First Lutheran Church Day 5

Day 5! How does that even seem possible!

We started our day out by attending Church! What an experience, to see the holy spirit alive in so many people here was amazing and a lot of us felt so much relief. Relief knowing that God is changing lives here right in front of our own eyes. We walked back to the guest house from church, which was fun to see the "streets" of Haiti.

We headed out to go to Titanyen. A little town where Healing Haiti built Grace Village, Grace Church, Grace Shool and Fleri Bakery and restaurant. On our way we stopped at the mass grave site which is a large area at the foot of the mountains where 100's of thousands of people are buried from the earth quake that happened in 2010. They have a large memorial and then up on top of the mountain in the distance stood a bunch of crosses! How amazing!


We headed to get a tour of Fleri Bakery where they make bread and wholesale it to the community to sell on the streets. They also sell the bread in retail.. The whole theory behind the job creation is so great. They employ 26 people alone at the bakery and the restaurant employs the Haition teenagers to wait tables and serve the food!

We had 4 elders ( Older adults in the Titanten Community) that we got the pleasure of visiting  today.  When we visit them we bring them a hot meal, a water bottle with cold water, juice, and a care package with some personal items and some snacks. We sing to them while they get their feet  and hands washed. We sang songs like, this little light of mine, amazing grace, O My Soul and Jesus loves me! Mollee was a excellent leader at this! Before we leave we ask them for their prayer requests and pray over them!

 We started with Marcia. When we showed up she was raising her arms in the air  and was so happy to see us! She said she had been waiting for us to come and was quickly finding a chair to sit down on so that we could wash her hands and feet and massage her back with lotion. When that was finished we painted her nails and toe nails! While doing all of this we sang songs to her!!!! Marcias prayer was for her family, kids, grandkids and for her spirit!


We then moved to Edmund, this sweet man oh my soul! He is blind and almost all the way deaf but he was so happy we were there! The best part about this visit was when we gave him the cold water and he took his first drink and said "ahhhhhh" it tasted soo good! Edmund's prayer requests were for less pain and to not be bored. He lays in bed because he cannot see or hear and he gets bored. He expressed he was in a lot of physical pain.

We visited two other elders and then headed back to Grace village to get a tour of the school and orphanage! All the work that healing Haiti has done here is amazing and the views are a bonus for sure!!!!

Tomorrow is our last water truck day along with our visit to Dios Special needs orphanage!

First Lutheran Church - Day 4

Bon swa from Haiti!

Today we celebrated a birthday of a lifetime for Rachel. It was her fourth 30th birthday. :) Homemade signs were hung up with bandaids next to latex glove "balloons", birthday songs, hugs from children, a video from her kiddos and a delicious cake were just the jist of her special day.

Lisa taught us a fun diddy for our breakfast prayer. By supper, we were ready to be YouTube sensations.

 

On the drive to the first mission of the day we went through a more maintained area with large architecture and homes. We learned that a lot of these were probably occupied by someone who works for the government or are vacation homes. It was quite the difference from what we’ve seen people living in in Cite Soleil.

Our first stop was at Papillon – a company started by an American couple who was trying to adopt a Haitian child until they realized their mother still wanted and loved it, but couldn’t afford to care for it. Instead of taking the child away, they created a place where she and other Haitians could work to provide for their child(ren).

At Papillon the Haitians make beads and jewelry from clay and cereal boxes, they form mugs and bowls out of pottery and sew dolls and stuffed animals. This business also has a daycare for its employees's children.

Papillon has its own café upstairs - where if you ask Bodie – you just have to try the Mario smoothie (peanut butter, strawberry and banana). Every meal or snack we have had here in Haiti has just been incredible.

From Papillon we went to For His Glory orphanage. This orphanage had some children with special needs which really hit home for many of our missionaries.

One boy, Wilson, stole the hearts especially of Kara and Lori. Wilson has cerebral palsy. We can’t say for sure, but because of the lack of education of how to care for a child with CP, Wilson was missing out on a lot of attention and proper care. To a lot of us, it was intimidating to pick him up out of his wheelchair because we didn’t want to hurt him. Kara made that little guy’s day, and probably his week or even his year. She carried him out of the nursery to go outside, and he was smiling the biggest smile he could possibly smile and waving in excitement.

 

 

Our hearts strings were pulled in other ways in that same nursery. A maybe four-month old baby was just waiting to pass away. He had hydrocephalus – fluid on his brain. His head was about double the size of a normal baby’s head, and will continue to swell until he passes.

Emily held a child with the best laughter. I think most of us can relate that nothing gets much better than the sound of that. Josh played with a little lady who couldn’t live without her sunglasses. She was a little movie star who kept him on his feet.

Like on our other orphanage visits, we pulled out bubbles, jump rope, Frisbees and even made bracelets with the children. Another young lady – maybe 12 years old – made sure to greet every missionary and give them hugs. She was curious about every activity that was going on.

When we left For His Glory, we went straight to  La Pherre’s Orphanage. This orphanage was nothing like the last four we’ve been to. This orphanage is owned by a pastor and his wife. We were greeted by the wife at the entrance, and the husband began setting out any chair he could find so we all had a place to sit.

We played musical chairs – first the children, then the adults. And the kids taught us a song. We did a craft with them and then played a game of duck, duck, gray duck – or if you ask Lisa and Elise – goose. (Please forgive them. They really are sweet women.)  

Those children knew three different languages. They were probably 7 to 15 years in age. We could just tell they were safe, loved and fed. The children greeted each missionary and the boys shook our hands. Unlike at other orphanages, the pastor (caretaker) stuck around and observed our visit. He took photos of the group and encouraged the children to sing different songs and not be so shy.

We closed with a prayer ­- first from the pastor – who prayed for us missionaries, too, and it was followed by a prayer from our missionary, Josh. Both were translated respectively. It’s safe to say there wasn’t a dry eye when we departed. Unlike with the babies and younger kids – these kids could understand emotion, and they had made connections, too. A lot of our interactions with the children in Haiti have shown us the older ones are more shy because they can't jump all over us like the littles. But, they snuggled right in here.

We are all so thankful to be finding peace and comfort with one another, even though days ago  we didn't know much about each other, other than we were people on a mission.

After we got back we were blessed with a meal of traditional Haitian foods, visited the grocery store, celebrated Rachel’s birthday one last time (for the evening) and had a powerful team meeting.

It’s so hard to put into words the things we are seeing and feeling, but we are so happy you’re following the journey we have been able to share thus far.

Until tomorrow!  

 

FIrst Lutheran Church- Day 3

 

Greetings from Haiti! Joy and Peace to you! Today was our first water truck day! We started out our day by going to the water station to see where the water trucks are loaded with clean water. This was our truck (below) for the day; we learned that all of the trucks are funded by varying ministries in order to provide clean water to Haitians. Healing Haiti is the only organization that delivers water to Cite Soleil; which is where we headed next. Please know that the monies we raised due to your generous contributions helped pay for a total of 9,000 gallons of clean water today; which we had the honor of delivering. 

 

 

 

CITE SOLEIL. God break my heart for what breaks yours. What can we say? We are still processing. It means City of the Sun. And I know the Son of God Has his eyes on this city, where half- dressed children run at you with smiles on their faces and hope in their eyes. Their is however very little hope in the eyes of the adults and I think we all may have come away from the day wondering; Why? How?

 

 We did a total of three water stops today; there are over 30 stops in Cite Soleil. Moms and children come from everywhere to get their buckets filled. Healing Haiti is able to fund 3 a day, which means that the people of the Cite only receive clean water a few times a month. The rest of the time they run into the sewage ridden bay and gutters to clean/cool off. In between the first two stops we were able to see the school and church that Healing Haiti has built in the Cite of Soleil. Its called HOPE school and HOPE church!!! It was built on land which first required 16 feet of garbage be removed.

 

 In between the second and third water truck stop we visited Flurry Farm; a farm Healing Haiti has developed. Remember Healing Haiti, is all about empowering the Haitian People! 90% of the people in Haiti don't have jobs, but it doesn't mean they don't want them!! At the farm we all got a mango and drank straight out of a coconut!

There are few words and many emotions after today. As I stood at the third stop; holding a little girl taking it all in, I looked over and saw a woman wearing an old worn shirt that said, "love is the answer"; and I thought, "yes, it is".
 "When I was hungry your gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty you gave me something to drink"

First Lutheran Chuch Day 2

Hi everyone!

Today we woke up to a delicious breakfast being cooked by the Haitian staff in our guesthouse. They have the magic touch when it comes to egg scrambles and oatmeal, and the fresh bananas and mangos were a treat.

The first place we visited was Peace Cycle - a recycling business set up by a woman from Indiana named Rose. Because there is not fresh water, Haitian's drink out of square water bags about the size of a bean bag. A lot of those bags just end up in the streets or tossed out.

At Peace Cycle, the Haitians recycle water bags and turn them into some of the neatest creations. We learned that about 8 million bags are consumed in ONE DAY in Haiti.

Rose's mission with the Haitian people is to lessen the waste that is generated.

Once the bags are collected, Haitians cut them open, clean them, iron them in sets of four with an iron powered by charcoal, cut them to equal size and start sewing. Some of the things they make from the recycled bags are reusable shopping bags, wallets, purses and wine bottle carriers. With each sale, the Haitians track the amount of bags that have been recycled.

Our second stop was at the Sweet Home orphanage. There were a handful of children about the age of four watching us as the Tap Tap pulled in through their gates. Some of them were shy, but one little guy, Zachary, wasted no time getting familiar with us and being silly. The other children followed suit. They snuggled right into our laps, and we blew bubbles and played ball with them. It was tough to walk away.

Our last stop was at the Laloo Orphanage. This time we were outnumbered by the children. They were little older - maybe 7-12 years old. To get everyone comfortable we brought out toys and a craft to do with them and played a game of basketball. We did a little song and dance with the kiddos which called people to the middle of the circle to dance silly. It's safe to say it was outside of a lot of our comfort zones, but well worth it. It seemed tougher for the older girls to get involved with us right away but once they warmed up, they showed us their love for hair, and pulled out our pony tails and started braiding. Prior to our leaving, the kiddos gathered and sang us a song. Tears!

We are back at the compound and are looking forward to our first water truck day tomorrow and a hot meal of lasagna tonight.

First Lutheran Church Day 1

We made it!!!

We arrived in Haiti at 3:30 this afternoon and were welcomed by the Haitian staff! After a fun and cooling ride to the guest house we got all settled in. We had two other team members that were on a different airline so while we waited for them we decided to head over to the swimming pool to take a dip and cool off.

Our walk was really neat to see the Haitian Culture. We enjoyed our time at the pool and returned back to the guest house to play some bags and eat dinner.

We are exhausted and ready for a good nights sleep!

Holy Family Catholic High School- He is Risen, Alleluia!

Today started a little earlier than usual so that we could go to Mother Teresa's for Easter Mass.  There must have been around 300-400 people, mostly children from the school, singing and following the lead of what appeared to be the worship leader.  They had a big drum that boomed through the congregation and made the singing of the children even better.  For me there is nothing better than voices of angels singing with energy and enthusiasm at the top of their lungs, it seems even better when it is in a language I do not understand.  The Mass was said in Kreyol and and even though I do not speak it, I am pretty sure the homily had something to do with the resurrection of Jesus.  I actually find it so moving that wherever I go to Mass, I can basically follow along.  It helps to know that while we were participating in the Mass that we were sharing that with all of you at home through the Eucharist.  It is an incredible blessing.  It was over 2 hours, but surely did not seem that long.  We left, stopped back at the guest house before heading over to Gertrude's.

Gertrude is my wife's Haitian mother.  When Joanna lived here for several months she lived with Gertrude.  Gertrude has an orphanage for street kids and special need children.  She told us that when mothers have child with special needs, they see it as a curse and those babies are often abandoned or left for dead.  Gertrude has a heart for those kids and decided to take them in.  She has had an orphanage since 1999.  It moved once in that time because during the earthquake, her home and orphanage were crushed.  She has 47 children there.  Approximately 20 abled bodied kids and 27 children with special needs.  They range in age from 2-22 and the special needs varies as well.  She talks about how the abled bodied children may be adopted at some point, but that she will have the disabled kids with her for their whole lives.  She is in the process of creating a transition home for some of the disabled men so that they will have a place for their own.  Almost all of her children go to school.  In the years that I have been going to Gertrude's I have seen the children, especially the children with special needs grow and advance.  I am so proud of the work that she has done.

We brought stuff to throw them an Easter Party (thanks to Laura and Kathryn).  We had a station to make bunny noses and whiskers with wire cleaner and little fuzzy balls and pop sickle sticks.  We made resurrection crosses with pop sickle sticks and yarn.  We had a bubble section, a coloring section, and a side walk chalk section.  Each student had a different area that they were supposed to help with.  Most however, after a few kids played with each activity, abandoned it just to play with the kids.  They had wheelchair races, pushed kids in the swing, carried kids that couldn't walk for themselves to different stations, and generally just had a good old time.  The best part of the party for many of them was the Easter Egg Hunt!  They really loved the candy.  I find Gertrude's place to be one of the happiest, saddest places in Haiti.  My heart strings are always pulled when we go there.  And it helps that Gertrude is so wonderful!  I think it was the perfect way to end the week.

We left Gertrude's to take a mountain adventure.  We drove about 45 minutes to go to the top of the mountain so we could see Port-Au-Prince from above and do some shopping.  The ride is bumpy, but the view is spectacular.  The students practiced their skills in negotiating.  I think some did better than others.  Anna G. as she was leaving locked wills with one of the vendors and Anna G came out victorious.  Although she did not know they agreed to her price until she was already on the tap tap.  It can be quite aggressive situation, but I think a little bit of fun as well.  Hopefully you will all enjoy the gifts you receive from our excursion.

We came back to a traditional Easter meal of Ham and mashed potatoes!  Some went to play soccer after dinner and others went to the pool.  It has been a wonderful week.  Thank you for sharing your children with me.  They have been awesome and I think they will come home changed.  The changes may be hard to see at first, but I am convinced each of them has a different perspective on life.

Tomorrow will be a long day of traveling.  I will not be blogging tomorrow.  Expect to see us at the airport when we get back.  Please have them check in with me before you go so I can be sure that everyone is safe in the hands of their parents or another responsible adult.  Then I will see all of them super early the next morning at school!!!  If we get delayed or anything, I will make sure that every parent is contacted.

Happy Easter!  See you all soon.

Holy Family Catholic High School- Grace!

Good Friday!  Today we honor this most holy day in so many incredible ways.  In 2010, Port-Au-Prince was struck with one of the worst natural disasters the country had ever seen.  A 7.0 magnitude Earthquake on the Richter Scale struck an unsuspecting and unprepared capital city.  Followed by 52 aftershocks.  An estimated 200,000-300,000 deaths occurred.  There were so many dead that they didn't know what to do with all the bodies.  They loaded the dead in trucks and brought them to a mass grave site in a mountainous area about 35 minutes outside the capital.  Today, the site is gated, with memorials and a large stone set in the middle- similar to the stone that covered the grave of Jesus some 2000 years before.  They have done a wonderful job of honoring those that have died and given them a place of dignity to rest in peace.  

After breakfast, we visited the mass grave.  After hearing form Smith, our 25 year old Haitian host, about the earthquake and the devastation that was caused because of it and hearing his personal story of knowing people who died, we took a walk around to pay our respects.  After several minutes we called the group together and read the story of the crucifixion, ending with Jesus being laid in a tomb that was not his own.  In my estimation, a rather appropriate place to read this scripture and to honor both those who have died and our Good Friday together.  

After our morning stop we continued on to Grace Village in Tetanye.  Grace Village is a place where the founder, Jeff Gacek, and his wife, Alyn first saw hope and a future in Haiti.  They began by starting an orphanage.  Since then it has grown and developed into family pods for the permanent orphans and a transitional home for the kids that are too old to be in the family pod, but not old enough to be on their own. They also house kids there when the government children protection services comes and asks them to take in a child from the city.  

There is a k-12 school that not only educates the children from Grace Village, but 300 of the children in the surrounding town of Titanye.   They have a feeding center that feeds all the children and workers throughout the day.  They used to get their food form Feed My Starving Children, but have decided to go in a different direction by buying everything locally.  By doing this, they can feed the students, orphans and workers at the same time as supporting the local Haitian community.  A few years ago a librarian was on a mission team and she noticed that they did not have a library.  She told them that if they built the structure, she would get the books.  A few months later she had 5000 books in English, Creole, French and Spanish and the library was born.  Shortly after that someone noticed that they did not have any technology.  They partnered with a Minnesota company to give them 48 top of the line iPads and came in and trained both the teachers and students on how to use them.  Not hard to believe, but the students picked up quicker than the teachers.  They have plans in place to get every kid a iPad to help them be prepared to pass the required graduation exam and to get into college.  They even fully fund college for the top 3 graduates each year.  

Outside of the school is a garden area that used to house an aquaponics tilapia farm.  They found out that it was not super efficient, so it is now a garden where they grow vegetables that the feeding center uses.  The goal is to find out a way that the garden system can be reproduced for the people of Titanye.

There is also a Haitian run clinic, that has midwives, nurses, and doctors on staff and on call.  Frequently they will have medical and dental teams come to take care of those special surgeries that their own doctors are not trained for.  Most recently they had a team of doctors who specialized in cervical cancer- one of the leading causes of death in the women in the surrounding towns.  Several years ago a pizza place donated a stone pizza oven.  The thought at the time was that they could bake bread, pizzas, cookies and sell them in the local market.  They realized quickly that it was cost prohibitive because of the prices of coal they needed to heat the over, but they didn't let that reality stop them from coming up with a new plan.  Today, in Grace Village they have Flueri Restaurant and bakery.  I will talk more about that later.  They also have a church that is jammed packed.  The beauty of the whole complex is that they do not pay one single non-Haitian to do any work and they do not have any group come in and do work that Haitians can be paid to do.  

Grace village is an awesome place where God has worked through people to create something wonderful.  They continually have plans to continue to create and develop so to work for the end of orphanages in Haiti.  80% or more of the children that are in orphanages have living parents, those parents simply have no way to take care of the children so they bring them to orphanages.  Healing Haiti is working to end the need for orphanages around Haiti.  

After our tour of Grace Village we went to visit the elders in the community.  It was great.  We went to a home of a married couple, the students washed their feet and put lotion on them.  The women got pedicures and so did some of the little girls in the complexes.  All the while our students sang different songs to them.  It was truly a beautiful site.  I couldn't help but be reminded of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and telling them to go out and do the same.  We finished with praying with the elders and their families for their needs.  I was overwhelmed by how beautiful it was and I was so please to do this on Good Friday.  We lived out the Gospel message in many ways today.  

Finally, after our visit with the elders we went to Flueri Restaurant and Bakery.  We learned that it was began with the intent of being a teaching program to teach the locals how to become bakers.  However, before beginning the program someone asked what would happen in a town where there was one bakery, but many, many bakers.  So they changed course a little.  Jake, the guy that runs the bakery and restaurant is from Minnesota.  He was a business man.  His dream was to become rich so that he could open orphanages in Taiwan.  Three or so years ago he came down to visit his friend who worked for Healing Haiti.  He had it in his mind that he would come down, they would go to some beaches and night clubs and then he would go home.  When he got here, she told him that she was a little preoccupied and he should join one of the teams distributing water in City Soleil.  It was that day that his path and his heart were changed for the better.  She told him that they were starting a bakery and needed someone to run it and she thought he should do it.  He quit his job and learned how to become a baker.  He has been here for a little over 2 years and has signed up for 2 more years. If we ever want to see or hear God laugh, make a plan for your life.  The bakery and restaurant buy as much as they can from the local market.  They make bread and have 25 people in the local communities that they distribute it to.  They buy their drinks from a local shop instead of buying it wholesale.  Their employees are the kids that are in the transitional housing in  Grace Village.  They employ about 30-40 workers.  Everything that they are doing is working to improve the economy, to provide skills that are transferrable, and to make sure that families have what they need so that they don't have to put their children in orphanages.  Jake said he started out with a goal to make enough money to start orphanages and now he is doing everything in his power to eliminate orphanages.  It is an incredible story.  We ate pizza from Flueri tonight on our way back from Wahoo Beach.  It was really good. 

They also bought a farm so that they can raise crops to support the bakery and restaurant and to hire people to work the field and again, to grow the local economy.  We didn't see it, but I have heard it is an amazing place.  

Today we went to the beach.  To be honest, it was super fun.  However, many of the students struggled with "celebrating" while so many people they saw this week suffer.  Haiti's beaches are beautiful and I wonder what would happen to the economy if more people came to Haiti for vacation.  They have a way to go to get to that point though.  I did appreciate the conversation we had surrounding that struggle!  

Sorry I missed a night.  I am sure that I missed important moments.  All the students are sleeping, I think they might be exhausted from the sun, from the week, and need to be ready for a great day tomorrow!

Happy Easter everyone.  We miss you all and love you very much.  They don't know this yet, but they will all wake up to Easter Baskets (well, the abbreviated version of Easter Baskets).  Continue to pray for us and we will continue to pray for you as well.