Team safe in Gonaives

Well we arrived in Gonaives late this afternoon and everyone is doing well. Our flights were on time- we just had a small hiccup that delayed us from leaving Jumecourt for Gonaives. The bummer is we didn't get up to Desire like originally planned but we are going for a full day tomorrow after breakfast.

The team is doing very well and our younger members are real troopers- pressing on in spite of little sleep. They will all sleep well tonight.

Saw Pastor Jeannot tonight and am very excited to spend some time with him talking, praying and dreaming about what the Lord would have us do as we come alongside the local church here and increase Pastor Jeannot's ministry effectiveness as he serves the community of Desire.

Family Trip

Ever since my first trip to Haiti, I felt that in order to build significant trust and relationships with the orphans we serve, our own children need to be a part of the partnership in Desire. Tonight we embark on the first family mission trip to Haiti with three families jumping at the chance to serve. And for me, I count it a huge blessing to have my whole family- Marci and my three daughters going with me on this trip.

The plan is very similar to recent trips- teaching English and running a VBS but this time our children will have the opportunity to create new friendships with their peers at Desire.

I am especially excited to see Pastor Jeannot again and continue to discuss the future of our partnership and the role that our church can play in reaching more of the community for Christ.

Please pray for safety for our journey that begins tonight and for our health throughout the trip. The team consists of my family of five, another family of eight and a mother and daughter- 15 of us all together!

I'll post an update as soon as we get to Gonaives later on Friday.

Sunday in Desire

The team had a great time worshiping in Desire yesterday.

Here is Hayden's post from yesterday:
Today was a great day in Desire! We worshipped with our Haitian brothers and sisters this morning. The kids sang some special songs for our team and Pastor Jeannot spoke with passion and heart from 1 Kings. We came back in the afternoon and we played games and spent time just holding them. Most importantly, the kids heard the gospel message. The team is working hard, pouring their lives put for Christ and our Desire kids. Continue to pray for opportunity and unity in our mission to serve our mighty God.

Kim with some of the boys.

Emily and Tyler

Parachute time!

Allie with a buddy.  It's Game Day- the team is serving with all the energy they have!

Today was their last full day with the kids and community children of Desire.  Tuesday afternoon the team will be making their way back towards Port au Prince to spend their last night at Jumecourt- the headquarters for the Global Orphan Project.

We provided a laptop for Pastor Jeannot to help him with ministry and keeping records on the children for school and health.  The encouraging thing to me is that Pastor Jeannot has sent me two email messages in the last couple of days.  That is huge since it would take weeks before I would get an email message back when I would send him a note to ask several questions.  He even included x's and o's and a heart ( <3) in his closing of the message.  That made me laugh!

Keep praying for the team in this last stretch before returning home.

First Full Day in Desire

With wifi presenting a challenge to the team, they now having wifi working in the team's favor.  This is an email sent to me from Hayden:

Hey Chris,
We have arrived safely on Gonaives. Things are going well. Apart from a few minor setbacks (Bens guitar had to be checked and they put it in the baggage claim in MIA- he has it now). Arrived with another from KC that had 26. Things have changed obviously with construction. Many have commented on the improvements throughout Haiti, although still a long way to go. We had a little time in Desire. The kids were so excited. Even the team was ready to bolt out the door! It was great to see Jeannot and he walked us around a little. Well looks great and I can tell it is going to be a tremendous source to the community. The shipping crates are there, but Jeannot says the govt. won't let the kids use them because they will be too hot. Jeannot says Jake is working on some solutions (maybe building another building?). I will check more on this. The other crates look great and it is great to see the kids out of the tents. The team did great the while journey so far. There were pretty tired after a long day.  Today we spend a full day with a break (English am, Bible story pm). I will try to send something in the evening if it works, but for any updates for the website, I will try to send facebook message.
God bless,
Hayden

Desiree pumping the well at Desire!

Ben teaching English with the kids.

James- the team's security detail working hard on his English.

Arrival in Desire

I received an update this morning via text since the wifi at the hotel doesn't seem to be working.  The team arrived safely yesterday in Gonaives and got settled at the hotel.  In the afternoon they traveled up to Desire to see the kids.  Hayden said the team was so excited that as they were pulling into the village, the team wanted to run off the bus as the kids rushed out to greet them.  It was a great reunion for those who have been to Desire before and an overwhelming experience for those visiting for the first time.  The joy from the children when the team arrives is enough to melt anyone's heart!

The team will have a full day in Desire today.  They will focus on English this morning and spend the afternoon with Bible activities.  Continue to pray for the safety and unity for the team as they get settled into a rhythm.

The team (L to R): Allie Loyer, Kim Luymes, Desiree Chasco, Victoria Ledzema, Maggie Medrano, Emily Kullberg, Emily Hoerner, Tyler Hoerner, Tiffany Ly, Ben Schuchard, Lauren Schuchard, Ingrid Bradley, Lynn Jacquart, Penny Lucas, Susan Stednick, Hayden Camp

Spring Break Team

Tonight our Spring Break team heads down to Haiti to visit the village of Desire and minister to the children there and to Pastor Jeannot and his family.  This will be a turning point in our Haiti ministry because I am actively developing other leaders to take our teams to Haiti and my great friend Hayden is leading this team while I stay back this time.  It's bittersweet for me personally because while I am excited about the growth of our ministry to Haiti and the opportunity to expand our vision and go deep, I will miss going because I love the adventure of taking teams, loving on the kids and spending time with Pastor Jeannot, and watching our people from Faith transformed by the experience.

So the plan is that I will blog about this trip by getting daily updates from Hayden.  I'll do my best to convey the heart of what is happening on the ground in Haiti as we continue to weave this story of serving the orphans in Haiti.

We are rejoicing that the well is complete and pumping water for the community.  I can't wait to have our people see it in person and perhaps pump a little water while they pray over it giving thanks to God and His provision for the water to a community in desperate need.

Water for Desire

After many challenges and much praying, the Desiré well has been completed. In the first attempt back in June of 2011, the drill encountered rock and another drilling truck had to be sent up to Desiré. In that attempt, a part broke on the driller, stalling that attempt. On the third attempt in a different location the drill successfully contacted water but in removing the drill, earth collapsed in on the hole. It was then determined that in order to try again, steel piping would have to be imported from the U.S. and inserted as they drilled. The pastor who owns the drilling company met with Pastor Jeannot and Global Orphan staff to plan a fourth and perhaps final attempt the week after our January team left Haiti. This whole process has occured over the past 8 months. On Saturday the 28th the drill was on site attempting another try. After many prayers, we were notified on Monday the 30th that they were successful in drilling the well. On Saturday February 4th they will install a hand pump so that water can be used by the orphan village and the community surrounding the village.

Praise God for His guiding the drillers and for His provision of water at Desiré! Faith - thank you for your support of the well and your prayers! God continues to amaze us as we continue to cultivate our partnership with Desire and Pastor Jeannot. Now please pray for Pastor Jeannot as he has a chance to use the well as an outreach to the community.

Leaving Desire

I am writing this as we are traveling back to Gonaives from Desire. We had a wonderful time of worship with the children and now have to leave them as we begin our journey home tomorrow. I wish I could say that leaving after many visits gets easier each time but it doesn't. It's as hard as the very first time. The only difference is that we are comforted in the knowledge that they are better off than they were two months ago , 6 months ago and a year ago. And things continue to improve for the children each week as the homes are completed and furnished and the next phase of construction begins.

We also now know their names, and we can begin to have basic conversations with them without the need of a translator all the time. A great example of this was with our teaching English on this trip. The children are putting their trust in the Lord to provide when times get difficult. Many children have come to know and accept Jesus as Savior and relationships with the community continues to grow. Praise God for all these things. It is truly freedom in Christ when we allow Him to work through the individuals on our teams.

Well we made it back to Jumecourt, a stopping point before heading home tomorrow. The excitement for the road trip was getting stopped by the police at a random checkpoint. The police must not quite have liked the answers our Haitian driver gave so they wanted to see everybody's passport and confirm that we all matched our passports. After several minutes we were underway again. That was a new first for our trips!

All is well and we will return tomorrow night. Please pray for our safe travels.

A Simple Touch Brings Peace

Today I was reminded of a very powerful thing. This is my 10th trip to Haiti in just over two years and it's easy to get caught up in the busyness of a trip- from making sure the team is prepared for their activities and how they are doing on a physical level and spiritual level and trying to learn some simple creole phrases- you can accidentally miss one of the most important things- the power of a touch. Sometimes all a child desires is a hand to hold or a lap to sit upon. And today I had a very young boy seek me out, grab my hand, wait for me to sit down so he could crawl into my lap and fall asleep. I think for a moment all he needed was a place to rest his head to find respite from the difficult life he lives.

I then think of the image of our heavenly Father beckoning us to come to Him, crawl into His lap and put our trust and all our cares on Him. So while I became a big human pillow for a small child, I rediscovered the peace our God provides us when we rest in Him.

Today was the last full day with the children of Desire as we played, held them and shared to gospel story with the orphans and community children. Tomorrow we worship with them and hear a message from Pastor Jeannot and Pastor Steve. We then begin our journey back to Port au Prince and head home on Monday. Pray for our team because as always, good-byes are very hard after spending a week deepening our relationships with the children and Pastor Jeannot.

Last day of school

Today is Friday and our team completed their last day of teaching English in school. Our goal was to try and implement English into the children's school day and it was a very successful week. The team did an awesome job preparing and executing the English lessons. Each day in the afternoon the children would practice the things they learned in the morning. That brought a "good job!" from every team member and a smile to their faces.

We are not quite finished in Desire. We have a full ministry day tomorrow and we will have the children from the community join us for the full day tomorrow.

A side note for me today was the opportunity to see a part of Haiti I had not yet visited. My pastor friend Arnie has joined our team for the trip to Desire to see ministry and partnership opportunities with The Global Orphan Project as he seeks an outreach/compassion opportunity for his new church. We traveled to Marmalade to see a future GO project getting ready to be started. Marmalade is located on the top of a mountain chain that separates Gonaives from Cap Haitien on the north coast of Haiti and is a beautiful town. It's very lush because they get rainfall year-round and have many different crops clinging to the mountain sides. I am excited to see where the Lord might lead Arnie and his church.

Overcoming Spiritual Warfare

I know the title sounds ominous but the reality is that there is a constant spiritual battle no matter what you do when serving the Lord. Today Pastor Steve was bringing a message and sharing the gospel with over 100 kids from the Desire community. In the midst of the teaching, the rain began falling on the metal roof, extra noise from the bus as it was being repaired, and a phone call to the translator in the middle of the gospel. All of these things could have derailed the gospel being shared but our God is awesome and despite these distractions, the gospel was shared and the children's clearly understood the message.

In addition to the Bible teaching, today was another blessing. Teaching English continued today with great success. Members of our team spent a great time with the mommas sharing Scripture, prayer requests, and hearing life stories of the mommas. And Rich, our doctor investigating medical mission possibilities with his wife Kathy spent the day visiting clinics, visiting with nurses, and local pastors and missionaries working in and around Gonaives. I am excited for what the Lord might reveal to us as a church and the direction He would have us go.

The team is doing very well, staying healthy, and serving with every ounce of energy! This is a great team and the Lord is doing wonderful things through them!

English in Desire

Today was a great day and a first for our short term teams in Desire. We taught approximately 65 kids English in school today. The team did a fantastic job getting the older kids to continue what we started back in October as a pilot program, and introducing the younger kids to phrases of introducing themselves in English and learning colors and farm animals.

Then this afternoon we went back up to Desire to play, sing, practice English, and practice our learning Creole. This evening we closed out our busy day by visiting an American missionary woman who runs an orphan home in Gonaives. The highlight of this visit was listening to the children sing to us and for me to see a young boy who has AIDS who I met this past July and have him say "of course I remember you!"

The team is doing very well and growing very close to one another which is always one of my favorite things to witness and be a part of each time I come to Haiti with a team.

Enjoy the couple of pictures below of school, the inside of a finished container home and the new propane stove the church helped to purchase.

Reunion in Desire

We made it safely to Gonaives Haiti this afternoon. After getting settled at our hotel, we made a late afternoon run up to Desire to see the kids. The reception was overwhelming- kids jumping up and down and cheering as we pulled into the project. I can never get used to it because I feel so unworthy yet I know they love us as much as we love them.
Tomorrow we begin teaching English as a part of their school day. Already we can tell that they will have fun because they are anxious to continue what we started on the last trip.
Keep praying for health and safety. This team is a fantastic and I love to watch a team bond and grow closer to each other.
So much has changed since my last trip less than two months ago- two of the four homes have been finished, there is a new latrine and shower and bed frames and mattresses arrived at Desire just ahead of us.
Can't wait for tomorrow!

A New Year- A New Adventure

2011 was a great year as we found our partner in Haiti through the local church in Desire and the orphan project.  With four trips to Desire in 2011, God has done a great work in transforming our own congregation as we sought His will do serve the local church and orphans.  In almost two years there have been 80 different people from Faith that have stepped out to follow the Lord's call on their life to serve on a short term mission team in Haiti.  God is good.

This coming Monday on the 16th, another team from Faith will be making the journey to Haiti to serve the local church and orphans to kick off another year in Haiti.  This team will be teaching English to the orphan kids as well as community kids who attend the school at Desire.  Almost a year and a half ago, I felt a call that we should try to teach English to the kids of Desire.  In a country where around 85% of the population is unemployed, I heard statistically that if a Haitian can speak English, they would have 10 times better chance at getting a job than those who do not speak English.  Our vision is to help make a difference in the lives of the orphan children- sharing the gospel, discipling them to grow closer in their walk with the Lord and to set them up for a fruitful, productive life as they grow up- and one of those helpful things that we can do as a congregation is to teach English.

So as we finish packing our supplies, we ask the Lord to guide us, to give us direction and to be flexible.  We ask the Lord to give us His eyes to see, to love, and to continue to build strong relationships with the children, Pastor Jeannot, and the staff and community of Desire.  I am excited for this team!

At the end of 2011, we finished a project to help make our Desire kids more known to our congregation.  In August we took pictures of each child and in October we had them paint a frame that later we would put their photo into.  The pictures are up on a wall at Faith and each frame has the name of the child on their own frame that they painted.  Now people from our congregation can take the time to study the faces of the 63 kids and learn their names so that one day- they can go to Haiti and meet these kids in person!

Coming Home

We are up early this morning to begin our journey home.  It is tough to say goodbye.  It has been another wonderful trip with so many highs, challenging lows and evidence of God doing incredible things in the midst of so much pain and poverty.  This team is a special team because in so many ways they were pioneering new territory for our future of ministry in Desire.  God is stretching each one of us as we pray for what His will is for each of us.
Now we pray for a safe trip so that we can return to our families tonight and share the wonderful stories.

Our Final Day in Gonaives and Desire

Today was our last full day as we prepare to go back towards Port au Prince tomorrow.  We started the day with visiting an American missionary who owns and runs an orphan home in Gonaives.  Jan just received 5 new children this past week and the kids came only with the clothes they were wearing and just a little more.  Our adventure was to go to the market and split up to find clothes for the new children.  Jan said it was an answer to her prayer that we were available to help buy clothes for the kids where for two people and five children the task would be very difficult.
For the afternoon we went up to Desire after the kids finished with school.  This was to be our last visit for this trip.  The community kids were invited to join in and we fed all the kids who joined us for the afternoon.  Pastor Jeannot will feed the kids after we leave as well so that they look to the church as the provider and not the Americans.  It was a blessing to see so many children at the project yesterday and today.  While our church is committed to caring for the 63 kids at the project, we also have a heart for meeting the needs of the community- spiritually, physically, and through education and self sufficiency.  We love the model of The Global Orphan Project where the local church is at the center of the project because the church is the hope of the world.

Market in Gonaives

This morning we had an opportunity to serve an American missionary who recently received orphans just 5 days ago.  The kids arrived at the home with just a small sack of some clothes.  Our task?  To go shopping in the market to get clothes for the children.  We split up into 5 teams, each with a translator and a child or two to head out for clothes.  It was an answer to prayer that we were able to help.

A Couple Moments

Sunday in Haiti

I love spending Sundays in Haiti because I get to worship God in a different country with a people so passionate about God.  At home I have the comfort of a cushy seat, where the temperature is controlled so that it is just right.  In Haiti, we worship in cement buildings where you pray for a small breeze to enter the building and give you relief from the sweat pouring down your face, or in a stick-framed structure wrapped in tarps where the slightest amount of rain would make communication difficult because of the noise of raindrops pounding on the tarps.
But its not about the building, is it?  Its not even about us.  It's all about God.   Just to be able to join my Haitian brothers and sisters in worship warms my heart.  Whenever I take my Sunday worship for granted, I remind myself that God wants me to worship Him wherever I am.  And I count it a privilege to be here on this Sunday.
After worship, our team continued with the activities of telling a Bible story, making crafts and teaching English.  The English program we are piloting on the trip has exceeded my expectations.  I am very pleased with the overall response and the passion that the students have demonstrated.  After English activities were over, all of them were practicing their newly learned phrases on all of the Americans.  Praise God for answering another prayer about direction.
Overall today was another great day and we are preparing for our final day with the kids tomorrow afternoon after school is finished.We are expecting up to 200 kids to show up and join us for a final day of activities.

Simply Love On Kids?

As our team debriefed tonight we had a lot of great discussion from the high and low points of the day and the challenge of communication because language barriers to what it means to come on a short term trip and simply love on kids.  That phrase doesn't necessarily sound like a compelling reason to come to Haiti- unless you have come before.  Once you come, you get it.  The power of showing love to those children who don't know what its like to have a mom or dad has incredible power in the life of a child and the life of a team member.  You get it when you see the surroundings and the circumstances that the people of Haiti find themselves caught in- an endless cycle of poverty and disaster relief that only helps (for a few who may not need it) for the short term but never having the intention of helping for the long term.  Simply coming to love on kids is the first step that many team members take before they come to the realization that that is only a small part of a bigger picture- and they become sold out for doing so much more.  They want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  And so starts the process of seeking the Lord for carrying on the vision to make a difference in the lives of 63 children and partnering with a local church.
God has called Faith E-Free to do hard things- to care for orphans through a local church partnership.  The local church desires to have help in building up its leadership and at the same time, raise 63 orphan children who want to have a thriving relationship with Jesus Christ and we as a church step up to that call.
Is it really about loving on kids?  Yes, but it is also so, so much more...