Haiti: Week 2 - The JOY of the Lord, Healing and so much more!

Teaching in Delmas 6

A view of the tent city

Week 2 we taught in Delmas 6. We had an amazing week! The tent city was very different to the others we had been to.....it was much cleaner and very organized. When we got there we set up and went out to visit people in their homes, invite them to come to the teaching and played with the kids. We had fun teaching the kids various games. I sat down with a group of women, without a translator and communicated the best we could.....one of the ladies was getting her hair braided with extensions weaved in so I watched and loved on them. One was studying, another playing with her daughter. I bonded with Maria and Francesca. When it came time to teach they all came with me to the teaching. There was a guy there that had been a voodoo priest and we had some intense conversation (all good), he had a lot of questions. At the end of the teaching time, we had a time of ministry, where we prayed for people.........I will never forget praying for three people in particular. The first was Willy, he is 18 years old, a believer and wanted to deeper relationship with Christ. We only had two translators so they would ask what people needed prayer for, translate for us and help someone else, then we would pray in English. Jorn and I prayed for him, when we were done praying, his face was so lit up, shining, he truly had the 'JOY' of the Lord in him! I had never seen anything quite like this before, it was so amazing! We talked more with him and gave him homework to read the book of Daniel. He came back the next day, still shining, having done his homework, had dreams and visions from the Lord and hungry for more!!!! He continued to come back even hungrier every single day, shining brighter and brighter!! Next I prayed for Maria, she had severe stomach pain, had operations and needed to have more (the translation was a little 'unclear' so we weren't exactly sure of the details), we prayed for her and when we were done, she said she was in less pain. We believed God was going to heal her! The next day she was feeling better and we prayed for her again. Hannah and I continued to pray for her each day and in our own prayer times back at the base....by Thursday we had the amazing news that she was completely pain free and was healed! Thank you Jesus! On Wednesday I had the awesome privilege of leading 11 year old, Fabriella, to the Lord. The kids were so good, they all sat and listened to the message, intended for the adults, they were patient and hungry for the messages we shared.

At the end of each of our teaching times we were blessed with ice cold sodas or a snack of some sort! We had come to teach them about the Love of Christ and they showed us instead....out of their poverty, they chose to bless us!  WOW

By midweek, after leading Fabriella to the Lord, I really began thinking....how would she grow? who would teach her more about Jesus? The Haitian culture believes that you need to dress up and wear nice clothes to attend church. Churches are far and few between so getting there is a whole 'nother obstacle! This made me sad! Often different teams come through, some do a VBS for the kids and the base alternates doing worship and a message twice a week in different tent cities, but is this good enough? I imagine the VBS messages are the basic gospel, but how does that help one grow to know more? My heart was breaking for these new believers.......my prayer is for discipleship, that someone would come and disciple 5-10 people that could then turn around and disciple 5-10 more and therefore multiple. I thought about Willy teaching the kids and prayed for someone to pour into his life so he could pour into others! Knowing that I am one person, who doesn't speak Creole and is very limited to my ability if any to do this, I had to turn to the Lord, to Trust Him, to know that He is in control and has a plan! The best thing I could do then and now is to pray! Will you join me in praying for men and women to Disciple the Haitian people!

On Friday we decided to bless the people that faithfully came and attended are sessions all week and brought food to feed them after our teaching! I spent the morning with Francesca and a few other ladies helping them separate bags for food they were selling and even got my hair braided! :)  There was tons of food and lots of people ate! Everyone was so grateful! We ate, played, danced and worshipped! Another great week in Haiti! Thank you Jesus!


Jorn loved the children, well, we all did! :)

This is Willy! :)

Notice the braided hair! I forgot to mention we painted the kids nails one day, well....they wanted to paint ours too.....hence the lovely blue nails! :)

This lady broke both legs in the earthquake! Abel and I went to her tent to pray for her one of our first days there, she was in a lot of pain and she came out everyday for the teaching and was getting around better and better each day.  Another view of my lovely braided hair! :) Things one does for ministry!

One of the ladies I sat with most of the day on Friday and helped with her little food business!

Francesca! I forgot to mention....she saw my purity ring and wanted it so I gave it to her and had a translator explain what it meant. It said 'true love waits' around the band! She was SO EXCITED to have the ring and kept thanking me for it!

Another lady I made friends with and one of my teammates, Hilary! We ended up having a little photoshoot on Friday. One of the guys was snapping all these pictures with my camera and then made me take pictures of him and the guys!

Definitely a ladies man! (he was the photographer of the other shots with me in them)

Trying to be cool! And they dragged Jorn into it! The poses were cracking me up!

My lovely sweet teammate, Jill, in the back of the truck while we were driving.

Riding in the back of a truck! Anacias is one of the full time Haitian staff and a super amazing guy!

Traffic! The little pick up truck are called 'tap taps', typically there are about 15 people crammed in the back of them.

Street market and place to exchange money! There aren't really banks to exchange money and the rates on the street are typically better!

View from the truck while we were driving!

My amazing teammate, sister and prayer warrier, Elizabeth!

Our crazy german, Dani, taking video while we were driving!

photo courtesy of my teammate, Steven Michelau, this is the lady that broke both legs in the earthquake. This was the first day we prayed for her and she came out for the teaching.

Haiti: Week 1 - Our Plans Are Not Always His Plans

Our first week in Port-au-Prince we spent in Delmas 19. The city is split into different areas, we were in the Delmas area, in Tent City 19. On Monday we showed up to start teaching, our contact had confirmed with the Tent City Committee Chair that we were coming etc. When we got there, the road was blocked, so we drove around and went in another way. There was a food distribution going on and so we were asked to come back the following day.

Quickly a few phone calls were made and a decision was made to go to Cite Soleil. Cite Soleil was known as the worst of the worst area of Port-au-Prince, it's where drug dealers, gang members, etc lived. I was told that if one wanted someone killed or a crime committed, they would go to Cite Soleil. Our experience quite different then it probably would have been if we had been there before the earthquake. I feel confident in saying it was everyone's favorite place! To know the history and to see and know the people is quite amazing. You can truly see God's love, His character and Hope for the nation of Haiti in the people we met there. When we pulled in, all the kids and people came running to the vehicle, they were so happy and excited to see us. We had no plan, no program so we gave it all to God and asked for His leading. We hung out with the kids, played with them, taught them games, played some music and sang and carried on conversations with people using some sort of sign language (we only had one or two translators and 11 of us that didn't know the language). Our hearts were growing quickly for the Haitian women, children and men.

Below are some of the beautiful children we met and fell in love with in Cite Soleil.

Emily loved being with the kids.

So did Elizabeth.

This kid kept Dani's sunglasses! :)

On Tuesday and Wednesday we went back to Delmas 19 to teach. It was a bit unorganized........God was teaching us a lot about waiting on Him. Often we would hurry up to get ready to go somewhere and then not leave for an hour or even two. We were also learning a lot about following the Holy Spirit and being prepared for the unexpected! It took a while to gather everyone the first day and get setup. We did a few worship songs, taught about the Father Heart of God and prayed for people. We were teaching under a tent and there were a ton of people there so half of us kept the kids entertained while the other half helped with the teaching and worship. My job that day was to care for Tabby, the base director's 6 month old daughter. I found myself questioning why I came all the way around the world to a fourth world country, where there was so much destruction, to care for a child, feeling like I was not doing much. These were the lies that the enemy wanted me to believe. I realized that God had a great purpose in what I was doing. Lucy was translating for us, so with out someone to care for Tabby, there would have been no translation and therefore no message to share. I also found myself in a place of great importance, interceding on behalf of my team and for the Haitian people. And spending time listening to God and what He wanted to teach me.

Hilary playing games with the kids.

Worshipping in the tent.

Garbage was everywhere!

Ministry time....our team praying for people.

Jorn and Dani, our two germans, praying for this guy.

Emily talking with this lady.

On Thursday we were on "Lock Down" and couldn't leave the base because of riots. On Friday we went back to Cite Soleil and played with the kids in the morning and then went to another area of Cite Soleil to do a food distribution. Valternir, our amazing cook from Brazil, cooked and we served over 500 kids. 

 The kids are patiently waiting to be fed and sang some worship songs while waiting.

The chicken on the grill.

Our amazing cook!

Such BEAUTIFUL faces!!!!!

Dani hanging out with one of the kids.

It was an amazing first week in Haiti! Thank you Jesus!