Wayne & Smith Tuesday: What a Day

 What A DAY!  We all gathered at a great breakfast anxious for our day to begin. Smith, one of our leaders, told us of his neighborhood and a children’s community center “New Hope Activities.” We were going to visit with kids of all ages. We were ready with a tub full of coloring books, jump rope, soap bubbles, and a polaroid camera, etc. Well, I can’t describe the joy of those kids. JOY is putting it mildly…. the laughing, the singing, the jumping, and all the nails that were painted. Lastly, before we left, a young boy about 12-13 years old asked the translator to ask me if I’d take him with me, I was speechless.

Our afternoon stop was Home for Sick & Dying Babies. In their care they have so many beautiful babies. We helped to feed them and just be there and play with them. It filled my heart…truly moving. One of the Sisters asked me to feed the tiniest baby I’ve ever held. Jean Paul was no more than four pounds, and his sister Mary Paul even less. It was truly a moving experience. God bless these Sisters for all they do.

And God Bless this Mission for doing all they do. I am humbled to be a part of this team!

Wayne & Smith: Tuesday God is Good!

November 19, 2019

We started the day off with Smith, our co-leader, reading II Corinthian 4:7-10. Smith told us to not worry about persecution, but to be as Paul during captivity to encourage others through our pain.  We had an awesome breakfast of fruit, oatmeal, eggs and pancakes.  We packed up the tap-tap with all our toys to visit the orphanage and our water bottles.  The pictures will reflect the great time had by the kids.  Fierce jump roping and painting of fingernails to name a few of the activities.  Of course, the time could not be stopped without a few girls braiding hair and blowing bubbles. To God be the glory in sharing love to this group.

Our second stop today was Home for Sick & Dying Babies. There were so many precious babies, all beautiful in God’s sight. We each selected a newborn baby from the nursery to feed porridge. After the feeding, we stayed for another hour holding each baby providing the love of God, praying for new mercies, healing and favor. God is good all the time. It was so hard to leave them. Jesus loves them, yes I know for the bible tells us so.

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