Wayne & Smith Tuesday Devotion

Wayne & Smith: Monday Arrival

November 18, 2019

All 12 of us arrived safely to our destination of the Healing Haiti dorms. The age group ranges from a student in college to adults that are near retirement.  During our devotional time, we shared our results from our spiritual gifts and prayed for the Lord’s will.  We are all eager to start tomorrow serving the Haitians. I did not know what to expect on the drive to the dorms. In recalling a visit to Gulfport after Hurricane Katrina, there is no comparison to reconstruction in a developed country compared to a country with so little.  We hope our daily blog is read by our friends and family praying for our journey.

Wayne & Smith Sunday Sunrise

Sunday:  A Window of Opportunity

As many of you know, I love watching the sunrise in Haiti. It's usually a quiet time at the guest house since everyone is usually still asleep. It's also a time that I like to spend praying and reflecting on what the day will bring and what God has planned for me.

This time of the year, the sun rises around 6 am, which is much earlier than back home in Minnesota. Nonetheless, even after a long day of travel yesterday, I still set my alarm, grabbed a cup of coffee and made my way to the balcony of our guest house to watch the sun come up.

As I looked to the sky, there was a giant cloud hanging over the eastern horizon, which I thought would definitely be blocking the sunrise. However, I noticed there was a little break in the cloud right over the horizon...a window of opportunity for the sun to come-up. And, what a fitting way to begin our week of serving here in Haiti.

Over the past several weeks, Haiti has experienced a considerable amount of unrest, which has limited our teams' ability to serve. This week, our team decided to travel to Haiti with palms up and open to whatever God has in-store for us. We know that God places us right where we need to be at just the right time, and this week is our window of opportunity to serve in Haiti.

Central Church - Sabbath Day, End of Week Reflections

Good Monday everyone.  We haven't blogged in a couple days...we have been really busy.

Thursday morning started with Church on the Rock for a 6am service.  It was powerful.  Church on the Rock is an large open air structure when Haitians come seven days a week to worship for their needs that day.  With so much going on in Haiti, faith is essential to daily survival,  The worship was phenomenal and we were recognized by the Pastor. We spent our morning serving the Tap Tap and cleaning it up and organizing supplies.

We went to Papillon for shopping, lunch, and a tour.  Papillon is an organization supported by Healing Haiti that has created up to 400 jobs for Haitians that use their creative skills to make jewelry, pottery, fabric items, and metal work that is sold locally and in the states.  The tour was informative and appreciated.

Saturday was a long day with over 3 hours on the tap tap traveling to and from the "Mountain". In our pioneer spirit, we visited two communities that Healing Haiti is working to establish new relationships with.  The first was Kenskoff. There we played with a group of children, provided them with lunch, and visited and prayed with six elders.  Our word of the day reflected the contrast we experienced between a mountain village and Port-au-Prince.  That contrast being the "calmness and peace" we felt with the children and adults.  We then ventured further up the mountain to Furcy, a community of over 17,000 that sustain themselves primarily on agriculture and livestock farming,  We met with a group of community leaders who represented education, health, agriculture and livestock.  They are very interested in partnering with support from America to learn and share.  We also had the opportunity of visit a locals home & farm where coffee is grown.  We were able to witness the roasting process over a wood fire, the manual grinding process with a large wooden mortar and pestle and taste the final product.  Many team members bought coffee from the woman to bring home.  Truly it was a flavorful experience  W all around.

Sunday was our sabbath day.  We had the unique experience to triple facetime with the serving teams in China and August this morning during our devo time.  We all sang Mountains in unison.  It was pretty cool.  Church was at Rendezvous Christ in Delmas.  It is associated with Haiti Teen Challenge.  The worship was powerful and much like Central.   Music was fantastic, the crowd large and much bilingual.  Moving testimony by several "graduates" of the program was experienced as they shared their historical struggles and how Christ has saved their lives.  We spent the remainder of our day relaxing, swimming, journaling, (blogging...), packing, and beginning our journey into our reentry travel day today. We had the pleasure of having the founder of Healing Haiti join us for part of our evening devotion.  He was in town to meet with some of his team.  His story was powerful and provided us insight into the origins of his journey of serving the broken people of Haiti.  Simply put he went from seeking success to seeking significance.  Significance in serving the Lord.   He left us with some important things to think about as we return home. 

What does God want for our journey with Him? We all have some homework. 

We are currently sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for our trip to Portland.  Leaving 90 degrees in Port-au-Prince for maybe 20 degrees in Maine....Nonetheless, we are anxious to get home.  Thank you everyone for your support and interest in our mission.  It has been an extraordinary life changing experience.  We all look forward to sharing our stories in person to those we love and the church we call family. 

Blessings from all the Central Church Haiti Missions Team, November 2019.

Central Church Thursday: Water Truck Friendship

Bonswa our blog followers, thank you for your interest in our Mission.  

Today's edition will be brief but I didn't want you to miss a glimpse of our exhausting and rewarding day.  We had a second water truck day and made two stops!.  God and Healing Haiti were so gracious to us in providing us the privilege to serve the pier area of District 97 and Four Coffins in Cite Soleil. The team was resilient and endured a heat index of approximately 100 degrees while we helped deliver 6000 gallons of water.  In between stops, we had a chance to understand more about the Hope Medical Clinic and tour the Innovation Pod located on the Hope Campus.  The "pod" is a "tractor trailer body" equipped with state of the art information technology designed to educate Hope School children using innovative teaching methodologies such as problem solving learning versus traditional memorization techniques.  This pod is probably the most sophisticated technology in Haiti and it is located in the poorest community in the Western Hemisphere!

In devotion time this evening, we focused on the gift of friendship.  The friendships being created in this unique team, friendships with the long term missionaries, friendships with the Healing Haiti staff, and even the brief but powerful friendships with the children and adults we interacted with in Cite Soleil.

God is doing amazing things here and we are blessed to be simple witnesses to his presence here.  We all know we are making a difference by this trip, but mostly Jesus continues to grow in us and make a difference in our faith.

Word of the Day was again another powerful exercise.  I'll simply share mine:  Proud.

Proud to be a Co-Leader of this cohesive, humble, and tireless team...simply here to serve God, the staff of Healing Haiti, and the people of Haiti. 

Thank you to all for your prayers and spiritual and financial support.  We miss you all and will be home in a few days but also have a few more things that God wants us to accomplish down here.  While we might not know what is going to happen day to day....our team continues to embrace our journey as pioneers, paving the way for future Healing Haiti teams to come.

Til tomorrow, Blessings to all of you.

Mike

Word of  

Agape Love for Haiti

Today was one that's hard to explain or put into words.

From the moment we woke up, we knew that our schedule could change at any moment, but that no matter what the day brought, we'd be ready for it. We were so excited to be able to walk to the market today and get a taste of some local artistry and economy. Getting to this 'pop-up' shop meant climbing up two stories to a wide open space filled with metal work, paintings, jewelry, stone work and more. My favorite part was the stunning panoramic view of Delmas and the cool breeze that came with it. 

The people explained their work, how it was made, and gave credit to the artists who helped design and create it all. The joy was contagious and one gentleman even gave a free gift to one of our team members because it wasn't 'perfect' but that simple gesture was the most perfect way to start our day. Times are tough here mostly because of the lack of predictability. Many people don't know when they'll be able to fill their gas tanks, so they stay home. Or they get paid, but then the banks are closed, so they can't get their money. And while shopping might not seem like a mission, one man thanked us and said that because of our purchases his family would eat tonight. 

As we made our way back to the missions house, we were excited to learn about our next stop - A local community center (think Boys & Girls Club). We stepped out of the tap tap and were greeted with smiles and waves and were covered in children within moments of our arrival. 

This community center provides a safe place for kids to come during the day. They learn about leading in their communities and families. They get to just be kids and have fun, and after nearly 7 weeks out of school, this service is incredibly important.

Dan got into some arm wrestling matches with the kids. Annie taught kids how to play tic-tac-toe. Jen and Mel got their faces decorated with stickers. Tyse decided to let the kids braid her hair. Phil let his face become a canvas for some chalk artwork. Paul never let a child be without a lap to sit on. Melissa made every kids day when she handed out stickers. One of the team members from Healing Haiti, Smith, was from this neighborhood. Watching him light up as he led the children in a game and dance was something special. 

The last part of our day was spent at the Home for Sick & Dying Children. You walk in and you're surrounded by kids who are just looking for people to hold them and love them. 

Brandon found himself in a room surrounded by toddlers and he spent his time playing with them. Kiera rocked a baby on her lap as kids played dodgeball and laughed. Tara passionately shared how this experience shaped her perspective after last year's trip. Michael carried a baby around and started a game with the other toddlers outside. And I figured if I had two hips and two littles holding my hand that I'd take two babies with me. As challenging as this part of the day was, many of us wished it would never end.

Another member of the Healing Haiti staff, Jonas, grew up in that home and he was able to be there today and minister to the kids alongside us. 

As a team, today in itself would make this entire trip worth it. To see how something that appears broken and fragile can also represent so much joy, faithfulness, delight, peace and radiate the presence of God brought us to a place of agape love for this country. To learn about the innovative ways Healing Haiti is reaching its people and building up the next generation to lead is inspiring. We feel that it is a privilege to serve here. 

-Erika Bush & The Central Church Mission Team

Central Church - Water Truck Day

Bonswa, friends and family! Today was the first official day of being immersed into the Haitian culture, and it was such a moving time for myself and my team. I'm not the best writer, and this is not my comfort-zone, so I apologize if I jump around a bit.

For those of you that don't know, this Central Church Team faced many uncertainties before leaving for Haiti. One of which was our ability to participate in "Water Truck Day." This hit our team kind of hard. This was something we had been hearing about for so long! But the travel from Port-au-Prince to Cite Soleil was a big concern. Do to current events emotions were high.

If you don't know what Water Truck Day is, it's when clean drinking water is brought into Cite Soleil (the poorest city in Haiti) by Haitian drivers that are employed by Healing Haiti. When the water is brought in, Healing Haiti Teams, such as ours, help the locals fill whatever buckets they have, for the week. It's also a time to interact with the locals, and love on children that don't necessary receive love and affection. There is also no guarantee that they will be able to deliver water the following week. Needless to say, we were all a little discouraged.

Yesterday, as we were traveling to Haiti, God put some familiar words on my mind,

"The weapon may be formed, but it won't prosper
  When the darkness falls, it won't prevail
  'Cause the God I serve knows only how to triumph
  My God will never fail
  Oh, my God will never fail..."

It wasn't that God didn't want us to go to Cite Soleil because it might be too dangerous to travel. It was the enemy trying to change the outcome of this trip. Well, last night one of our Healing Haiti Coordinators informed us that "Water Truck Day" was still a possibility...and today he confirmed.

God took back what the enemy tried to steal and today, we saw a victory!

Glwa pou Bondye
-Jennifer Flewelling