Two Years and Counting

June 22, 2009 we pulled out of our driveway of our farm on Bakers mountain in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina. It was the beginning of a journey that really has been more exciting than we ever would have imagined. I wanted to give a brief update of how things are going.

I came as an optometrist planning to have a little clinic doing eye care and helping the pastor we had been working with through the years of back and forth trips. God obviously had other plans! It's not fair though because He knew about the little event on January 12, 2010 - the 7.2 earthquake that destroyed much of the country and killing 200,000 people. Had I known about that in advance, maybe I would have had other plans here too!

Celebration Children's Home is our orphanage that houses almost 20 orphans, abandoned, handicapped, or neglected children. These little ones have been instrumental in changing our lives. Our vision is to develop a home where children can be united with loving adoptive families. The home is housed in a former apartment building that we have converted and also serves as our headquarters for the ministry. We call it The Mission and we employee about 20 Haitians that work with us there. That facility also houses long term missionaries that come for extended periods to serve with us.

In a country where only about 50 percent of kids get to go to school we get to pay for almost 100 kids to go to school through our child sponsorship program. We meet monthly with these kids in our Celebration Kids Club. We are working on getting that program more organized so that friends back home can be a part of changing the lives of these young Haitians.

Pastor Cesar has almost 1500 kids in 8 schools that we support. We pay and train the teachers and now are getting to the point that we are feeding all the kids a healthy meal ever school day.

Our most impacting work - most impacting on me if not the Haitians- is our work in the local fishing village. We have 13 fisherman that we are helping to develop their fishing businesses as well as discipling them. We are there almost every day and have weekly meetings and Bible study. Also in that village we have 13 women that we took out of tents by the river where they were living after losing their homes to a flood. We rented them all houses and have them working in our community development program. Three days per week they come and cook food for elderly shut ins in the area. They also participate in weekly meetings that include training on hygiene, family planning, literacy and other issues from a Biblical perspective.

Refugees from the quake live in tent villages throughout the country. In our town we have taken the last families out of that camp and helped them rent permanent housing. We are currently working one on one with them to help them come up with a business plan for providing for the family in the aftermath of this disaster. We have set a few up with wedding dress rental businesses, cosmetic sales businesses, small food stands, dry goods stores, and other small business ventures. As with all our projects we also follow up with teaching and training of Biblical truth teaching on how to live.

Oh yeah I almost forgot, we also do eye care and medical care. We have the only permanent eye clinics in our part of the country. This week we even have team of general surgeons here doing hernia repairs, tumor removals, and other much needed surgeries. What a blessing!

In the midst of all of that we are also trying to raise our 5 American and one Haitian baby that live here with us. School is our biggest challenge at the moment. We have discovered that homeschooling here is so hard due to our daily challenges. We found a mission school in St. Marc but they are needing teachers. If you know anyone interested in coming to teach for a year let me know.

So they we are in a nutshell. I am sure I left some stuff out but those are the high points. Keep us in your prayers and come to see us. We live in a hotel and we will leave the light on for you.

Hero Makeover

My father is my greatest hero.  He set a high bar for me to shoot for as a husband, father, and spiritual giant.  He taught me everything I know about how to stick it out in tough times and come out the better for it.  When I grow up I want to be just like Dad.  He is sitting now by his mother's deathbed with faith and humility that is a testimony of faithfulness.

My other heroes in life have varied as the seasons of my life have passed.  As I mature in my Christian faith, I realize that many of the heroes of my past were not the best role models to follow.  In the years of my life when I was consumed by the American dream of sucess and comfort, most of my heroes were the men that had reached the heights of worldly sucess for which I strived.  One such man was the most sucessful businessman I personally knew.  He had been very blessed by God and truly seemed to have it all.  I only knew him from a distance but desired to be just like him.  While I was prayer leader at our church he once flew us in his jet to New York City to meet Jim Cymbala and attend a prayer meeting at The Brooklyn Tabernacle.  I wanted to be able to do stuff like that for people.  What a life!

May 31 marked two years since I walked out of my optometry practices and businesses.  It marks the day the whole world changed for me.  Even my heroes changed.  The American dream and living in bondage to the deceitfulness of riches were becoming a thing of the past.  I embarqued on a journey that would take me to places both bodily and spiritually that I never dreamed I would go.  In just two short years I have seen God in ways I never dreamed possible.  I have learned more about myself and the Kingdom of Heaven than I ever would have imagined.  But it has not been easy.  There are days I want to jump in the ocean and swim home to America!  There are times when I lose sight of the end goal of pleasing God and I only want peace.  But that is when God steps in and reminds of where we are headed.

On a hot day about a month ago I was in Port au Prince with Joy buying supplies for the mission.  We had been struggling with several things in the ministry and in our family and needed a big dose of grace.  Then my phone rang.  It was my hero businessman.  He never called me when I was living in America and I secretly covetted his life.  I didn't even know how he got my number.He began to tell me how God had been working in his life and showing him things he needed to change.  He had been reading some books and studying the Bible and God had shown him that his life of indulgence was non-Biblical and that he needed a radical change.  He said God put us on his heart and he wanted to know if he could come down to visit so we could talk.  I was blown away.  My God loves me so much that he took the inner thoughts of my sinful heart and rearranged things in such a way as to unequivocably show me that what He had told me was true.  The path He had put us on was the true Way.  He showed me unmeritted grace and helped me see He was there.

My hero and now friend did come down and spend the week with us.  He shared unashamedly how God was breaking Him and setting him free.  His testimony was one of the most powerful I have ever heard first hand of God through His spirit revealing truth to one of his children.  It was a great week.  I learned so much and received great wisdom from a wise saint.  He is now more of a hero in my eyes than he ever was.  Not because of what he has or has done, but because of who he is becoming.  He has now made my short list of heroes with my dad, pastor Ruffin, Bill Stafford, and Aquaman.

Pirates, Fishermen, and Patient Seekers

I was passing a TV today and saw an advertisement for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  As I look out our hotel window where we live I see the Caribbean Sea, I can't help but think about the pirates that cruised these waters in years past.  As a major sugar producing colony, Haiti was a major working grounds for pirates that hijacked the many merchant ships that cruised these waters.  Pirates were not good people.  They were very hard men that were theives and murderers that lived tough lives.  They were not the glamorized heroes like Captain Jack Sparrow.   They lived very superstitious lives where they created their own religion to explain the world around them.  I think about how many of those men spent their lives trying to cope with the guilt of the lives they lived.  How many spent their lives drowning the guilt of a life of sin in rum that flowed through the islands here?  How many ever found the truth?  How many ever learned there was a loving God who died to forgive them of ALL of their sins?  How many found the peace that I found when God delivered me from the horrible life that I lived prior to my surrender to the Lordship of my Lord?

As I think about these men that will spend eternity seperated from God in a real Hell much worse than the feared afterlife that plagued their nightmares, I think about men like our fisherman.  Men that live lives plagued by alcoholism, polygamy, fear induced from voodoo beliefs, and the guilt from knowing they live a life of deciet and lies.  I think of men like Roger and his brother Lifrans that I get to work with everyday processing fish and trying to find ways to reach out to the community in which they live.  They know they are sinners.  They know that the God that I serve does not approve of the lives they live but they are so entrenced in false religion that they can't believe that the same God loves them immensely.  They don't truly understand why in the world I would chose to enter their village and pass my days with Luke and our family trying to make their lives better as we teach them about truth. 

Then there is Ayiti.  Ayiti is a grounds keeper at the hotel where we live.  His job is to sweep the unused tennis courts everyday and pick up trash that blows in from the sea.  Ayiti came to me a few weeks ago sick.  I examined him and found he had a severe ear infection.  I gave him antibiotics and drops (eye drops that I had him put in his ear) and he got better.  He was so grateful that I took the time just to talk to him and check up on him daily until he got better.  He started making it a point to catch me everyday as me and Joy go for our morning walk to just check in with me.  Then about 2 weeks ago he started bringing me everyone he could find that is sick.  He does not bring them to me during normal hours.  He knows I work long days so almost everynight as we are getting our kids ready for bed, Ayiti lightly knocks on our door with the day's patients.  Last week it was a hotel worker with a bad stomach infection that was keeping him from eating.  This weekend it was 3 workers from a little road side restuarant across the street with a severe skin fungal infection.  Tonight it was 2 security guards.  One had a headache and one with a bad back pain.  Ayiti has made himself our personal triage nurse.  He brings the patient to me and thoroughly explains their symptoms and then asks me to examine them.  The  term "EYE" doctor does not really register with my new friend.  He has found a place where he is important.  He is no longer the bottom of the employee social ladder.  He now has an important position of helping others.  Ayiti is not yet a Christian but he knows that I never turn anyone away and that I treat them all with love and respect.  He now spends the time after he finishes work going around looking for sick people.  He is trying to find a way to make himself a "good" person.  I try to share with Ayiti that he needs God.  He is not yet ready to truly listen but he knows that something about us is different.  That is why we are here. 

Every day we work with our orphans at the mission. We provide medical and eye care to some of the poorest people in the world.  We feed children in the schools.  Pay for kids to get an education.  Help the fisherman catch more fish and then learn how to sell them and invest in their community.  We train the women in our housing program to take better care of their kids and they are learning to cook food on our propane stoves to feed homebound widows.  With all of those programs and the hours invested weekly, the ONLY thing that matters is when one of our people starts to believe we love them.  The scriptures come alive as we see why Jesus said forget everything else and Love your God and Love others.  True religion.  Love God...Love others.  In America and on the mission field we make it so complicated.  We have to remember that we feed, educate, train, house, and heal BECAUSE we love.  We don't do it to get the right to share the gospel of Jesus.  We don't do it because we feel sorry for them.  We don't do it because we are trying to earn God's favor.  We do it because GOD has placed a love in our hearts for our people.  BECAUSE we love them, of course we share the truth of the Bible and the Living God.  We could never say we truly love them if we did not care about their greatest need... to know God and Love HIM.  

The hardship comes when we do all we do and NOT see people understand their need for God and they continue in their sin and hatred of truth.  It hurts so much when we try to reach out and only get people to listen when we have food or clothes or medicine to give.  We have not seen sweeping revival and hundreds come to knowledge of God but that only makes us more desperate.  But when Ayiti comes to my door with his daily patient I simply have to remember that MY job is to love them and share the truth.  GOD's job is to open their eyes and bring them to an understanding of their sin condition. 

Pirates, fisherman, patient seekers, me, and you.  We all need and want the same thing... to know the anser to "why am I here and how do I make my life count".  All the answers are made available to us in God's word but we spend our lives WORKING and STRIVING and often miss the opportunities to just love people and find our place. 

Hard Life in Hispaniola

Processing Sugar Cane

Joy with some of the kids in the batay

Hispaniola was discovered by Christopher Columbus and colonized before the mainland of North America.  Today it is divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  We live in Haiti but this week we took a trip to the DR.

The difference between Haiti and the Dominican are like night and day.  The Dominican has modern cities and visible infrastructure.  It is a major tourist destination and many ex-patriats retire there or move there from all over the world.  The land is beautifully lush and forrested.  The only thing that really seems similar is the depth of poverty in which the Haitians live. 

Houses at Amistad Batay

Haitians flee to the DR to escape the conditions of Haiti only to find themselves in a prejudice society where Haitians continue to live tough lives for the most part.  We have met a few Haitians who have found good jobs and are thriving.  It is a huge blessing to talk to them and see how blessed they are.  But this is still the extreme exception and not the rule for Haitians here.

Patients In Clinic

Luke Working in Clinic

Jacy Giving out Glasses and Josie Giving out Lollipops

We took our bus and made the 9 hour journey from Port au Prince to Santo Domingo in a quick 14 hours.  We had issues at the border- of course- got scammed a couple of times- of course- but made it finally.  After one night in "La Capital" we headed to the north coast.  Six hours over the mountains to arrive in Puerto Plata for 5 days.  We are here with all 6 of our kids including Justice- whose papers that took us an extra month to get but have not even been looked at yet.  We also brought Dago, Wesner, Baz, Madame Raymonde, and Jarrod- a PA friend from TX. 

Clinic Under a Mango Tree

Loving His New Specs- He's Smiling on the Inside

Uncut Sugar Cane Fields Due to US Subsidies

We got to spend two days doing eye clinics in Batays around Puerto Plata.  A Batay is a settlement in the middle of the sugar cane fields where the workers live with their families.  The conditions are horrible.  No septic, no electricity, limited water, and no security.  The two batays in which we worked were even worse off.  They are located in the middle of a plantation that a Cuban family owns.  The family owns over 1 million acres of sugar cane fields in the DR and are paid subsidies by the U.S. and Dominican governments to NOT harvest the cane anymore.  Because of that, the people living in the Batays are out of work.  The kids that are born here are not given birth certificates which makes it practically impossible to go ever go to school.  We were given a glimpse into yet another facet of the difficulty of the plight of the average Haitian.

Joy Visiting the Villagers

The clinics were great.  We saw hundreds of very grateful people.  The people here are thankful for help and their attitude is different than the people we encounter daily in Montrouis.  The people here, young and old alike, just want work.  They are not surrounded by humanitarian groups doing free distributions of everything from food to condoms like we see in Haiti.  The people are not trained to seek out the white people to meet their needs.  They know that if they can find some work, then they can make it.  It was refreshing to see that attitude even though the work is so sparse for uneducated and often hated Haitian immigrants. 

Joy Doing a Little Shopping

We return to Santo Domingo tomorrow to start looking for sources for supplies we need for The Mission.  We are also planning to talk to a pastor in the south of the island that works in many of the Batays there and hopefully be able to go and see a working plantation and see how we might be able to help in the future.

Then we return to our home on the other side of Hispaniola. We plannded the trip to be a time of retreat for our staff, relaxation for our family, and an exploratory excusion into the lives and plight of Dominican Haitians.  It has been all of the above. We are reminded why we have been called to reach out and share the love of Jesus with some of the most awesome people on earth.  What an honor!

Resurrection Parade

Early Easter morning we got all of our kids from the mission and went for a Resurrection parade.  The kids had made banners and took instruments and we marched up the hill behind the mission making a lot of noise in the name of the Lord.

Jacy Klaire making sure Nakisha did not get left behind

After the parade we made our way back to the mission for a worship service and teaching time.  We are so blessed by the kids God has sent our way for the mission.  We have 19 kids now and each one is a special blessing from God.  There are 10 boys and 9 girls.  They include true orphans, abandoned children, and handicapped children.  Each one has a story of how man and sin corrupt and destroy.  We have kids whose parents were murdered by voodoo.  Kids whose parents died of preventable disease.  Kids whose parents abandoned them because of poverty and injustice.  It makes it hard to remember at times that God is truly sovereign and in total control.  We tend to wonder where God is when evil seems to be able to run so rampant.  But then we remember that God has told us in the Bible that injustice and corruption and hardship are repercussions of living in a fallen world.  We are doing a study with our staff and it reminds us that God chose to give man a choice of sin or righteous obedience.  The choice of sin leads to destruction and there are always innocent bystanders...like our little Nakisha, or Jeffnika, or any of the other angels in our home.  It does not take away from the fact that God is completely loving, and completely good, and completely powerful.  He has a perfect plan for each of our lives and if we choose to follow Him and seek Him we can find and live out that plan.  When that happens, we find peace even in difficult times.  We find joy even when happiness evades us.  It allows us to see that God really does have a good plan even for these kids that qualify as the "least of these".  On Resurrection Sunday, we are reminded that the Cross is the key to that understanding.  Only through Jesus can we really begin to see the world the way God does.  Without Jesus coming and dying for us, we could never see the world the way God does and have a desire to see God glorified even in the darkest of circumstances.

The Girls

Michelet and his New Wheels

The Boys

Craft Time

Our Kids in Craft Time

When things get discouraging, God seems to always come through with a source of encouragement and insight.  We have spent 3 months trying to get things together to go to the Dominican Republic for a time of seeking sources for supplies, resting, and partnering with a Dominican mission to do eye exams at an orphanage and street mission.  We had everything packed to leave Monday and the papers did not come through.  We spent the day getting more paperwork done and planned to leave today.  Then the papers were rejected because one of the notaries did not stamp it right.  So we had to get Justice's biological father and Dago together to go back to Port au Prince to redo the paper work.  Now we are waiting to see if we get to leave tomorrow.  But when things get frustrating we have to remember that the life of a Christian is a life of death to self and all rights and expectations.  We have to remember that God has graciously chosen us to be a part of that 'good' plan for each of these little ones, and for that we are truly grateful.

Meals on Wheels Haiti Style

When we moved to Haiti in 2009 we believed that God was calling us to live by a different model of ministry.  We truly believed that God has a deep love for His Haitian children and a plan to lift them out of their despair and into lives of freedom through knowledge of His love.  We believed that if God has a plan to do work then He Himself had the means to fund that work.  We believed that if we would be faithful to throw ourselves completely into finding what God wanted to do and then spent our time in that, then He would send the money to do it.  I did not want to spend several months each year doing fund raising when instead we could be rescueing babies and taking care of the sick and dying.  I was totally unsure how it would all work out but truly believed God would provide the funds. 

In July 2010 the river in Montrouis flooded due to many factors including a poorly designed bridge and extensive deforrestation.  The flood washed away many homes in our fishing village leaving dozens of single moms and their kids homeless.  Tents were provided but that was almost a year ago and the tents have been destroyed.  We felt God wanted us to reach out to these desperate women and give them hope.We had a friend that agreed to help us rent homes for 18 of the women.  But we did not want to stop there.  Paying for someone's house as a handout is more detrimental in the long run than helpful.  So instead we decided to start a program for these women to reach out to their own community. 

Joy has a heart for the elderly and widows and we were already taking fish to many widows in our area on a weekly basis.  But Joy had a desire to start a "Meals on Wheels" Haiti style- the food will all be delivered by foot but Meals on Foot did not sound as good.  So we are now taking the 18 single moms that are the outcasts from their society.  Many have multiple children from multiple men.  All are uneducated and fundamentally illiterate.  Most have been raped and abused.  We want to help them become active participants in changing their community and their lives.  We want them to know that God has a better plan for them and that although they have never believed it, they are valuable and lovable and loved.In order to be in our housing program the women had to agree to several conditions.  First of all they have to come to weekly Life Lesson classes.  These classes involve life skills training like hygeine and mothering skills.  It also involves Bible study that teaches them abstinance and the true value of their body and their lives.  In addition to the classes the women agree to work in our feeding program.  They will come three days per week to prepare and deliver the hot meals to the elderly shut-ins.  They will also be taking clean water and vitamins.  We are training them to look for signs of illness and to spend time with the client.  Our goal is to help them understand the principle of investing their lives in others.The first two days they work each week will go towards paying for their house we rented.  The third day they will get paid and taught how to mange the money. 

The program will feed about 150 hot meals per week and employ the 18 single moms.  We pray that in the long run the effects will change many families and help many to come to know the love of Christ.  I did not know how we would pay to fund the program but we went ahead and started renting all the houses.  This past week a man we met while here in Haiti called and said he and his wife really wanted to find a program they could get involved with.  I emailed him the outline of Meals on Wheels and he called me tonight and said they had all the expenses covered and would start sending a check every month to cover all the costs.  God had a plan.  He chose by grace to reveal it to us.  We started it by faith.  And He provided the funding.  In the words of Hannible from The A Team, "I just love it when a plan comes together!"

What is an Orphanage?

It's been a while...over a month...since our last post.  It has been quite a month and lots of things have taken place and I apologize for not keeping people updated.  Here is an update of what's happening in our little piece of Caribbean paradise. (I unashamedly embedded my kids pictures in the text without any obvious reason except for the fact that I am an excessively proud daddy...)

Jacy Klaire on her 9th Birthday

When we first moved here I was naively under the false impression that an orphanage is where orphans live.  I am not sure how I came to that crazy conclusion.  Possibly the NAME of the place!  But in Haiti, sad to say, an orphanage is NOT typically filled with orphans.  It turns out that the much more common definition of orphanage is a great way for self serving Haitians and other foreign nationals to earn a very good living exploiting children whose parents are very alive but are happy to let someone else raise their children and use them as a fund raising tool through the internet and even in person.

Jaxon in a rare calm moment

A typical orphanage in Haiti is when someone, usually a "pastor", decides to take in a bunch of local kids to live at least part time- when the white people come to town- in a facility that they have that looks really sad and really needs someone to come along and just help those poor, dirty, naked, malnourished, little orphans that this loving but under funded pastor has graciously taken in.  It's all a scam.  A very devious, evil, manipulative scam.  I don't want to sound jaded...even though I am...because jaded is not one of the fruits of the spirit listed in the Bible.  However, it is a total reality for us because DAILY I have people that try to give us children to raise for them so that they won't have to and they have been programmed to think that way because of so many corrupt child exploiters that have built a horrible system here over the last 50 years.  And of course, who are the victims?  The duped white people that come and give their money to a con man?  No way!  The victims, as always, are the kids.  They are abused, kept "pitiful" looking, and even worse, taught how the 'system' works.  Most girls raised in these homes are raped by age 13.  Many of the kids get sick from preventable diseases and very few ever go to school.  They are the oppressed poor that do not have a voice of their own.  And now, we are in the middle of this whole deal because we have a facility to minister to kids too.  So what are we doing about it?

Sissy Joe in her Luau outfit for Jacy's Birthday

First of all, we have investigated the situation extensively.  We discoverered that hundreds of thousands of dollars flow through these homes every year and end up in the hands of crooks and not as food in the bellies of starving children.  So we decided to form a special kind of home called a creche.  A creche is a home specifically for children that are available for adoption.  At first, I arrogantly said we would take in NOTHING but orphans.  No kids who had parents at all.  Any parent that brought us kids to take, I would proudly explain to them how God had given them that child and that I would help them raise the child but I would not take the child into our home.  Then we had one of those children get kidnapped.  Then another one died.  So that caused me to reevaluate my stance.  Then there was Justice.  She had a mother that abandoned her and a 65 year old alcoholic father.  Now she is ours.  Even more at home was the fact that our very own adopted children, Judah, Josie, and Jaxon all have parents but they were taken from them due to an inability of the parent to provide for the children.  So we got wise counsel from licensing board here in Haiti along with others and redefined what type of children we would take into our home through the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Judah is not having a 'happy' day

Through that process God has blessed Celebration Children's Home so much.  We now have 16 children living at the home.  Many are true orphans.  Others were abandoned.  Still others like 2 little 2 year old girls we have recently taken in, are from mothers that have experienced one type of tragedy or another and now simply cannot or will not take care of the children.  BUT, in order for us to take the child, the parents have to go with us to the government office and sign over all rights to us and acknowledge that the children are eligible for adoption.  That eliminates many people who come and want us to simply raise their kids for them.  The kids we take have officially been given away by any family that is existing.  It is a heart breaking scene every time.  More so for us than the family usually.  I take a child into my arms that have often NEVER had a man hold them.  Many have never even had a mother show them genuine affection.  After just a couple of days you can begin to see sunshine replace the cloudy shadow that seemed to penetrate so deeply into the neglected children.  We love it and count it an honor and blessing to be able to be the rescuer on Jesus' behalf for these babies and children.

Luke is an amazing teenage missionary.  He has taught me so much.

Our plan is to be able to get these children adopted without charging orphanage fees.  Other creches in Haiti if they have legitimately adoptable children they often charge at least $12,000 - 15,000 USD for orphanage fees per child being adopted.  Our plan is to allow donors to continue to pay to keep the Mission running and adoptive parents pay the legal fees and government fees for the adoption but nothing directly to us.  We are in the process of Justice being adopted and are working with another missionary that is working on adopting 4 children and that will give us more exact understanding of the whole process.  In the mean time, we are enjoying investing in the little ones we have.  We also support a couple of different orphanages from St. Marc to Montrouis that are not legit but the kids need food, and clothes, and school.  And we get to try to change the system one step at a time.  We constantly get calls from groups that came to Haiti and gave thousands of dollars to an orphanage here only to find out later it was a shell and now the people are disenfranchised and disappointed.  But that is why we are here.  To be light in darkness.  To be a voice for the abused, helpless, weak, and oppressed.  We don't get angry- too often-or frustrated- excessively, instead, we become more and more determined.  We pray for more diligence.  More patience.  More wisdom.  More insight.  And more opportunity to see people set free from the bondage of deciet and manipulation.

We have had some amazing teams come down to help us lately.  I can't tell you how encouraged we have been.  God is really covering us with blessing.  We are planning to go to the Dominican Republic next week in our bus with the family and our leadership staff.  We want to check out possible places to get some boats for our fishing ministry as well as other supplies.  We are also going to do a leadership retreat and let my family have a couple of days of refreshment.  I will let you know how that goes.  Joy could use it and so could her husband.