Getting a shipment ready

I know many of you are probably wondering what in the world I'm doing up here in Pennslvania while Ricahrd is doing all the hard work in Haiti, that is, besides feeding Ricky, doing his laundry and driving him around. (By the way, thank you for your prayers--Richard made it back safely and so far the trip to Verrettes is going well.)

I have been taking a very interesting class in Education at Philadelphia Biblical University, working on our prayer letter and new prayer card. I've been spending time with family and friends, too.

Now one of my jobs is boxing up donations that we have received, making the packing list and taking them out to CAM in Ephrata to have them shipped to Haiti. If you would like to include anything in this shipment, keep in mind, CAM can only send humanitarian aid which can include books to be used for literacy and education. Bibles can be part of this. Of course, French Bibles are best, but many like having an English Bible. I would not want to ship a large quantity of English Bibles, though. We can NOT ship medicine through them either--and that includes even ibuprofen, acetaminophen (Tylenol), ointments, etc. But we CAN ship bandaids, ace bandages, diapers, etc. Feel free to ask me if you are thinking about somethign you'd like to send.

Please also keep in mind that it costs at least $1/pound to send these things to Haiti. If you would like to make a donation to cover the shipping cost, that would help so much.

Richard will updating soon on the progress of the Verrettes trip.

Richard's time in the States

This morning I took Richard to JFK airport for his return to Haiti. His time here in the States has been busy> I can't believe how fast the time went by! Here is some highlights:

When I picked him up at JFK on Friday night, the 9th, we drove north and stayed overnight in Mystic Seaport, CT. The next day we went to our friends, the Martinez' house in Rutland, Massachusetts and had to catch up on about 5 years of news! Well, it had been about 5 years since we had seen them in person. That night Richard's cousin, Jonathan, his wife, Kim, and their son, Aiden, came over to visit, too.
the next morning we attended Heritage Bible Chapel, where the Martinezes attend. They have just recently started supporting us! I have to say I was surprised to see that the church was so big and so full! Why? Well, let's just say, it's not the Bible belt....anyway. It's a great church and we enjoyed meeting with several of the members who had a great interest in Haiti and what's been going on there. It was so nice to spend the time with the Martinez family.
Monday we went to Manhattan to take a picture at Grace Church to commemorate our 25th wedding anniversary. We really enjoyed walking around New York on a bright sunny Spring day!

Throughout the week, Richard met with family, friends and supporters...catching up, thanking them, being encouraged by them. We visited our daughter, Joy, who is a freshman at Eastern University on Wednesday. And Richard got to play tennis with Ricky a few times.

Saturday he at the Saturday morning men's Bible Study.
Sunday, he greeted the congregation at Crossing Community Church and then drove right over to the Church of the Good Samaritans where he spoke. He enjoyed visiting with them a bit, but had to hurry back to the apartment so that I could use the car to go to my sister's bridal shower.

We've been collecting some equipment.
Monday we went to Germantown Academy, where Richard went to school for elementary through high school. We spoke about the earthquake to a French III class. The students were not only very attentive, but quite advanced--seemed to understand our French AND some Creole! They are actually reading a book in French that is set in Guadeloupe which has some Creole in it. We were amazed at the stack of boxes of donations the school gave us! Since the school is building a new upper school, they need to clear out the original building and were willing to give a lot to Haiti--even lots of new items from the school store!

Later that day we picked up boxes of donated equipment and clothes from Calvary Chapel Philadelphia.

This week, the Beales, of Crossing Community Church, helped us get some issues straightened out on our laptops.

We appreciate all of you who helped make this a great trip and those who donated equipment and clothing for Haiti....Next step...is me packing up a bunch of boxes, getting a hold of a van and driving it out to CAM in Ephrata, PA....Any volunteers??? :)
Carol

Celebrating the life of Betty Mears

God worked things out so that Richard was in town for his grandmother's funeral. Betty Mears went to be with Jesus after living 100 years, 1 month and 21 days on this earth. Many wonderful people have been affected by her, including 3 children, many grandchildren and great grandchildren. She and Richard's grandfather married late in life, but had been friends when they were very young. She was a thoughtful and active woman of faith who influenced us and our children as well. We are thankful for her role in our lives. Here is a picture of her and Richard Cook Mears, Sr.

Our 25th Anniversary

Yesterday was our 25th wedding anniversary.
I picked Richard up in New York Friday evening. Here we are in Mystic, Connecticut where we stopped on our way up to the Boston area to visit our friends Jose & Raquel Martinez and Heritage Bible Chapel.

On our way back to PA, we stopped in Manhattan to see Grace Church where we were married. We were hoping the magnolia tree would be in bloom just like it was on our wedding day...it wasn't, but the blossoms on this tree (cherry? pink dogwood?) are about the same color. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed it.

Easter in Haiti

Easter in Haiti is either a celebration of death or a celebration of life. If you are following the Voodoo religion, Easter (really Good Friday) is a celebration of the death of Christ. Especially in the countryside they dress up in costumes to "trick" the spirits and even yell "crucify Him" in what they see as Satan's victory over Christ.













If you are a Christian, you celebrate the resurrection and life of Christ. A traditional meal consists of "Poulet pays" or Haitian-raised chicken. In the picture you see Elysee's fiance, Anne Love, proudly holding up two chickens which she prepared for our Easter meal.










In order to celebrate in a grand fashion, we invited Adline, her new-born son and her 10 year old daughter as well as James, our teen-age neighbor - so we had about 11 people around the table with 2 babies under 4 months and a 3 year old.



Even though I had had a tummy ache (since Saturday), I really enjoyed holding the babies while their Mom's ate.

Afterwards we had a good discussion about the fact that since God forgave us, we need to forgive each other.

So I had a nice Easter with my Haitian family, but of course I missed Carol and the children so I called them on our internet phone!

God's Grace in the midst of tragedy

The day of the earthquake our neighbors came running to us asking us to help transport a pregnant woman to the hospital who had a badly broken arm. I (Rich) ran and got my keys and asked our Haitian helper, Ecdes, who is 16 to come with me.

We got the woman into the car and made her as comfortable as possible, but she was in extreme pain.

We had to drive to 5 different places before we finally had to give up and take her into a hospital even through they said they were all filled. Ecdes and I carried her up to the only light we saw in the courtyard and asked the overwhelmed nurse who was there to take care of her.

The woman's name is Adline and today she came by with her baby boy named Wilkens Jean who was born on February 4th, to thank us for our help.

It turned out that, in spite of the overcrowded conditions, she did receive some care. She was in the hospital a couple of weeks, actually. But they couldn't treat her arm properly and it became infected and had to be amputated.

However, she did not complain at all, and now she is the happy mother of a healthy baby boy. She has a 10 year old daughter to help her out, so that is a blessing. But her husband died before the earthquake and she has no job.

She was so thankful to Ecdes and I that she has made Ecdes the boy's Godfather.

Please pray that we will be able to help her find a job so she can care for her two children.

False teachings abound in Haiti

While in Limbe Pastor Peggy told me he had to come to Port-au-Prince on business next week. I asked him what he was going to do in Port-au-Prince and he said he was going to try and get a Visa to take a training in the US. When I asked him what kind of training he said it was a follow up course on some psychological training he had already received. He told me the name of the course, and I immediately recognized it as a non-Christian cult that is popular in the US. Pastor Peggy had told me he had already attended several sessions on this teaching and that at least 1,000 others – some Christians – had already received the training. I was astounded! I asked him how he had made contact with these people, and he told me through the internet.

When I told him that this was not just “psychological training”, but the false teaching of a specific religion, he was surprised. He thought it was just “Positive thinking” and harmless. I suggested that he ask the Holy Spirit to confirm in his heart if the teaching was false, and he said he would do this.

I am praying that God will use him and this experience to help him tell others about this false teaching and their methods!

It gives me great joy to see our AIS Haiti leaders walking in the Truth

3 John 1:4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”

Our truck was loaded to the top with food, soccer equipment, tents and training materials when we set out on our road trip to North Haiti on March 25th. I was thrilled to have a new member of our team with us, Jean Eric Duval, especially since he was willing to drive most of the 10 hour trip! We were joined by Ronald William who is on the board of AIS Haiti, and Sylvain Nelson one of our leaders who just graduated from seminary last year.

Although some of the roads have just been re-done and are perfect, they get progressively worse the farther you get from Port-au-Prince and get really bad after the city of Gonaives which was flooded a few years ago.

Nevertheless our sturdy Toyota diesel pick up made it just fine and we crawled into our bunk beds after a cold shower and warm oatmeal.

The next day we got up early to start the training, however, it started at “Haitian time” - about an hour late. Eventually most of the 30 team leaders showed up – 3 from each of 8 teams we have in the Port-de-Paix area plus the regional committee. We had a great day of training going over the structure of AIS Haiti and introducing everyone to the “Young Peacemakers” curriculum. We even had time to play a little soccer with they guys in the afternoon. ( My team won when I scored the last goal!)

The second day more people came on time – especially since they realized we served breakfast early! We split them up into three groups: The Coaches, the administrators and the team chaplains and did training specific to each group. I taught the administrators how to prepare a budget and raise funds locally.

The next day was Sunday and the church of one of our leaders was having a big “Harvest” celebration where people bring gifts of produce and live stock to the church and then they auction them off to the highest bidder. Before the auction, however, they have a long service with lots of choirs and preaching. Unfortunately, we had to leave for an appointment after three hours – but they were still going strong!

The appointment was with young missionary who had just graduated from Wheaton College. He was in the process of starting a sports ministry for a larger mission in the area that had been there many years. We had a great meeting and he said after-wards that his head was swimming with all the information and experience I had shared with him. We are going to start with a joint training for our leaders some time in the next year and see where our partnership goes from there!

Later I reflected on what I had seen in church that day. Every choir had a custom-made outfit: One had robes, another had matching ties, etc. Also, the choirs had come from towns pretty far away, which means they had to pay for transportation to come to visit the church. I also thought about who was the audience they were singing to – I would suspect they were mostly Christians. Then I thought about how what they are doing is similar to our soccer teams: Our teams need uniforms and money for transportation so they can play other schools in other towns. The main difference is that when we play games in other towns our audience includes lots of people who are not Christian, but will come to watch a soccer game! It made me realize that the local churches in Haiti have the resources they need to support their school's soccer team – it's just a matter of balance and priority.

That afternoon I shared this with the Regional Committee and explained that I love music myself and sang in choirs for many years and was not criticizing what I saw that day at all, but I wanted them to realize that the local church in Haiti has more resources than they realize. We had a good meeting and discussed our dream of an outreach during the World Cup.

After the meeting we packed up and drove to Jean Rabel and arrived just before dark. That night it rained hard, but it was gone by the morning.



This was the biggest TREC training we ever had. There were 55 people that came – some from miles away. It cost us over $200 US just to pay for the transportation for everyone to come. They represented 12 teams in the area. This means that to date we have trained over 126 soccer leaders in the past 12 months. At Jean Rabel we had a good first day of training but because of larger numbers than expected, we did not have books for everyone

The next morning Ronald and I got up at 5 AM to do a training of coaches at the local soccer field. We drew quite a crowd, but everyone was happy with what we showed them. After that we split up into groups again and taught until 1 PM. After that we had a good meeting with the Regional Committee and talked about how to help each of the 12 teams implement what they had just been taught. Then everyone went home, and it was a good thing too, because that night it rained buckets through the early morning. When we got up we prayed that by the time we were ready to go, that the rain would stop – just as we had prayed – it stopped just as we were ready to load the truck and go!



However, the small stream just outside of Jean Rabel had turned into a raging torrent and we had to wait until another truck forged the stream to see if we were going to make it. Even though water came up over our hood, we still made it through, but it was scary! I was very glad for a diesel engine and 4WD! (see picture)

We then headed to visit our regional committee in Limbe, which is in the north of Haiti near Cap Haitian. Unfortunately, because of the lack of good roads in the north, we had to go south to Gonaives in order to go North. In one day we went from rain and swollen rivers we had to ford, to dry and dusty roads where big trucks in front of us kicked up so much dust we could not see, to heavy fog going over the mountains, to lovely sunny weather!

We arrived in the rain, however, and stayed with the family of Pastor Peggy: Four children under 12, including a 7 month old baby – 3 boys and a girl. Pastor Peggy is a professor of Physical Education at the Christian University of North Limbe and has attended both of our TREC trainings in Port-au-Prince. However, it wasn't until this trip that he really understood our strategy of working through Christian primary schools. He now is going to put together a larger committee who is going to have representatives of 6 local Christian schools on it.

Since Jean Eric had to leave us unexpectedly in Port-de-Paix, I ended up doing all the rest of the driving on the trip, including the 10 hour trip back to Port-au-Prince from Limbe.

In all, we are very glad that God has given us so many great volunteers who are implementing our program in so many schools all over Haiti.