Earlier this year, this congregation entered into a covenant with St. Etienne Church in Haiti to provide them with electricity and clean wa-ter through a solar-powered water filtration system. This covenant was made in partnership with Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, Arkansas (CPC Fort Smith), Solar Under the Sun (SUTS), and its sister organization, Living Waters for the World (LWW). Both SUTS and LWW are ministries of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and their mission is simple but vital. Through alliances with congregations across the coun-try, they install solar-powered water filtration systems in Haiti and other developing nations, bringing sus-tainable power and clean water into communities where poor sanitation and nutrition compound poverty.

In May, FPC’s Mission Committee sent two Solar School–trained mem-bers to Haiti, Dan Daniel and Sally Smith Garmon, on an exploratory trip whose mission was two-fold. First, they planned to visit the proposed installation site for the solar-water sys-tem, trouble-shoot potential obstacles, and develop a game plan for installation. Second, they spent time building relationships with the community at St. Etienne Church, where the solar-water system will be located. They worshipped togeth-er, sang together, and shared meals together; and the mission team re-

turned from their trip changed.

Before, they had been focused on learning the technology and writing covenants and grants. Now, they

were invested in this community through personal connection and spiritual bonds—St. Etienne was no longer just a pipe dream, but a journey of shared faith. They came away humbled by the stark poverty and the gentle dignity of the Haitian people, further inspired by God to

help alleviate some of this human suffering.

As the mission team prepares to re-turn to Haiti in a few short weeks

for their installation trip, they want to share the impressions they brought back with them in May, hoping that the con-text and purpose of the mis-

sion will be illuminated for the con-gregation as it was for them.

In these pages, Sally Smith Garmon, Mission Committee chair, recounts the story of this most recent trip. Her travel companions were Dan Daniel, an electrical engineer by trade and FPC Tyler’s resident expert on SUTS

theSeptember 2014 Vol. 9, Issue 9.1: Special Mission Edition

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Steeple TimesFirst Presbyterian Church of Tyler, Texas

230 West Rusk Street, Tyler, Texas 75701-1696 // (903) 597-6317 // www.fpctyler.com

Haiti: Where Mission and Stewardship Combine

A woman and donkey carry supplies near a polluted waterway in the Haitian country-side in May 2014.

St. Etienne was no longer just a pipe dream, but a journey of shared faith.

2

We begin our journey with the sen-sory overload of the streets in Port au Prince. People are everywhere—on foot, motorbikes, trucks—and the buses contribute a persistent “tap-tap” to the melee, all honking their horns.

Marketplaces teem with people bar-tering, laughing, talking, and singing amidst piles of vegetables, fruits, an-imals, appliances, and clothing. The air is thick with exhaust and smoke from burning trash, the ground strewn with puddles of diesel and sewage. Smells seem more pungent this trip, as our rented Kia’s air condi-tioner is broken, our windows rolled down. We are feeling the two-hun-dred-degree temperature and the five-gazillion-percent humidity. It really makes me feel alive.

Traffic moves surprisingly well, al-though at times we find ourselves nose to nose with another vehicle. Lucson, our Haitian driver, intuitively and deftly inches into almost imper-ceptible gaps, and zigzags around six vehicles in oncoming traffic with sur-gical precision and nerves of steel. Miraculously, it seems, we make it through yet another intersec-tion unscathed. Chris looks back over the front seat and smiles at us. We smile back.

It’s early Sunday morning and eerily quiet. The dogs have tempo-rarily stopped barking and the roost-

ers have not yet begun crowing. I am lying under mosquito netting at the Catholic compound, Palmiste au Vin, where we have spent the night, be-fore we meet and worship with our

covenant partner, the church at St. Etienne. Chris and Ruthie McRae and Dan Daniel are still asleep in

their quarters. I am full of anticipa-tion as I pray for our mission.

After breakfast, we drive to St. Eti-enne, where we are warmly wel-comed by the priest, Pere Desire

(pronounced Pair Dez-i-ray; pere is Creole for father). Wor-ship starts shortly thereafter, and Chris McRae preaches, with Frantzou Avril, LWW

in-country technician, translating. We sing from hymnals, the words in

By Sally Smith Garmon

Mission Trip Log:May 24–28, 2014

technology; Chris McRae, execu-tive director of SUTS and leader of SUTS’s Solar School; and Chris’s wife Ruthie. Chris and Ruthie are mem-bers of CPC Fort Smith, FPC Tyler’s mission partner for this project.

Top: The marketplace in Port au Prince bustles with activity.Bottom: The congregation at St. Etienne Church gathers for worship on Sunday morning next door to the proposed building site for their solar-water system.

. . . their worship is ordered, inclusive. We are in the body of Christ.

3

Haitian Creole, and we join voices in prayer to the same triune God. Our mission partners share the same at-tributes of our own congregational families: dignity, grace, reverence, and joy. Their musical style is faintly reminiscent of reggae, and their lan-guage is mostly incomprehensible to us, but their worship is ordered, in-clusive. We are in the body of Christ.

After worship and lunch, we move forward in our discussions with St. Etienne’s water council, a body of people who, along with Pere Desire, will be entrusted with helping in-stall and maintain their solar-water system. The water council develops business plans to promote the sys-tem’s sustainability, taking into con-sideration the potential for growth in their community and congrega-tion. Just as in our most beloved biblical stories, this story has deep roots that began simply. As embod-ied by the cistern they built months before we arrived at St. Etienne, this story is about faith—in forming this partnership—and hope—that some-day the people of St. Etienne would have pure water for their people to drink.

We do walk-throughs of their church and administration buildings, trying to discern their lighting and electri-cal needs, climbing atop the roof to decide where to place the solar pan-els, measuring distances, calculating wiring requirements, and establish-ing where the people of St. Etienne want to construct the building which will house their solar-water system. This ordered planning makes me thankful for the people of FPC Tyler and CPC Fort Smith for supporting this mission which brings hope to these people and reduces the con-sequences of poverty and disease.

After our visit to St. Etienne, we trav-el over mountains to the Ascension Church and School in the coastal

city of Bainet. Last year our mission partner, CPC Fort Smith, rebuilt a so-lar-water system there that serves not just the church and school, but the entire community. We’re here now to check on the system and provide help with any maintenance issues that have arisen.

At Ascension, Dan and Frantzou as-cend a ladder, using an improvised

rod to ground the rooftop solar pan-els. Afterward, Dan teaches battery equalization to the Haitian opera-tors while we observe the metic-ulousness with which the Haitians care for and operate their system.

Ruthie teaches health and hygiene to bright and attentive high school students who, later, animatedly play charades enacting the principles of

fpc tyler @ solar school & clean water uTo date, five members of this congregation have attended SUTS’s Solar School, which trains volunteers in one of two crucial areas.

Solar 1 teaches leadership development, focusing on team formation, trip management, site evaluation, and covenant negotiation (covenant is SUTS’s term for contract). Solar 2 emphasizes technical know-how, preparing participants to assemble off-grid solar energy systems, assess electrical loads, and practice safety and maintenance.

Our mission team hopes to continue growing with more members edu-cated in the leadership and technology so essential to this mission. Next month, another team member will be the first from FPC Tyler to attend Clean Water U, LWW’s volunteer training program—and who knows, you could be next!

FPC Tyler Mission Committee chair, Sally Smith Garmon, reunites with Pere Michaud, priest at Ascension Church and School in Bainet, Haiti. They stand in front of the so-lar-water system at Ascension that was refurbished by members of CPC Fort Smith last year. Bon dlo means good water in Creole.

4

her lessons. Health and hygiene in-struction is part of the curriculum taught by LWW at Clean Water U.

Later that day we visit St. Innocent’s School, a trek up a remote mountain-top where the school sits on an im-penetrable rock foundation where no well can be dug. Against all odds, a meal program has been es-tablished there for eighty-five students using water from the restored solar-water fa-cility down the mountain at Ascension Church and School. The meal program is the outcome of FPC Johnson City, Tennessee’s covenant with the parents, teachers, princi-pal, and priest (who oversees the school). Together they built a rudi-mentary kitchen on the mountain-top, supplied it with a wood-burn-

ing stove, and built a secure storage room on campus for the food, which comes from a U.S.-based program administered in Haiti. The nutrition-al requirements of each child are re-calculated monthly, based on their weight, and each child’s portions are adjusted accordingly to meet their

needs. Before the meal program, some of these children only ate two meals per week.

The key obstacle in establishing the school’s meal program was the lack of available water on the rock mountaintop, where a well is out of

the question. The water to cook the food is now ferried up the moun-tain daily on a motorcycle that holds four saddlebags, each carrying five gallons of water purified by the so-lar-water system at Ascension. I feel as if I have come full circle, having shadowed the team from Johnson

City on my first trip to Haiti, as they formed the covenant for this remarkable initiative. I marvel at the things God has shown me of his grand design

and purpose!

The principal at St. Innocent’s School, Roger Jean Baptiste, is frugal: he cuts a piece of paper measuring 8 ½-by-11 inches into sixteen sepa-rate pieces in order to share his con-tact information with me on one of those tiny fragments. This reminds

The cooks at St. Innocents School use water ferried up the moun-tain from the Ascension solar-water system to prepare food for a meal program that provides daily lunches for the students.

Students are prepared for their day in the school room at St. In-nocents.

Before the meal program, some of these children only ate two meals per week.

�����-�-���� ���������������� �����������

2011

������ � ��������

Pam Leach gives a SUTS pamphlet to MC

MC considers potential projects. Ginny Mattox sees the pamphlet and recognizes SUTS Exec. Dir. Chris McRae, who she grew up with in El Dorado, AR. MC gets in touch

Chris McRae meets with MC. Everyone is sold!

����2013

���

It's o�cial. Session votes to sign a covenant with SUTS

���

Sally Smith Garmon tags along to Haiti with FPCJC, where they lay the groundwork for the St. Innocents meal program and visit potential partners

���2014

St. Etienne site visit

���24-28

SUTS trailer gets a facelift under the artistic direction of Mary Ann Post

����SUTS awards FPCT a $5000 grant

���Ginny Mattox, Dan Daniel, Sally Smith Garmon, and Stuart Baskin travel to Haiti with CPC to lead installation

FPCT and CPC provide ongoing maintenance and support to St. Etienne water council

���8-13

Sessions of both FPCT & CPC endorse the two churches as

partners in the St. Etienne project

���

Enthusiasm grows. Lynn Holliman, Ginny Mattox, Kyle Palmer, and Sally Smith Garmon attend Solar School

���12-15 FPCT celebrates

the covenant signing

���

Session approves mission partnership with LWW, and MC selects St. Etienne as our covenant partner

���Sally Smith Garmon and Dan Daniel attend Solar School 2 and geek out!

���1-4 VBS teaches 23 kids and

12 adults about SUTS���

14-16

SUTS Solar Under the SunLWW Living Waters for the WorldFPCT FPC TylerCPC Central PC Fort Smith, ARFPCJC FPC Johnson City, TNMC Mission Committee

5

me of how we are all also pieces of God’s kingdom, and how we can and should partner and share in stew-ardship of his resources. Principal Baptiste knows not merely how to make do with less, but how to make more with less.

On our last day, we travel toward Port au Prince, stopping at the or-phanage in Dar-bonne, where Chris wants to check on their solar-water sys-tem. As barefoot orphans wander in and out of the tiny room which houses the facility, Dan and Chris discover electrical hazards and set to work repairing them. Ruthie and I are soon surrounded by tired, dusty, and hungry children. Two of the tini-est kids collapse in exhaustion in our arms to nap. As we are leaving Dar-bonne, two of the newer arrivals are obviously malnourished. They have spindly legs and protuberant bel-lies, a condition which we refer to in medicine as kwashiorkor (protein malnutrition). I wish I could express what we feel. Our hearts hurt; we know our work is incomplete.

We realize how undeserving each of us is, as we know we have been bought for a price, which Jesus paid for you, me, the Haitians, and all people. In Haiti, I am reminded over and over again of what that means.

I am reminded of the gift given to us by God in his son, Jesus Christ, and what stewardship that gift implies.

If you are fortunate enough to serve God in a country like Haiti someday, you will meet people through whom you will see God’s gift in a new light, just as freely given as those orphans who shared everything they had

with us and ex-pected nothing in return. We can never repay God’s gift, but

we are all called to share it, with abandon, with all those we meet along the way.

steeple times | mission editionThis issue of the Steeple Times is a spe-cial edition featuring FPC Tyler’s ongoing mission project at St. Etienne Church and School in Haiti in association with Solar Under the Sun, a mission organiza-tion of Synod of the Sun PC(USA). This is-sue is available in PDF format in full color at www.fpctyler.com/newsletter, along with the Steeple Times archive.Steeple Times is a free publication of First Presbyterian Church, 230 W. Rusk Street, Tyler, Texas 75701. Acting editor is Stuart Baskin. FPC reserves the right to edit and/or exclude submissions. Please submit content to Karen McClel-lan by the 15th of the month prior to publication via mail, email (kmcclellan@fpctyler.com), or fax (903) 597-6326.

We can never repay God’s gift, but we are all called to share it.

�����-�-���� ���������������� �����������

2011

������ � ��������

Pam Leach gives a SUTS pamphlet to MC

MC considers potential projects. Ginny Mattox sees the pamphlet and recognizes SUTS Exec. Dir. Chris McRae, who she grew up with in El Dorado, AR. MC gets in touch

Chris McRae meets with MC. Everyone is sold!

����2013

���

It's o�cial. Session votes to sign a covenant with SUTS

���

Sally Smith Garmon tags along to Haiti with FPCJC, where they lay the groundwork for the St. Innocents meal program and visit potential partners

���2014

St. Etienne site visit

���24-28

SUTS trailer gets a facelift under the artistic direction of Mary Ann Post

����SUTS awards FPCT a $5000 grant

���Ginny Mattox, Dan Daniel, Sally Smith Garmon, and Stuart Baskin travel to Haiti with CPC to lead installation

FPCT and CPC provide ongoing maintenance and support to St. Etienne water council

���8-13

Sessions of both FPCT & CPC endorse the two churches as

partners in the St. Etienne project

���

Enthusiasm grows. Lynn Holliman, Ginny Mattox, Kyle Palmer, and Sally Smith Garmon attend Solar School

���12-15 FPCT celebrates

the covenant signing

���

Session approves mission partnership with LWW, and MC selects St. Etienne as our covenant partner

���Sally Smith Garmon and Dan Daniel attend Solar School 2 and geek out!

���1-4 VBS teaches 23 kids and

12 adults about SUTS���

14-16

SUTS Solar Under the SunLWW Living Waters for the WorldFPCT FPC TylerCPC Central PC Fort Smith, ARFPCJC FPC Johnson City, TNMC Mission Committee

Children refill their clean water jug at the service window of the solar-water facility at Ascension Church and School in Bainet, Haiti.

6

In mid-October, SUTS-trained volun-teers from both FPC Tyler and CPC Fort Smith will travel to St. Etienne, taking with them all the compo-nents necessary to install the so-lar-powered water filtration system. Over four days, they will oversee its installation, educate the local St. Eti-enne water council in operation and maintenance, and most importantly, continue to build relationships.

This particular solar-water system is sized to provide about 215 gallons of clean water each day—enough clean water to provide for the whole St. Etienne community. In a country where plumbing is in short supply, and sewage seeps down to the wa-ter table, this makes a big impact.

With the introduction of clean wa-ter, sanitation-related disease rates plummet, children’s growth rates rise, and the population can focus renewed energy on education and

economic development.

This is what we’re working toward. But in the next month, we have a lot to do in preparation—and you can help!

What’s Next for Our Mission with Solar Under the Sun?

Conceptual  Site  Layout  

Scale  is  not  precise  Gate  

North  

Solar  Panels  

Raw  Water  Tank  

Raw  water  pipe  and  PV  electrical  conduit  run  along  this  wall  

Electrical  wires  run  in  the  chapel  and  then  in  conduit  to  the  building  

Raw  water  pipe  and  PV  electrical  conduit  

over  the  roof  

Pure  Water  Tank  On  Top  of  WB  

sw  

7  

A rough rendering of the site plan for St. Etienne, provided by Dan Daniel, Solar 2–trained mission team member, who is overseeing the technical planning for the project.

clean water factsOne gallon of clean water meets one person’s daily needs for drink-ing, cooking, and bathing babies. (All other needs—cleaning, wa-tering crops and animals, person-al hygiene—can be met with raw, unfiltered water.) However, 1 in 9 people around the world don’t have access to clean drinking wa-ter at all. In developing countries,

as much as 80% of illnesses are linked to poor water and sanita-tion conditions, and 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.

For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, there is an economic return of between $3 and $34.

Sources include World Health Or-ganization, UNICEF, UN Develop-ment Programme, and AQUASTAT.

7

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www.facebook.com/fpctyler

@fpctyler

Connect with FPC online!

The Mission Committee offers spe-cial thanks to the following individ-uals and organizations for helping with this story:

Richard Prouty, Chris and Ruthie McRae, Jim Garmon, Dan Daniel, Karen McClellan, the Mission Com-mittee of FPC Tyler, Bill Bridgforth, Steve Edens, Jackie Kossin, Dave Howell, Mark Tew, Steve Fairbanks, Doug and Flora Mae Roszel, Rev. Leah Hrachovec, Rev. Stuart Baskin, Rev. Tom Ullrich, Rev. David O’Neal, Solar Under the Sun, Living Waters for the World, so many generous donors, and the people of Haiti for their generosity and hospitality.

Special thanks also goes to the con-gregations of FPC Tyler, Texas; Cen-tral Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, Arkansas; First of Trawick Presbyte-rian Church, Nacogdoches, Texas; and FPC Johnson City, Tennessee.

Questions?If you have questions about FPC’s covenant with SUTS, this mission project in Haiti, or donating and volunteering, please contact Sally Smith Garmon, Mission Committee chair (slsmith01@hotmail.com).

adopt-a-partAs a church, we have pledged to raise the funds to purchase all components and materials needed to harvest the sun’s en-ergy for the community at St. Etienne*—and whether it’s a solar panel, copper wiring, or a screwdriver, you can help us foot the bill. Please visit the lobby of the Fellowship Hall, where the Adopt-A-Part poster illustrates the solar power technology and all its constituent parts in need of adoption.

*Our mission partners at CPC Fort Smith are sponsoring the water filtration–related parts of the system.

donate scarvesHelp the Mission Committee col-lect gently used scarves for use in the upcoming mission trip to Haiti in October. The scarves will be used and reused for several purposes:

1. to protect the solar-power components during trans-portation;

2. to attach to buckets to draw up and carry water from wells;

3. to be worn as a headdress to balance and transport bas-kets laden with water, food, and supplies (see the image on page 1 as an example).

Please bring scarves to the box in the foyer of the administra-tion office by Sunday, Septem-ber 28.

prayKeep this mission and the com-munity at St. Etienne in your prayers as the team installs the system next month and contin-ues to build relationships and provide support in the months to come.

get involvedOur mission work doesn’t stop after installation of the solar-wa-ter system. We have pledged to provide the St. Etienne com-munity with continued mainte-nance and education for three years, and we hope to research the possibility of entering into a covenant with another church in Haiti, expanding the impact of this clean water mission. On each of these trips, our mission team must employ a translator and driver, rent a car for trans-portation, and purchase plane tickets, meals, gas, and other in-cidentals.

Your continued support of this initiative is vital to the success of our mission work, which we be-lieve is foundational to FPC Ty-ler’s identity as a congregation. If you feel led to financially sup-port this mission, please make a donation to FPC Tyler, designat-ed for “Solar Under the Sun” in the memo line.

If you would like to contribute your time and talent, the Mis-sion Committee always has a need for enthusiastic volun-teers, whatever your strengths may be (don’t worry—no pop quizzes on electrical wiring!).

How You Can Help

more about missionTo learn more about Solar Under the Sun and Living Waters for the World, visit the ministries online:www.solarunderthesun.orgwww.livingwatersfortheworld.org

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