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.