Service Impact Team 8.5 - Day 1 - Travel Day

Service Impact Team 8.5 - Day 1 - Travel Day

Today was day 1 of our week in Haiti! Mostly consumed by boarding passes, checked bags, making it through customs and catching flights - It was still a powerful day! Our team of 12 people, from all across the United States, all met together in Haiti this evening and we were able to share a powerful time of worship, devotions, and just getting to know each other a little more. We've all connected over social media over the last few months, so in a way we all feel like we know each other, but it was exciting getting to meet our fellow team members in person. We know this will be a life-changing week for many, and we're all excited to see what the Lord has in store for us and those we come in contact with!

Our missions team of 12 is made up of people from all across the country - Which adds a cool dynamic to the trip! We have 4 from Maine (Austin, Danika, and our trip leaders - Manny & Suz), 1 from North Carolina (Alexa), 3 from Ohio (Abbey, Kayla, and Kristen), 1 from West Virginia (Marlee), and 3 from Minnesota (Mark, Marcus, and Donovan). Besides two of our team members, the rest of us have all been to Haiti before with Healing Haiti. It's cool to see that our hearts are for Haiti, missions and serving... And we all just keep coming back again!

Please be praying for us all this week as are the hands & feet of Jesus to the people of Haiti. Pray for safety for our team, that we will have servants hearts, and for God to go before us in everything we do. We will be doing two water truck days (delivering clean water to Cite Soleil, the poorest slum in our hemisphere), serving in orphanages, visiting and serving local elders, hosting a VBS for over 30 kids, and much more! We greatly appreciate your prayers as we love and serve others this week, and we look forward to sharing each day with you!

-Danika

Mother/Daughter Healing Haiti Trip 2019: Day 2

After an amazing first day, our team was ready for our first water truck stops in Cite Soleil.  We woke up to the sweet smell of pancakes and a beautiful breakfast prepared by our lovely Haitian staff.  After our morning devotion, we headed on the Tap Tap with Wilbear and Jonas to the water station and met the Healing Haiti truck.  As we followed the truck into stop Four Coffins we were greeted by hundreds of children yelling "hey you."  They had pure joy and excitement and could hardly wait for us to get off the tap tap, it was overwhelming yet we were so excited to share God's love.

Our time at the first water stop brought many hugs, kisses, photos from the beautiful Haitian children.  At this stop and all the others to follow we were amazed by the strength of the Haitian women.  They carried buckets of water on their heads while carrying children back and forth to their homes.  Their inner and outer strength is truly amazing and we were fortunate to work alongside of them, helping them carry buckets and children!

Between the 2 water stops we were able to tour Hope School, Church and Clinic.  These were built by Healing Haiti to help the people of Cite Soleil.  They are amazing buildings especially knowing that they were built on what use to be land to dump trash.  We visited children in the classrooms who were in summer camp.  They have great resources with a sewing room and computer lab.  The clinic was created for the people of Cite Soleil and provides very good healthcare for a very low cost.

The second water stop brought us to Napoule where we again held lots of children and helped carry and fill buckets of water. 

The second half of our day brought us to Mother Theresa's.  It was a very emotional visit as we helped feed and care for babies who were experiencing health issues.  Mother Theresa's is a wonderful place that takes in babies that are sick and nurses them back to health.  After we helped feed the babies we were able to play in the park or just hold and love them in our arms.

Our night ended with another wonderful meal together, team time and another early bedtime!

With love,
The Bergs, Carlsons, Glinkskis, Larsons, Roders, Maci and Jaci 

Mother/Daughter Healing Haiti Trip 2019

As we arrived in Haiti yesterday, our hearts were full and bodies exhausted!  After spending some time bonding at the pool and getting to know each other better with group conversations at our beautiful guesthouse house, we happily were in bed by 9pm.  

Waking up in Haiti with the sweet smell of coffee and sticky heat is the best introduction to Haiti.  Breakfast was prepared with love by our amazing Haitian staff, Ulta and Phoneis. Shortly after eating a wide spread of food, including eggs, French toast, and passionfruit juice, we were on our way to Peace Cycle, a local organization that exists to promote job creation through the creation of bags and other goods using recycled water bags.  Every day 8 million water bags are used by Haitians and often make their way to the street instead of the trash. In response to an attempt to reduce trash and waste, Peace Cycle reuses the water bags and makes beauty out of what was once trash. See the image below to see what Peace Cycle creates!

We began the morning with Peace Cycle by introducing ourselves to the Haitian staff (19 total employees!) while also learning more about them, including their names, hobbies, family, and jobs.  As they say, you learn best by doing and we put that act to practice by joining in with the Haitian staff and doing their jobs for part of the morning! We were able to cut, wash, iron, and even sew parts of these bags together.  The ladies all loved the experience and have such an appreciation for what the Haitian staff do!

Following our worktime, Rose, the founder of Peace Cycle, invited us to eat Pumpkin soup and drink fresh fruit for lunch.  Pumpkin soup is a celebratory soup that Haitian eat on their independence day, January 1st. Made of pumpkins, chicken, noodles, carrots, potatoes, and yams, this soup lived up to its hype!  Our favorite part of lunchtime was the opportunity to converse with the Haitian staff and learn about their families and lives.

After lunch, we explored the streets of Haiti in small groups!  Our guests invited us to their homes and treated us to local snacks from street vendors.  Many of us tried a local fruit called kinnip (pictured below!), sugar cane, popcorn and more.  We loved the snacks but loved the people more. We were blessed by these individuals so much more than we were able to bless them.  Though we were in four groups and spent the afternoon apart, we were very excited to swap stories and experience. Jesus is at work in the hearts of the Haitians and we are blessed to have been part of their lives for the day!!  

The day ended at the pool because has been a heat-filled start to the week.  Our night ended in “word of the day” and snacks of cold chocolate. What a blessing it is to be in Haiti with an amazing group of ladies. 

With Love,

The Bergs, Carlsons, Glinkskis, Larsons, Roders, Maci and Jaci

Hosanna Student Ministries Day 8!

Good Morning Families, Friends, and Prayer Partners!

This is our final morning in Haiti as our team will be flying home later this afternoon. To start our morning, we will be going to a wonderful shopping area called Papillon (which means butterfly). Papillon has a cafe where students can purchase and enjoy some fun drinks and snacks while the shopping area is filled with handmade metal art, beautiful bracelets made from recycled paper, custom T-shirts, masterfully crafted pottery, delicious ground coffee bags, and much more. It wouldn't surprise me if many of you receive gifts that were purchased from Papillon once we all get home! After Papillon, we have a long travel day since we won't land in MN until around midnight. Please pray for the students' energy, health, and hearts as they readjust to U.S. culture after a long week of serving in Haiti. Both Brianne and I are so grateful to have had the opportunity to lead this amazing team of people, they have been an incredible! Truly, God is going to multiply the Kingdom of Heaven through these young disciples of His. Brianne and I will be watching them with great anticipation of what God has in store for them next as they continue to grow in their faith, share it with others, and multiply the hope and heartbeat of Jesus. See you all soon!!

Blessings,

Pastor Erik and Brianne

Hosanna Student Ministries Day 7!

Hi everyone - this is Sarah Johnson! The only reason I included my last name is because there are two Sarah's on this trip. The Haitian children all freak out every time they ask us both our names and we respond with the same word, apparently it isn't common here. Today was a super amazing day, but also very different than any day before.

We started out at RendezVous Christ Church which means "an appointment" with God. It was an open-air church built out of a giant metal structure with a tin roof. It resembled Hosanna, with colored lights, two big screens, a wooden backdrop/wall and a large amphitheater with comfortable chairs. Worship was amazing. The worship team started with a song in english, then a song in french, and finally a song in creole. It was cool that they accommodated everyone there, and the song they sang in french was actually amazing grace so we knew it well. For the sermon, they gave us headphones to listen to an english translator since the pastor spoke in french/creole. Pastor Marc spoke on thankfulness, using the passage of the 10 lepers from the Bible and many modern-day stories. Even though we were hearing the sermon through a translator, it was still very moving. It gave us all a lot to think about, including everything we take for granted at home like food, water, shelter, and health. One thing that really impacted me was when he talked about our ease of doing every-day things like getting out of bed, or scratching out heads, because we had fully functioning muscles and good health. This was very eye-opening because it is something I take for granted every day and rarely thank God for. Everyone at the church was so welcoming and it felt like God was truly working through everyone there.

Next we loaded the tap-tap for our hour long ride to Kaliko beach. Today was extra special because we switched to a different tap-tap from the one we had ridden all week, bench style, to one with coach-bus style chairs. Most of us fell asleep on the ride there because it felt so long and we hit lots of traffic. When we got there it was a super nice resort, all white with light blue accents. It was open air and as soon as we walked in we could see the ocean. We started out with a buffet that was very good, but we were all very cautious about eating things washed in the water here. We then went to what was the favorite part of the day for everyone, baptisms. Pastor Erik and Brianne gave everyone the opportunity to reaffirm their baptisms (if they were baptized as infants) or be baptized for the first time after deciding to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior. We had prayed about it and a majority of the group decided they wanted to give their lives to Jesus, either for the first time or again. This was a moment I'll never forget and it was so inspiring to see so many of us give our lives to Christ. It was definitely one of the best moments of my life and Haiti will forever hold an even bigger place in my heart. We even inspired others to get baptized, one of the girls from a separate Healing Haiti team decided to get baptized with us at the beach, and it was amazing to see God working through others too. 

After baptisms, some of us continued to swim at the beach and some of us went up to the pool/cabana area. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been, nestled between the sea and the lush green mountains. While some of us were swimming though, Abby got stung by a sea urchin when she was trying to look at a few small crabs on some nearby rocks. Our leaders iced the small area, disinfected the sting, prayed over the wound, and Abby's leg is already back to normal! She and some others had fun searching for sea shells that we will all be taking home as souvenirs. After we had a long fun day, we loaded the tap-tap to come back to the guest house. Our guide Smith brought his boombox so we spent the whole ride singing, something we have been doing a lot of. We got back to the guest house to a delicious mashed-potato dinner and our last meal with cane-sugar-sodas. 

It was so nice to relax today after a long week of both mental and physical strain. God was truly present with us today and this week and I am so blessed to be on this trip with so many new friends. Haiti has blessed and impacted us all beyond words, from water truck day, to visiting orphanages, to team time at the house building life-long friendships. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to go on this trip and to see all of the ways God is working in this truly amazing country.  

Hosanna Student Ministries Day 6!

Sup Fam, coming at you from the beautiful country of Haiti. Today we got Karenna and Sophia here.

We had a really fun and playful day. We started out the day with a place called Rebuild Globally. We learned not only about the organization but about a few of the staff members who work there. A Haitian women named Jolina and a Missionary named Sarah gave us an amazing tour of their facility. Their main mission is to create full-time jobs for people that are reliable. What they do is take tires old or new and turn them into shoes. They buy things like leather and other materials from small local businesses to make products to sell. They have made shoes for Kenneth Cole, Billabong, Ron Johns, and famous designers for major companies in the U.S. It was a really cool thing to visit and some people on the team also purchased.

Later on in the day we went back to Cite Soleil and had play time with the kids. It was a very crazy time but also very fun. A few things we did was color, jump rope, dance, etc. For a lot of us it was very overwhelming in a few ways. There was not only a lot of kids there but adults and teenagers to who were eager to hang out with us and with only 17 on the team we all were swarmed by women braiding our hair, kids climbing on us, and other kids who wanted to dance. Even though there was an overwhelming amount of people there was also an overwhelming amount of love given out. God really opened our eyes today to what a day in a life of a Haitian in Cite Soleil really looked like. There was a lot of smiles, laughs, and even some fighting from some six year olds or as a boy told me "they have beef." Over all it was a heart-warming morning where we could just chill and hang out with the people of Cite Soleil with no distractions!

After snack time we took a nice loooooooong drive on over to Laloo (orphanage). When we showed up, we were serenaded by the children and it touched our hearts deeply. We gave the kids a faith lesson on the the 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread and Jesus feeding thousands (Amen!). After the faith lesson we played with the kids which consisted of  soccer, volleyball, jump rope, painting nails, drawing, etc.  Every interaction with the children and there need to be touched, gives each of us a sense of purpose and helped each every one of us draw nearer to God. Then after play time the kids gave us a tour of the orphanage. In the orphanage there is a pharmacy, bedrooms with bunkbeds, and the gathering room. We had to say "orevwa" (goodbye) and every goodbye is sad because of the Godly connection we have made. When we got back after the hot day our spaghetti dinner was smokin' hot and ready... and WOW it was good!

Haiti has opened our eyes and hearts to see people that have little to nothing but an infinite amount of love from Christ. Every spot we visited the Haitians welcomed us with open arms.  the team has made has made a very tight bond that has turned into a family unit.

with love,
Karenna, Sophia, and the man Jezi (Jesus in Haitian Creole) Himself

PS were all saved BY JEZI... can I get an AMEN!!!! love you mom, dad, Hank, and Kobe

Hosanna Student Ministries Day 5!

Hey everyone, it's Claire!

Today's events had a massive impact on my faith and I wanted to share our team's experiences today. We left this morning to visit Grace Village in Titanyen. We drove between the coast and the mountains as we drove up to the area. We were visiting the elders that Grace helps through generous Healing Haiti sponsors. We got out of our tap tap and gathered our supplies to wash feet as well as a guitar. We went to the first elder's house, Maritarez, but she wasn't home since she was away working at the market. So, we left food for her and her family. From there we left to visit Pierre and his wife, Lauramise. They were so sweet and exemplified the love of Jesus. We washed their feet and massaged their arms. This was such a unique opportunity to serve that had such a deep connection to the way Jesus served His own disciples. After, we all sang Reckless Love. Even though they didn't understand every word we were all connected through God's glory and the common appreciation for music.

Next, we traveled to Maricia's house. On the way we were warned that she was extremely friendly and liked to take her top off sometimes, making her the kind of fun you love to hang around. When we got there she changed into her fancy skirt to dress up for us. She then greeted us with hugs and a warm welcome. We then washed her feet and I got to massage her arms. We asked her for prayer requests and Abby prayed for God's love to transform the hearts of this community and globally to better the world as Christ would. The physical touch of Maricia to the rest of the group felt the spread of love that we were praying about. We then sang Set a Fire and This Little Light of Mine. The joy that spread when we all sang was infectious.

After that, we toured the grounds of Grace Village and saw the school. We learned about the program and the history of the place. After the tour we had extra time to just play with the kids. Some of us went to play on the playground while others played basketball or conversed with friends in the shade. The girls' team destroyed the boys' team, or at least scored first on the "next point wins challenge" from Pastor Erik as we wrapped up our time there. Next, we went a short distance to tour the Fleri Bakery.

We received a tour of the Fleri Bakery facility and learned the process they use to make the bread. Then, we went to the Fleri Resto and ordered pizza, fried plantains with salsa, chicken wings, fries, and fun drinks. Everyone loved the food and the company. We also played bags and Jenga in big groups which caused some stiff competition. After we were full, we left to head back to the guesthouse to have some group time and play our nightly group games. I can't wait to see what the rest of this trip has in store for us!