Fishing for Fisherman

We had back to back groups led by eye doctors the past two weeks. Dr. Lori Geddes and her family and our new friend Darrell came down from Minnesota to spend a week with us. We were able to do some eye care but much more than that we were able to some things done in the schools with Pastor Cesar and began the process of organizing things in the clinics. It was a great week and we look forward to seeing them back in Haiti.

One really cool thing that came out of that trip was a ministry to fisherman. I have been meeting with the fisherman that fish here at our backyard. I meet with them at 5:45 on Monday mornings before they go out for the day of fishing. I pray with them individually for safety and blessing. I am also starting a Bible study with them on how much Jesus loved fisherman. We are going to try to help them with some supplies they need to fish as well. We are going to try to get hooks, line, steel leaders, and other small tackle for them to use in their trade. They do not use fishing poles but instead wrap the line around a coke bottle and then hold the line in their mouths as they paddle. When we asked them to show me their typical setup, the first fisherman held up a line that had an old sparkplug tied to the end as a weight. These guys lead a tough life and have a tough job. The deforestation of Haiti has had its effects on the fishery as well. The silt that flows into the sea has covered and killed much of the reef. That has reduced the amount of sea life and makes fishing a tough venture. They usually end the day with a handful of small fish only a few inches long. They will eat what they need and sell the rest to try to get by. Their boats, which are carved out of mango or bread fruit trees, are called a bwa fouye. They all leak so half of your time is spent bailing water out. Pray that I can get to know them and that they will choose to accept Christ. I have had 3 show up for the meeting at 5:45 each week and about 10 show up at about 7! They all tell me they start fishing at 6 and I see them out there so they wanted to do it early but then they get there the typical Haitian hour late. They are operating on Joy's schedule!

Dr. Dennis' team helped us work on the benches for the church at St. Marc. It was hot, hard work but we got 40 benches built that were used in Church this past Sunday. Everyone was so excited to get the benches into the church. What a great day! They also helped me work at the clinic we are setting up at the orphanage.

(As I type this Josie Kate came up to me carrying a baby chick! She is our fearless animal lover. I bought a couple of Hispanola Parrots the other day on the street in PAP and she just loves them to death...almost literally!)

All of the kids are doing great. We may have an addition to the family but I need to get some things settled before we introduce her officially. Joy brought a little one home after spending the night in the hospital with her last Friday. Joy is at the hospital again today with a little girl who has a hip deformity due to an infection. We are seeing if a visiting orthopedic team can operate on her while they are here. Be praying for little Dianna.

The twins are doing better. Both sets are healthy and growing. We are so thankful for all of your prayers. They still have issues...one has the chickenpox right now... but we know your prayers are keeping them strong.

Our time is consumed now with getting everything ready for our big annual convention with eye care, medical care, pastor training, teacher training, youth sessions, and children's ministry. That all kicks off the week after Easter. Be praying for the team coming from NC to do that work. It is a tough week for them but we always see God do some marvelous things.

We are in the process of getting the orphanage certified with UNICEF and the Haitian Social Services. Once that process is complete, about 2 more weeks we pray, we will be certified to receive kids from UNICEF. I went and visited some of the kids in PAP last week and it broke my heart. Kids that lost parents in the quake and were injured. They have been staying in the hospital for the last 2 months. UNICEF has standards that are keeping them from being placed in an orphanage right now. Pray we can get through the red tape and help these precious children. We are getting closer. We still do not have any furnishings in the orphanage, or even electricity or a kitchen but things are coming together. The Lord is in Charge. And for that we are grateful!

What do Starfish Eat?

It was a good day. I spent the day in Port Au Prince getting supplies for some friends that will be coming to stay with us next week and help us. I also met with Dr. Price from Christianville and picked up the equipment for the lab where we will be making glasses. He also showed me some of the pharmacies where he buys medications.

There are more military personel in PAP than I ever would have imagined. I definitely feel safer than I ever have in the city. Some removal of debris from destroyed buildings and homes is occuring. The food distributions and things are starting to decrease so things are getting back to semi-normal. The biggest thing you see is that the tents that the people were sleeping in were made out of sheets right after the quake. Now groups have came in and given better tents. So now many of the tent villages all have matching tents. The problem is that I do not hear much organized talk of actually doing anything with all the people living there. Right outside of the city in the last 2 weeks hundreds of people have migrated to this one area to claim a piece of land to put their house. Right now they are tents but soon they will be wood and tin and later blocks. But there are hundreds already with one right on top of the other. No organization. No water. No sanitation. No plan. If it continues as it is going it will become another PAP slum that is ran by the gangs and the women and children are the victims. The lack of sanitation leads to diseases and nothing is any better than before. I pray the NGO community will organize and not allow that to happen. We will have to see. But any day that I get to PAP and get back home safely without an incident is a good day.

Josie and a gecko she found in her bed.

Joy and the kids were here all day today. I had our team here today painting and doing repairs on the room where our visitors will be next week. I got home and Jacy, Judah, and Josie were all holding starfish. A son of one of the guys that works here found them for them today. They were so excited. They wanted to keep them as pets and asked what they needed to feed them. It turned out to be a pretty good question...What do starfish eat? Then of course it led to the fact they could not find a mouth, or eyes, or ears, or a tail. But they all agreed they were really cool and we should let them go so that we could find them again some other day.

Tomorrow we go to the Artibonite Valley to do an eye clinic screening of some of the people from the mountains with another missionary friend of ours. The whole family is going which is always a big deal. We strap Jaxon in the stroller and then strap it down to the bus where they used to strap in the wheel chairs for handicapped kids. It works out pretty good. We will see hundreds of patients and give them glasses and screen them for eye diseases such as glaucoma and cataracts. Any one that needs further care will be scheduled to come down and see me in our clinic. I received a donation of these really funky glasses that you inject serum into the space in hollow lenses and you can control the power. It is cool technology but we will have to see how well received they will be by the people. I will be trying them out tomorrow. I will take some pictures of the process and share how it goes. I am a little skeptical but I have read about them being well accepted in other places.

The cat in the stroller is our anti-rodent pest control agent. We had a huge rat in our house one night and Joy woke up the household standing on the toilet screaming. The rest of the night was spent in "prayer"! The next morning we mentioned that we had a rat and needed a cat. In a couple of hours a guy showed up to sell us a "cat". This little thing is smaller than the rat! A couple of nights later I trapped the rat behind a piece of furniture and me and our nightwatchman Charles chased him around the house for a while until Charles took care of him with his machete. Joy has slept a little better since. The cat was no help though. The rat walked right behind him to enter the house! He is still in training! But the kids LOVE the little kitten. If it survives Josie Kate's headlocks I think it will make a good rat deterent in the future. (Judah and an eel he caught while we were fishing.)

The mission is coming along well. Next week we will begin setting up the lab and the clinic. We will also start building the room for the generator and the covered area to eat. We have a lot of work to do to get an area usable for a detached kitchen. So we will get that going as well.

Our friends in NC are putting together a container to send over to get the orphanage and the rest of the mission furnished and equipped to begin operation. We are praying that can happen quickly so we can get the things out of customs before it gets too much back to normal. I have a doctor in Pennsylvania that has donated the equipment I need for our other eye clinic I just need to get it shipped directly to here or get it to NC and put on the container. If anyone has any ideas about that let me know.

We have a meeting tomorrow afternoon with the aunt of a little girl who lost her parents in the quake. I don't have any details yet but we are still waiting on God to begin to send us kids. His timing is always right.

Both sets of the twins Joy has been caring for are doing good. The mothers are healthy and the kids are growing. Thank you to everyone that sent formula. It is much needed.

We had another one of the people that we have been working with accept Jesus as his personal Savior this past week. I am meeting with two of the new converts every morning at 6:30. The newest convert, Charles, is my age and can't read at all. We are listening to the creole Bible on CD and he loves it. I am so grateful God is giving me the opportunity to disciple them and invest in them. It is awesome being a part of God's plan to save the world!

Which is Better One or Two?

It was a good day. I started our regular scheduled clinic days at our clinic in St. Ard today. The clinic is based in a mission hospital about 25 minutes from where we live. We have seen patients there before but not on a regular scheduled basis. It felt great to get into that today. I have seen thousands of patients since we got to Haiti but it has been as screenings and with rudimentary equipment. Today I got to do eye exams very similar to the ones I performed on patients back in the U.S. before we moved here. We have a great clinic set up and we are in the process of getting a lab set up to make glasses here as well. I should have had that already done. Because of my procrastination and being so consumed by other ministry that I did not go to retrieve our equipment for the lab when it arrived in country at another clinic near PAP. Now much of the equipment is covered with rubble from the quake and we do not know how much will be usable. Lesson number 638 learned in Haiti: Never let valuable equipment sit in someone else's warehouse an earthquake could destroy it. Ok...lesson learned!

I would appreciate your prayers too because the other hospital where we are going to have a clinic has began work on finishing the rooms where our clinic will be. It will only be a couple of weeks and they will be ready. I do not have the equipment to put in the clinic yet. I need to find the equipment and get it shipped as quick as possible. Right now I can get medical equipment shipped in without having to pay customs for it. It would be great to get that done in the next couple of weeks and get in before that ends at the end of March.

The "mission" is coming along. That is what we are calling the location we have secured for the orphans, and the team rooms, our ministry office, and a place to see patients on an emergency basis. We have some people in the states working on shipping a container to upfit the entire place. I will be letting people know the details of that as they develop. We have had the opportunity to accept a few kids but not what we feel God has in store for us. We are still waiting for Him to send us the kids He wants us to have. Keep that in prayer.

The refugee camps are getting complicated. The people are tired of staying there and now school is getting ready to start back and they do not know what to do with the refugees. The group of young people that started the camp want to build build 60 wooden and tin houses on about 2 acres for the people to live in for two years. I have talked to them about it and just see many problems with the plan...sanitation, water, diseases, long term planning, dependency...and the list goes on. I want to help the people find a long term plan for each family and not be dependant on someone else for 2 years in slum conditions.

We are excited to see God moving in the lives of people. The man that is in charge of the property where we live and the girl that has been helping Joy some with the kids and everything have both made professions of faith in Jesus Christ in the last two weeks. Pray for Nabal and Meray as they begin their new walks of faith.

From the Mountains to the Valley

I spent the morning in the mountains praying this morning. It has been so tough lately with all of the decisions about the ministry and moving our family and the aftermath of the quake. I took a moto- local taxi motorcycle- and had the guy take me up to a local spot where people gather to pray. I went with a guy we met years ago when we first started coming to Haiti that has now become a Christian and has been asking me to go for months. With all we have going on, I really needed to go today.

I arrived at the summit of this mountain range and you can see the ocean on three sides. It is so beautiful. I spent the morning crying out to God to help us understand what all we are supposed to be doing and the best way to do it. Basically just asking God to not let me foul up the work He is doing here among the people.

I was given the chance to preach Saturday night in a street revival but it was tough going. My interpreter called about 30 minutes before the service and said he was stuck in PAP and could not get a tap tap to Montrouis. So I started looking for someone to interpret. I have preached a couple of times in Creole but I am still not fluent enough to really make illustrations and stuff so I still like using an interpreter. But that is not always good either. I preached two weeks ago and the sermon topic was on being desperate for God. After the service the interpreter asked me what desperate meant... I knew the people probably missed a thing or two. So Saturday I called all my normal interpreters and no luck. I finally called this young man that we have recently met that we have been pretty impressed by. He did not understand what I was trying to ask him but he finally agreed to come. I knew things were going to be tough when my interpreter could not understand that I was asking him to interpret for me. After much struggling we made it through the service. I could feel a terrible oppression but thought it was just all the stress or something. Then as we were leaving the service to walk home just a block away they were having a big voodoo service as well. People everywhere dancing in the streets and everything. Such a spiritual battle in this place.

Then Sunday I preached in St. Marc at Pastor Lucien's church. It was a great service and I got to see so many friends. They gave me 2 bunches of bananas, a watermellon, and some ground coffee. It was a good time.

So after those two opportunities I really wanted to pray that God would continue to allow me to share the truth of Jesus and the freedom He offers to the captives of fear and lies that the people here believe. I had a good time of prayer for a couple of hours then decided to make the 3 mile walk down on foot and got sunburned.

When I got home though Joy was totally heart broken. A young lady named Jordan that we know and another young lady that is an albino haitian came by because they needed to talk to Joy. Joy had taken Jennifer, a nurse, to remove a skin tag from Jordan's little boy's finger a couple of weeks ago and check on them. They were doing fine. But Jordan came today to tell Joy her baby boy had died. She woke up in the morning with his head split open in the back. They all claim it is the work of a local sorceror that killed him in the night. They told us why they do it but it is too morbid to talk about here. Joy can't figure out if she is more angry or sad. What do you say to a mother struggling with that? We just say God is good all the time. We encourage them to seek refuge and peace in the Lord and help them any way we can. The other girl today came too to tell Joy the father of her baby had taken the baby. This girl was the mistress in an affair- more the norm than the exception here- and the father of the baby took the baby and gave it to his wife because she could not have children. The mother has no real recourse. We are trying to see what we can do to help her. I know the father and so pray I can know what to do in the situation. All of this helped to solidify in Joy that she needs to start the women's Bible study she has been planning. Now that we have a mission location, she is planning to begin that with the young women and mother's that live such a tough life here.

And all of that is on top of the earthquake survivors living down the road and the mother and two twin babies we still have sleeping here with us. God is so good. He never leaves us wondering what we could do today to advance His Kingdom. He always gives us plenty of opportunity. We acknowledge that it is tough at times, but we love it. We would not want it any other way. God is blessing and we are getting to be a part of it. God is ministering to people here and we get to see it first hand. What more could we ask for in life.

Thank you all for your prayers. We are so blessed to have so many people back home that love us and pray for us. All of your encouraging emails keep us going on those tough days... like today.

Go Army!

The U.S. Army has been a huge help to us in the last 2 weeks. We are so behind on updating everyone but God has really been at work here! We wanted to send a quick update to tell everyone that thanks to Captain Perry of the U.S. Army and the prayers of everyone back home, we got the food off of the bus in customs yesterday! It was a long ordeal but tomorrow we will start distributing the 500 boxes of food to the children in the 8 areas where we work.

We will be going to one of the churches in the distant provinces tomorrow to drop off some food. While we are there we will also be taking formula and food to the set of Joy's twins that we relocated. They are doing fine and it will be good to check on them. We will also be stopping by the hospital to pick up the other set of twins. They have been there all week receiving IV fluids after a downturn fighting diarrhea. They are probably going to have to come and stay with us for a while to help the mother care for them during this critical time. We appreciate everyone's prayers for them. We will keep you updated on their progress.

We just want everyone to know that God has opened so many doors since the quake. Everything is different now. We are no longer living at House of Bread. God put in our hearts to take in some children that were orphaned by the quake. In order to do that, we had to look for a new place to live and a place for the ministry. God moved so amazingly! He opened a door for us to be able to find a small rental property that is perfect for our family. It is open and the kids have plenty of room to roam. It is right by the water so it is such a retreat from the stress of our normal day. Our God is so GOOD! We are still in contact with everyone at House of Bread and they are doing good too. We will miss seeing the boys everyday but we are just around the corner and they are doing great too.

We also were able to secure a perfect place for the ministry. It will serve as the headquarters for everything that we do. We will temporarily house some displaced families from PAP during their transition time. We will have a place for the kids we take in as well as rooms for teams to come down to work. It is right here in Montrouis and we are already beginning the process of getting it ready. I can't wait for you all to get to come down and stay with us and help us get it ready to care for the children and babies. We have no furniture, appliances, or even an eating area or kitchen but we know God has a great plan for it and we are so excited. Pray for the families that we will minister too and the children that will come to live there. We are not going to go out looking for them we are praying for God to send the right ones to us. We can't do this on our own. We need your prayers more than ever. An orphanage in Haiti is a huge undertaking but we are proceeding with much prayer and advice from others involved in the ministry here.

We still have to post pictures and updates about the teams that have been here since the quake. Some of our family members have even been able to visit and be a part of the work. Philip has returned to the states to prepare for full time ministry with YWAM in California. He is praying for the transition and needs your prayers and support. We are so excited and proud of him. He helped us so much here and everyone here misses him so much. I have Haitians ask me everyday where Philip is! You can click on his facebook link on the right of this page to find out how to support him. We LOVE you Philip.

Thank you all for your support, prayers, and encouragement. It is exciting for all of us to be a part of God doing a fresh work in the wake of such a tragedy. Keep the people of Haiti in your prayers. Thousands are sleeping in tent villages and the rainy season is quickly approaching. We have several hundred refugees right here in Montrouis and it is not going to be easy for them for a long time to come. Pray we know how to reach out to them and help them start over with their lives. The supplies you sent with Tracy, Toby, Mike, Jennifer, and Dad. They were so much needed. Our kids are still enjoying their gummie bears!

More Bus Woes

God is so Good to us. We are seeing doors opened that are just amazing. But there are always obstacles. We had a group of U.S. soldiers that are responsible for civilian affairs issues come by and want to help us. So we went to the customs office to try to get out our bus with 500 boxes of food. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then the customs officials starting telling us that they wanted to be in charge of distributing OUR food that a group back in the states sent here months before the quake as it sat in customs waiting to be cleared. Now they wanted to decide who gets it.

So I spent the afternoon today in the mayor's office in St. Marc discussing how we feel that "might" not be conducive with our plans. After much debate... stiff arming from armed soldiers.... it looks like we might actually get the food at some point but maybe not the bus...at least not without paying a bunch of customs fees. But all is good. The family is good. The guys in the ministry are good. The team that was here got back to the states and are already hard at work securing supplies for us to continue the work here.

God has redefined the scope of our ministry here with the quake. We will continue to provide eye care. I saw many patients today and will continue to do so through our 2 eye clinics and remote screenings. We also have all of the work with Pastor Cesar and the 1500 children in his schools. We are still working on getting a feeding program going to feed them everyday. We also have the school sponsorship program and community health. But since the quake we have so many babies and children that have been orphaned and living in the refugee camps that we feel God would have us start a small orphanage and take some of them in. We will also take in some of the people that were displaced by the quake and give them a place to live and work to help us with the kids. We have secured a beautiful location for the orphanage and are excited about this expansion of our ministry here. God has given us a tremendous support staff here and with the help of pastor Cesar and his family we are looking forward to receiving babies and giving them a place to grow up in the love of Christ. We will give you more updates on that in the days to come as things unfold. Pray God sends us the babies we are supposed to have.

Philip may be leaving on Friday on a military transport plane. We will miss him tremendously but we know God has huge plans for him and he will continue to seek God's perfect plan.

We will post some photos soon.

Child Trafficking, Dying Babies, and Gifts that Make Me Cry

We have been so busy lately that I have not had a chance to blog. I wish I could write more about each of the opportunities God has brought our way lately. We have an awesome team here right now and had a great team leave recently. We will post updates from those trips in the next few days...Lord willing!

Things are different here after the quake as you can imagine. The focus of everything is different and everything is harder. In some ways things are better but mostly everything is a worse right now.

Child Trafficking- a Rude AwakeningJoy cried herself to sleep more than once this week. Many of you have asked about her little twins that she rescued and has been feeding and everything. We know many of you have been praying for them. It turned out that we have not been able to update everyone but there are actually two sets of twins. The second set that she discovered the very next day were actually smaller than the first set because the mom also could not breast feed and was trying to feed her one month old twins spaghetti noodles because that was all she had. As Joy taught both sets of mothers to use the formula and feed them regularly all of them have begun to gain weight. But then we were introduced to the dark side of Haiti...another dark side I guess I should say.

Earlier this week we were going for our routine visit to check on them and two white men and two armed Canandian police officers came out of the house where the mother and the babies had moved to. As we approached the man, whom we had never met, the first thing he asked us was "do you want to adopt some babies". Of course Joy immediately felt uncomfortable and the man began telling us all the great things he had been doing in Haiti. He left and we went to see the babies.

The mother told us the man had moved her from where she was to this new one room house and told her she could live there. As Joy worked with the babies the man came back carrying a bag of rice. He gave it to the mother and told Joy that one of the babies was sick and that he had a couple in Pennsylvania that wanted twin babies. He had plans to take the babies to have them adopted by the family in the U.S. Joy asked what about the mother. He said he had talked to her and it was fine. After he left we asked the mom and she said through terrified eyes that he had never said he wanted to take the babies. He only told her that he was going to help her. The man owns an orphanage here that has always been suspicious but we had no idea. After the encounter we talked to some other local people that said he had been doing that here for a long time. It broke Joy's heart. She loves those little babies. That little mother loves her babies too.

We had a long talk with the mom and she has family in another area of the country near where we have a church. Tomorrow morning we are relocating the family. We have enough formula to last her several weeks and we will be making trips to check on them regularly. Please keep the little family in your prayers. We knew those evil things happened where babies are bought for a bag of rice but we did not think it would happen to kids we love. Praise God we were there at the exact time we were and that we found out what was happening. We know God has a plan these babies so keep them in your prayers.

Dying Babies
I told you about the little girl that we saw the day after the quake that was dying with a head injury and I had to tell the family that they just needed to keep her comfortable. This week I received a call that there was a little girl at the clinic in St. Ard where we have one of our eye clinics. They were told the little girl had been hit in the eye during the quake and wanted me to take a look.

I did not even get out of the bus when we arrived before I knew the little girl had not been hit in the eye. She had a horrible malignant tumor where her eye once was and the cancer had gone into her brain. She was barely responsive and dying quickly. Once again I was faced with the reality that another baby was going to die and that the family had to be told there was nothing I could do.

Why does God keep breaking our hearts?


An Uplifting Orphanage Visit
We visited an orphanage that was full of kids that were rescued after the hurricanes of 2008. It was a blessing to give some much needed food and treats to the kids.

Refugees:
We are working now with over 200 refugees here in Montrouis. They are located at two schools. The people come with absolutely nothing. I was there yesterday and as I sat talking to some of the families I heard one lady tell another that I was the husband of that white woman that took the clothes off of her babies and gave them to her baby the last time she came. The little kids were naked so Joy took off Jaxon and Judah's clothes and gave them to the babies. We are planning to go tomorrow to buy used clothes here in the market and give them to the families.

Jacy Klaire went straight home and came out of her room with an arm load of clothes that she felt she needed to give to the little girls at the camp.

A Humbling Gift
Many of you that have been to Haiti have met Pastor Remy. He lives in the distant mountains and pastors a small church there. He is the father of 7 children and lives in the two room house that I stayed in with Tracy Robinson, Tracy White, and Mark Ikerd the one trip we managed to make that far into the mountains. He fell and broke his shoulder recently and at about the same time their donkey died. They have a 3 hour trip to get water and without the donkey it was very tough for them. So we were able to buy them a new horse to replace the donkey. He wanted to come down and thank us and bring us a gift.

When they arrived they very formally told us they had a gift to give Joy and I as a thank you from their family. They first took out of their bag a large papaya. Next she pulled out a beat up cannister with ground coffee in it. Finally she opened a container that she had carried the four hours to meet us and began to pull out eggs that her chickens had laid. She gave us 10 eggs. I came up with the excuse that I would go and get a box. I actually had to go because I could not help but cry. To think that these humble people would bring us their best. They wanted to bless us so badly. I immediately was reminded how selfish and proud I am. God used this encounter to remind me what true love and humility looks like. Thank you pastor Remy. I know you will never read this because you lives miles from electricity and have never used a computer. But Thank you for being used to humble me and remind me why we left all the entanglements of the life of prosperity to come here to be loved by people that give us eggs.