, but Don was helpful anyway, it needed to be done. He has the kindest tone to everyone (well not me sometimes) : )) He is caring a lot of responsibility. I think Don is at his best here in Haiti.

our own tent city