July 24-26; Border closes, UN Tanks, Cap Hatian & Beautiful Labadie

Levi and the wonderful opportunity to experience the Caribbean
--including throwing a starfish back into the ocean!

We are awaiting Pastor Daniel to drive over from Ounanminthe to pick us up and head back to the property. Today when we get there we will move into the main campus where we will stay if this is what the Lord desires for us long term. It will be good to be able to focus on the kids in that house and be able to really understand the routines, schedules and life as they know it on a day-to-day basis during the Summer at least. The schedule is far different when it comes to the school year. The older boys that we will minister with are excited that the younger ones are moving out--and this has been a huge job for all involved. But many hands help to make the work load lighter. Honestly I think we underestimated the impact of the climate, heat and the affect it can take on you physically. So being able to get away for a couple of days ended up being more critical to us than we thought.

Blake started feeling very tired on Thursday and slept all afternoon, but there had been alot going on so it seemed logical. But after we got here--he did not want to leave the room and he said he had that "mono feeling again". So rest, sleep and resting in the cool of the AC seemed to at elast make the symptoms alot less. His fever went up last night but this morning I think he is feeling a lot better.

I am thinking that we are experiencing the only place Haiti has to offer like this. Haiti has such contrast. Cindy being the shade lover--has enjoyed the fact that there are trees along the beach. We have never been around that so no need for umbrellas!

Friday was interesting as the commotion hit after the border was closed. I guess you learn to take it all in stride and get the best intelligience you can off the street and from vendors you know in the area. Usual and customary for the area. Just not to us.

We prayed that this trip would allow us to see the reality of the needs and the realities of the cost. I'm not talking about monetary cost either.

I think we are seeing both in a a very short and rapid manner.

We just have to pace ourselves.

Being able to be around the kids the coming weeks will be a good thing. That's what we came for.

Blake is feeling better this morning, the fever is gone and perhaps it was a good warning to take a slower pace. The boys had been working hard and playing harder.

Cindy and I both enjoyed the cool sleeping nights and that alone seemed to be very restorative.

Monday Evening, July 20th

The Lord is good and for cooler weather we are grateful. It’s about 76 outside after a nice rain came along. Made all the difference in the world. Coolest temps we have had since we have been on the island. Cannot decide whether it energizes or make you want to go to bed and sleep while it’s cool. I even wanted a cup of coffee after dinner. Joanne fixed fried spam and I have to tell you I did not realize how good that would taste. We really do not need to eat large dinners because lunch is very healthy and filling—always rice, and today’s meat was fried fish, stewed okra(heaven), black beans and usually pineapple and papaya.

Today was a mixed bag of things—mostly getting ramped up to help move some storage around and open up the 1st floor of a two story house being rented to house some of the boys. Fortunately there is plenty of help and there seems to be the Haitian ability to have fun along the way too—regardless of what you do. At least when it’s Danita’s boys! To be honest the jobs seem overwhelming. Just overwhelming. What O could do with a Lowe’s or a Home Depot—especially Kernersville’s own builder’s salvage!! I cannot tell you how simple things COULD be but just are not due to the complexity of being available for supplies, etc.

We spent time this morning with Baby J the 1 year old that is a hydrocephalic. Victim is a really good word. Words cannot express how if there had only been a hospital or medical care available this little guy’s life would be totally different—but it’s not. So his life has to be able to make a difference for others—his plight does not have to be the plight other children face. He is less than day’s travel from the finest medical care in the world—but that distance might as well be around the world. Joanne held him and gave him a bottle but he was so weak he could not even create the suction to take the milk and hardly enough energy to swallow. This is not a contrived television story. We held him today. His body was the size of a 6 month old but severely dehydrated with little or no muscle tone. His head is so large he cannot move. “Lord allow him to make a difference beyond what we could ever think or imagine with his life—take away his suffering and hold him in your arms forever where he can jump down and run, play, belly laugh and eat ice cream. Bless his aunt who loves him and sacrificially and is the mom that he deserves.”

Then today there a young adult that I had seen at worship Sunday. He had a large bandage on his head about the size of a small hat. Looked somewhat clean, but certainly not sterile. Had no idea what was going on, until today. He had come to eat lunch and was in a great deal of pain. The ministry here to him has been remarkable. He has terminal cancer. He has perhaps one month to live. Chemo and radiation have failed and it is now in his lymph and bones the visiting doctors have said. His would is exposed and it relieves pressure. He comes to the ministry by bike. He says that he feels it hurting while he rides his bike and is afraid of motorbikes because of an accident he was in earlier. The Dr.’s have told the ministry to get him some pain meds similar to morphine. You know the poor man was hurting. But the conversation was very direct and the worship minister was there to interpret. He said he went to church but could not articulate that he had placed his trust in Jesus as Savior. We talked more about the Dr.’s diagnosis and his death. He was living with his sister and she made him leave because her husband did not want him dying there. Death is a very superstitious issue here in a country where Voodoo is the national religion. I was able to tell him that Scriptures teach us that in death we are victorious as Christians and that our temporary bodies long to be changed into our new bodies. He said he wanted to become a Christian. I prayed with him, via the interpreter and then he repeated the prayer back after the interpreter—it was so wonderful to hear in Creole—“I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and I accept Him as my personal Savior.” Whooohoo! I am praying about how to wrap his head for baptism, since the only body of water is in the Massacre River which is laden with bacteria. You see his tumor has exposed his brain. The Dr.’s said he could actually see brain tissue when he looked into the wound. Tomorrow we meet with him again at 10 AM. We are probably going to go with him to where his mother is staying and where he is living now—which is an incredibly poor area of Haiti and take him a mattress so he has a clean place to lie. Actually, so he has a place to die. As we closed out time together, I shared with him about how he is like those of us around the table. No longer an orphan, but an adopted child of God who has a Heavenly Father that desperately love him and cannot wait to see him and welcome him home. I told him that the incredible gift that he now has in salvation will not only allow Him to hear Jesus when He does call him home in death, but that Jesus will hear his voice and recognize him as one of his own.
“Precious are the Saints who die in the Lord” came to mind and having just experienced Terry Ford’s homegoing—he would have told Dameus the very same thing. “With what time you have left, fight the good fight—the victory is yours!”

A cool breeze on a Haitian night. A heavy heart.

Sunday Evening, July 19, 2009

Here’s the setting. I am sitting here on the front porch and hearing the big trucks roll down the street—lining up to get into the market for tomorrow. Tomorrow is the big day for market at the Dajabon/Ouanaminthe border market. Whew, people on top of people. Commerce. People and more commerce. That was my first introduction to Haiti when I walked across the border with Danita.

Honestly there was a great sense of hesitancy about staying here in the mission house on the main—and when I say main I mean the only paved road—that goes from the border to a major northern city in Haiti—Cap Haitian. We hope to take a trip over there to see some Haitian sites. So what I am hearing right now are mopeds, motorcycles, Creole in tones that sound angry, harsh, all the way to kids laughing along the way. I hear Haitian music from the Night Club across the street. I smell something burning—usually always something burning somewhere. I smell something that is not something I want to smell sometimes but for the most part I have to say it’s quite entertaining and a great sociological arena seat to watch the Haitian world go by. They don’t have any idea that they are being prayed for as they go about their business. Worry about their food or more seriously if there will be food for them and their children. Guess what. NO complaining about food from anyone around here. We are very blessed.


Oh—by-the-way. This is funny, every night the electricity (well hopefully every night) comes on and runs from 8 PM to midnight. It actually was supposed to come on at 6 PM and did when it first started (a few weeks ago) but now it’s 8 PM. Well—we are able to charge the batteries/inverter to run the fans all night as long as the street “public” utilities can come on. It seems that the generator burns up batteries and damages them too quickly to rely on the generator to recharge them. It literally is a bank of batteries. Anyway, I got so excited that I left the water running in the bucket where I was doing hand washing (gentle bucket cycle) and the back porch flooded—but then I also left the back door gate open and Snickers the dog came running through the house—to join the hooting and hollering about the electricity, but with the glad hearts about public utilities on an extremely hot day—everyone graciously took my mess in stride.

Worship today was a blessing. Appropriate enough, the guest preacher today was the same preacher that preached Palm Sunday when I was here the first time. They have a new Worship minister now that also interprets the service. He loves American artists worship songs and has a very interesting perspective on that. He really believes that singing only Haitian songs limits the Church in Haiti from knowing and joining the global Church . . .wow. How about that? So I guess that should mean that our churches should be finding worship songs from all cultures to sing as well. Pastor Sam is staying in the Mission House with us and we have all grown to truly consider him our brother and feel a great sense of kindred spirits. Levi loves him.

We also have been sharing the house with a remarkable lady. In our conversations we discovered that our paths crossed about 10 years ago in an inner city mission in NY. She was the office Manager for Metro Ministries and I was there for a weekend visit and participate in their inner city children’s program. She is like a mom. While she worked at Metro—she is a southerner from Cheraw SC and makes great iced tea. She could be retired. But she chose to come to Haiti and work in the mission field. She goes out and starts the generator. Walks up and down the Haitian streets. Loves on the kids and sweats from the sweltering heat with the best of us. Joanne is a gift. God has placed a burden for a special needs child that is brought to church by his aunt. This young lady is a such a servant. This little guy is a hydrocephalic baby and is untreated—the aftercare for such a surgery is so meticulously bacteria free that it alone makes this kind of intervention questionable. This little guy’s head along probably weighs 25lbs. It broke our hearts to see him as his little body seemed withered in comparison to his painfully tight scalp. Joanne provides formula for this aunt who has taken on her nephew who was left for dead at birth. We went over to Dajabon to get new bottles and formula. We picked up some baby wipes in hope that they might provide some comfort to him in the heat.

The “least of these” are everywhere I know. You don’t have to come to Haiti to find them. But we are here in Haiti where there’s no prejudices or cultures of origin that cloud out perspectives—or that Satan might use to veil our sight. It’s clearly right here. We are His hands and we are His feet. We feel His heart.

Friday, July 16th Ouanaminthe, Haiti

It’s about 11 PM on Friday, July 16th. I am on the front porch with a fan and it is cool breeze with the fan. Ouananminthe has public electricity for about 4 hours in the evenings. Hopefully that will be enough to charge up the inverters for the batteries to run the fans all night. Hopefully. The porch would be an ideal place to sleep if you had a screen mesh tent/canopy. And of course can sleep through the passing motorcycles or mopeds or if it is the night before market—the massive trucks that you could never imagine come out of nowhere for the border markets on Fridays and Mondays. People on top of people. Some trucks are from as far away as Port au Prince.

Events of today—

Closing program for the Day Camp/VBS hosted by the churches from Lincolnton, NC—the kids had a blast in skits, choreography, projects
Saying good byes from the mission teams and the kids—wow, that was incredible to witness and see the love that has brewed over the past 3 to 4 years and multiple trips down to minister during the summer as Christmas!
Crossing the border with the teams to their bus—through market day at the border and meandering between people on top of people. Let’s just say that the word “close” seems to be a mild statement in regards to one’s personal bubble.
Loading the bus and getting all the paperwork at the border—Haiti has implemented some additional paperwork and it takes quite a while to put everything together for a team of 17 people—wow. What an incredible crew.
Then to the Dajabon Grocery store—here we got the essential. Gatorade—a case of that along with some apple juice boxes for Levi and chocolate milk boxes. And of course some peanut M & M’s for Cindy, Zero bars for Tim and Snickers for Joanne the house mom we are living with right now. The store actually has all the essentials a person would need. Not huge variety but nothing would be available to this degree outside of here. Border towns in Haiti have an advantage.
OK—so have not mentioned the heat. 95.5 today. That would not be so bad if it was outside. That was the temp in our bedroom. Whew. Pray about that with us please. We are having to make sure all of us are hydrated well—harder for the boys, but if you over do, sometimes it’s too late before you know you have overdone it!

These kids are so precious!! Oh my gosh. You can tell they are already loving having Blake, Ethan and Levi around. Levi going down the slides with one if the boys—Blake and Ethan playing basketball with a group of boys . . . . amazing to see the ministry and the bonds building. It was really helpful having the mission team here. Helped a lot to have our family be exposed to others that have had a long term relationship with this ministry and have seen the integrity over many years. That’s no surprise from what I have seen or knew already. Just a confirmation.

The ladies that are here that run the ministry—are overwhelmed. The needs are so great for help—staffing, projects, maintenance. We are meeting tomorrow to identify those things that are priority and create a work plan. Some are simple (I can do them), but others are going to require teams or people funding projects. So much is being accomplished and I can surely testify to that—making a difference in a country that is barren in so many ways.

Hard to be away from family. Pray for my uncle. Dennis. He was having a lot of tests before we left and was hospitalized. A small tumor has finally been found in his small intestine that is resting on his bladder. He has been losing quite a bit of blood and has been in a lot of pain the last few days. Morphine was not strong enough. He had a CT contrast scan today. Pray for my aunt as well. Ginny.

Today, during the program there was lots of singing and action songs and then it came time for more quiet worship songs this was led by 3 of the kids. I have to day there was a powerful presence as they led worship. These kids were serious about taking us before the throne. And I had to realize that these kids—the orphans perhaps really do know the Father in a way that I do not. Since Scriptures tell us that He is the Father to the fatherless, their relationship is different than mine. It’s hard to describe other than they were able to take us to the One that has known them before they ever came to the orphanage and the one that has met their needs in more ways than a lifetime. I am at a loss for words as to how they were able to lead us in worship other than it was as if we were all in His lap. One by one, all at the same time. I met the Father to the fatherless today with some of His kids. Heaven is gonna be beyond imagination.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Tuesday we just were folks out and about in Santiago.

Seeing and noticing things. How clean the city is. How the power lines look a lot like those we saw in China. We did the Multicentro La Sirena. The Dominican version of Wal-Mart. While in China we were IN a Wal-Mart—this was just the DR version. Very nice store! While Spanish is a challenge, it’s nothing like going to China and being able to decipher nothing. Blake and Ethan were very helpful to be able to come up with some Spanish to get us through! Mrs. Flores and Mr. Olivarez would be proud. We were!

Back to the shopping—there is no Wal-Mart in the DR. While we were there though we ran into these incredibly American looking young men—dark pants, white shirt, tie and yes they were Mormon. It’s always helpful to run into English speaking folks—we did yesterday, a couple of guys here with their families for Go Ministries based out of Louisville. They helped us order lunch. Back to the Mormons. Odd. Here we both were missionaries of sorts looking at each other, talking and sharing tips. I sensed that they truly wanted to please God and serve Him. I only pray that they will quickly come to trust and know the Jesus that died for them and provided for their atonement by the cross. Mormons do not believe that our Atonement and His grace are only through the cross.

Francisco—a friend of the ministry drove us around today. At the end of the day when it was just the two of us he wanted to show me his house and serve me a cup of coffee! He made it in his Greco. Gotta get one of those—makes great coffee! How did he know I loved a good cup of coffee? His son believe it or not lives in Charlotte. I have his number to give him a call! It was a nice home—mi casa he says. So proud to have me as a guest. The man loves the Lord.

We have gotten some stares as a white family in a culture that is not ours walk around with an obvious member of our family that is Asian. Some are gentle and subtle stares and others are gawking. There are 3 other little 4 year olds waiting to play with Levi in Haiti. Guervens, Jamison and Lubenson—they all four have overcome many obstacles. Makes you wonder. What was it about these little boys that was different then the millions of others that do not have hope? Will we ever know?

One of my favorite quotes about life in general comes from a missionary—by the time I came around as a student at Wheaton; a dorm had been named after him. Jim Elliott wrote, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” It’s so close to my favorite passages in 2 Corinthians—“What you see in temporary and what you do not see is eternal.” “Our treasure is in this earthen vessel”

Trying to imagine and give a picture to Cindy, Blake & Ethan of the even greater contrast of Haiti tomorrow. It’s just hard to communicate. They’ll know tomorrow.

0 Days, 0 Hours, 0 Minutes, 0 Seconds

I happen to see that countdown on my blog and it made me feel a bit odd. Time had run out.
OK, so that's in reference to the travel date for our departure from Kernersville, NC via the Raleigh-Durham Airport, Miami and then arriving here last night in Santiago for a couple of days before we head over to Haiti. But the tim(er) had run out.

The days leading up to getting on that plane were remarkable. Family times, friends and our church family, neighbors stopping or calling. Wow--I just cannot help but think about how the time ran out. Did we bring everything we planned? Everything we needed? What God knows we will need? What we forgot or did not bring--guess it really does not matter now.

The events leading up to the time running out--our prayer time with our incredible brothers and sisters in our Sunday morning family--hard to call it a class, that sounds so formal. The connects we have made that are even deeper with family.

Th process the Lord has brought us through to this point can only lead us to firmly believe and know that what He has in mind for the next 35 days are life changing.

Thank you for joining in and following along. We wish everyone could be here to experience and catch a glimpse of what God's heart really looks like in the faces and lives of people, moms, dads, children, brothers and sisters that live in the country that is labeled the poorest in the western hemisphere.

It will be a test not just for our physical endurance but for the strength of everything that God has called us to be--as parents we cannot help but be anxiously awaiting what His plans are for aour sons. What His plans are for thier lives. This is no vacation, it is a mission.

Pray with us that we will be joyfully obedient in all things. Just because we find ourselves in Haiti does not mean we get a pass'n go card ( or something like that) like some monopoly game. We so earnestly want to hear His voice and see His heart.

"Oz" Chambers has something to say today about "Seeing the Lord"--
The Price of the Vision
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . —Isaiah 6:1

Our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally— when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, "I saw the Lord," there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God’s surgical procedure— His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, "In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You."
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.