Another tent city was cleared this week. This one was huge and right in front of the National Palace. It was cleared one section at a time and now, this week, the last section was taken down. In this video from Haitian President Martelly's facebook page, one man (the one in the aqua colored shirt) explains how he was living there all this time with his children, reports being given $4000 toward rebuilding his. He states that he is very happy.

The video also reports how many Haitians are happy that they have this park to enjoy (they even use the English word 'enjoy' mixed in the Creole). A young man expresses that he's happy to have the park again, that for people in the poor, crowded neighborhoods surrounding the park, it means a lot to be able to come to an open space like this.



http://www.facebook.com/martelly2010

The Story of Venita

You may remember the story of Venita. She was one of the people we helped after the earthquake by letting her stay at our house with her 3 month old baby, Sarah. She thought that her whole family had been killed when the house where they were living collapsed during the earthquake. But God had other plans. She found her 3 year old son at her Father’s house a month after the earthquake, and then 3 months later she found out that her husband and 6 year old daughter had fled to the Dominican Republic, but had since come back to Haiti.

Venita left our house a few months after the earthquake and lived in a shack on a property owned by her family. During that time Venita’s husband, Berjano had not really been living with them. He said that he had to stay downtown with a friend a lot of the time to be available early in the morning for day work. So Venita’s job as a kindergarten teacher was the family’s only means of support for much of the past year.

In August we found out that the whole family was finally in a position to live together, since the husband, Berjano, had just found a more permanent job.
Unfortunately the next month Venita called us up and said that Berjano had asked her for a divorce and wanted to take her oldest girl with him. It turned out that Berjano had been having an affair and had a child with his lover.

Carol and I prayed about the situation and decided to help her try and build a house out of block so that she could have some security and Bejano could not come and take her daughter. The problem was that our earthquake relief funds were almost gone, and it was going to cost quite a bit to build her a house. So we started to pray and we decided to ask one supporter in particular if she would consider giving a gift toward the house. The supporter sent back an email saying that she had already sent a large gift to our account two days before, and that we could use it however God directed us! So you see that even before we prayed, God had answered our prayer for Venita and her family.

So for the past three weeks, we have had Venita and her three children: Sarah 2, Gaeton, 3 and Bergline 7 staying with us at our house while Venita’s house has been built.

Please pray for Venita as she enters into this new stage in her life as a single Mom with 3 young children. She works full time as a Kindergarten teacher, and will also be taking courses to get an official degree in teaching.

Tent Camp for 18 months and still no where to go for many

I couldn't stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks as I sat in a circle together with 14 IDP* (refugee) tent camp leaders and the pastor of the church property where the camp sits. The camp is supposed to be dismantled by the Fall and these people need somewhere to go. We had just finished two hours of discussion about how to help people in the camp understand their God-given talents through ABCD: Asset Based Community Development.



As a North American, I wanted to go in and fix their problems like I order a hamburger at McDonalds. But there are no easy answers when it comes to assimilating the thousands of people in IDP camps back into the mainstream in Haiti. Imagine living in a tent for 1 ½ years! That’s not a week’s vacation with your family.

I’m not sure of all the emotions welling up inside that caused me to cry, but I know deep inside I wanted these dear brothers and sisters in Christ (who were volunteering their time to help others in the tents) to know that somebody had heard their cries and cared about their challenges. I wanted them to know that I (and all who support us and pray for us) was there to encourage and comfort them in a seemingly impossible situation.

I told them frankly that I didn’t know how God was going to deliver them from this situation, but at the beginning of the seminar we all confirmed what we knew: God loves us, and all the people living in tents; God would not ask us to pray for our daily bread without giving us a way to earn it or find it, and God has given each one of us talents and abilities to serve him, and serve others.

Without the caring heart of Mark Bradley, a fellow Crossworld missionary, and his wife, Anne, I would not have had the opportunity to share with and learn from these dear people. But when Mark asked me to visit the camp with him, and we started to talk to Pastor Renes about the challenges he faced, I decided to meet with them to discuss ABCD which I had just read about in the book “When Helping Hurts”.
So with Mark’s help I learned enough about ABCD, and the spirit behind it, to lead a discussion with these leaders.

ABCD starts with the perspective that God has given everyone talents and abilities that they can use to help themselves and others. Instead of asking the refugees what they need, ABCD asks them what they HAVE in terms of skills, community connections, business experience and personal assets. It seeks to engage everyone in finding solutions to pressing community issues rather than doing things for people who “have nothing to offer.” In Mark 6, Jesus started with what people had, a few fish and loaves, and proceeded to turn it into a feast for 5000. When we offer what we have to God, he can do miracles – and that is what Haiti needs right now – lots of individual miracles.

Even though I had never taught this material before, the discussions we had energized me, and God helped me find just the right illustrations to help the group understand the concepts. Once this was done, we worked together on putting together a survey to help people discover their talents. I left it up to them to decide whether they would survey people individually or in groups, and also when and how they would get together to discuss the results of the surveys and hopefully find some ways to connect needs in the community with skills their neighbors have.

I plan to meet with them on July 21st to discuss their findings and try and find ways to link their abilities with my network. In the meantime, please pray for this whole process, and pray that God will make a way for these dear people leave their tents.

Rich

*Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) – people are not technically considered refugees if they are in such a camp in their own country.

Pallets bring strength and security to tent dwellers

As thousands of tons of aid and goods have come into Haiti, so have thousands of wooden pallets.

We are able to get these pallets for free from a Christian ministry and we have been distributing them to our friends who live in tents.

Unfortunately, women who live in tents are very vulnerable to attack and rape since tents have no security.

We encourage our friends to build make-shift walls out of pallets that are not easily broken into and then mount a wooden door to make forced entry more difficult.

So far we have distributed over 20 pallets to 3 different families.

Article on Haitians being helped by their faith

Displays of quiet dignity in Port-au-Prince

Many citizens of the ravaged city of Port-au Prince are "amazingly stoic," according to Bill Coltart, a paramedic from British Columbia.

Many citizens of the ravaged city of Port-au Prince are "amazingly stoic," according to Bill Coltart, a paramedic from British Columbia.

Read the article at: http://www.nationalpost.com/Displays%20quiet%20dignity%20Port%20Prince/2501856/story.html

From this article:

"The Haitians have been buoyed by their faith.

I heard the evidence on the last four nights of my assignment, when I slept at the home of a Port-au-Prince couple whose house stood undamaged by the earthquake.
It was only a few dozen metres from the fairways of the Petionville Club, the city's private golf course, where 50,000 homeless people had set up camp. By day, the spot was a portrait of misery, with people lacking latrines and deprived of even basic medical care. But every morning at 4:30 a.m., in the pre-dawn darkness before even the roosters started to crow, I woke up to a chorus of melody. People were praying in a call-and-response style that rose and fell in a rhythm similar to field chants during the slave era.

"HALLELUJAH, hallelujah. HALLELUJAH, hallelujah."

Corban Team stretched with 100 kids showing up on Wednesday

The week is going well with the Corban team, but yesterday was a challenge!

Although they are asking for 40 children each day, that's hard to do when there are thousands of kids in the IDP Camp (Internally Displaced Persons--i.e. internal refugees). They try to have a different 40 kids each day to give as many kids as possible a chance.

But yesterday 100 came. It's great to have all those kids get to do something, but the Corban team consists of only 8 people. Combined with the Haitian workers, it's still not quite enough. (And I'm guessing they didn't have enough supplies, although Richard didn't mention that).

Thanks for your prayers...keep on praying.
Carol

Corban College Team

Here's the Richard's report on what's been happening with the Corban College Team:

"The team from Corban College has been doing a great job!!

We have so far visited three schools in the Mornings and done two sessions of camp with 41 children from the Delmas 48 Refugee camp in the afternoons.

The team has done a great job sharing the love of Christ with the kids, sharing their testimonies and doing games and crafts.

Today they got to visit the house of our friends Frere Levi and also walk through a refugee camp.

They are a bit overwhelmed by the poverty but are encouraged by the warmth of the Haitian people.

Thanks for your prayers as we continue the same schedule through Thursday and then will visit Leogane and Verrettes over the weekend!"

Corban College Team Visit

A team of eight from Corban College arrived safely in Port-au-Prince on Sunday.

Their first day went well, running a camp for kids who are survivors of the earthquake. They did a craft with the kids--a decorated sun visor. Then they had a Bible lesson. After that they played games.

Richard has pictures, but internet hasn't been working well at the house. We'll fill you in with more details as we're able. Please pray for their work and safety this week.

NB: Although there was demonstrating in front of the ruined National Palace against the President for his "low profile" after the earthquake, the team was not near that area, so we don't expect any problems for them.
Carol

Tents arrive from Crossing Community Church

Today I picked up 16 tents from the airport and within an hour had distributed two of them to some of our Ambassador in Sport leaders in Leogane, an area just outside of Port-au-Prince that was badly hit.

We thank God for this generous gift of badly needed tents. There are another 14 on the way, so this will make many of the people we work with very happy!

We also gave a tent today to a friend of one of our key leaders, Sylvain, who lost one of his 4 children in the quake as well as his house. Thus family of 5 has been sleeping without good shelter since the earthquake!

Another person we gave a tent to was the niece of Madame Levis, our housekeeper. I took her niece to the hospital a few weeks ago so she could deliver her 4th child, and she was thrilled to be able to give her newborn a cozy, dry place to sleep.

We'll keep you posted on how God is blessing other Haitians through our tent distribution.

Check out this blog

Check out this blog that gives updates on the earthquake recovery, especially on the Bolosse Campus (the campus of STEP seminary, where we lived before)

http://haitiearthquakerecovery.blogspot.com

If you click on the pictures to the right, you should be able to see a larger format of the pictures. I'm not sure if you have to have Picasa on your computer to do this.

Thanks, Amy Schmid, for this great blog.

Soccer Coach Training

Today we are having a training session for some of the coaches at the Delmas 48 (Petionville Club) IDP Camp.

We were suprised to find three AIS players in the country checking out what they could do to help Haiti. Richard asked them if they would consider doing a training day and they said "yes."! Since we had already done interviews in the Delmas 48 camp, we called the coaches (or potential coaches) and most of them were available.

One of the challenges in the country these days is where to play. Richard asked to use Quisqueya Chapel and that is working out.

Please pray for this preparation for ministry in Delmas 48. AND for so many homeless Haitians who had to endure a night of heavy rains last night. Many of them must get up and stand through the rain to avoid getting wet. Their belongings get wet, too. I'm not sure about those in tents either...if the tents held up under that long, heavy rain Most tents are not on top of tarps because there are so many people who still don't have their own tent or tarp.

Also, pray that the training will go well in spite of mud at the field.

People in the Dominican Republic helping Haiti

Even though relations between Dominicans and Haitians has been historically bad, Dominicans have been heartbroken over the devastation in Haiti and have been working hard to help Haitians.

When we went there to get supplies, we experienced that ourselves. Here are some of the people who helped us:
The Monteros










The Vallettes:











victor:

The work in the Petionville Club Camp

To start the ministry in the Petionville Club Camp (the large one), Ronald and Jean-Paul went to the camp to interview people to be trained to work as coaches and as spiritual leaders. There have been a few people who came to the interviews who were a real encouragement because of their strong faith and knowledge of the scriptures. However, there were only a few like this, and we need a lot of people to take on such a big camp. One of the people who came to interview to be a coach is a young woman who is on Haiti's national women's team. One person that Ronald talked to came to understand the need to accept Christ personally and did that during the interview!

For this my son was dead, and is alive again!

Venita's son is not dead! She was reunited with him, someone brought him to her father's house! "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to celebrate." Luke 15:24

She is so excited. Last night we were having dinner together and when Luge (nicname of Venita's almost-3-year-old son) looked up at her with a big smile, his two huge, dimpled cheeks shining, she waved her hand in the air up to heaven and said "Thank you, God! Thank you, God! Thank you, God!" I'm not sure how many times. But a lot.

How did this happen? Well, we don't actually know yet how he survived the earthquake, but a couple brought Luge to Venita's father's house (probably 8 days ago because that's when the road opened up to that house). Her father couldn't tell her who they were, but she has a guess. The couple recognized Luge from times when Venita would go to her father's house to visit, so they brought him there. They said he cried a lot but when he saw his grandfather's house his smiled and ran to it. Venita had been trying to call the people at her father's house but had never gotten an answer until Monday (3 days ago). When she heard that they had her son, she went right away, even though some people warned her that it might not really be him. And that sometimes people even do that for a joke (???!!!!).

We were away in the DR when this happened but came home Tuesday afternoon. I love having him around, even though he's pretty active and will likely get into trouble sometimes. He accepts all of us here out our house, we're already ALL his friends. He'll sit with any of us--Richard, me, Ecdes, Ronald, Paules, Jean, Sophia, Francoise.
P.S. Not all of those people live at our house, but Ecdes does, Ronald does for now and Paules & Jean are Ecdes's cousin & brother who are around a lot, although Jean goes to work everyday.

Other news on Venita...Her job has been reduced to 3 times/week for now, but with the possiblity of working full time as she improves/learns how to do more of the work.

People all over turning to the Lord

Many people are making confessions of faith these days. I guess we'll find out in time if some of them are just "jumping on the band wagon" as they say. But we are rejoicing because we believe that for some there has been a real regeneration of their hearts. Please pray for the people in our neighborhood have made professions of coming to Jesus: Sophia and Francoise; and especially Katy Bellebranche and Dodline since their mother is against it.

In Leogane, where Pastor Guillaume, who works with AIS-Haiti, preached this week, there were 100 people who said they accepted Christ. Also, 70 people in Verrettes did too.

Putting Haiti in the hands of the Lord

Right now we're watching the 3-day prayer-fasting service on TV. The pastor is saying:
"Haiti met le pays dans les mains du Seigneur." Haiti is putting the country in the hands of the Lord.

Although we have been fasting and praying and going to services at our church, we didn't realize that the tens of thousands of people at the National Palace were staying there night and day. Our friend went there and took this video (link above). It's very short, you should see it. I don't think the US news is covering this very much, so I wanted to let you experience it.
Here's what it looked like yesterday:
(trying to add the link here, but so far it's not working)



This is normally the biggest time of year for voodoo activity. It usually starts after Christmas, with Mardi Gras week being the biggest week. But it still goes on until Easter with Good Friday being a time of celebrating Jesus dying. I'm just wondering about God allowing the timing of this earthquake in January. Now, instead, we're hearing about Fasting, praying, confessing sins, asking for God's help and praising Him for all He has done.

The case of the missing water systems

Sat. , Feb. 13, 2010

Today, my job was to rest and try to get over this rotten cold that I have, complete with post-nasal drip that is really annoying.

But just when I was about to lie down for a morning nap, I got the word that the baby formula and supplies I had left for David Schmid and the Bolosse campus relief effort were not where I had left them at QCS. Carol arrived at QCS just as I was talking to David and confirmed that not only were the food supplies not there, but the 6 water systems that I had responsibility to distribute were also not there. Naturally, I was very upset and fought against the growing sense of panic that was building up in my sick body.

As you may recall, these water systems were left in my responsibility after a man named Lee King had to leave Haiti suddenly because his son got malaria. There were six systems worth about $5,000 US each – or $30,000 US total.

I cried out to God and read Psalm 69, and then dashed off a quick e-mail to Lee King explaining the situation. Then I e-mailed and called everyone who was supposed to have received a water system and asked them if they had picked up their system without telling me. None of them had, so now I was back to zero.

At this point I still don't know where the systems are, but on Monday I will go and talk to Ted at QCS who apparently called some orphanages to come and pick up the formula and stuff that had been donated. I'm hoping that I will call one of the orphanages and they will tell me that they picked up the water systems by mistake.

I do have a hard time believing that someone would pick up 33 boxes of water systems supplies that were clearly marked with my name and phone number on them by mistake, but I know God is in control, even when I am not. So I am trying to stay calm and wait or Monday morning when Ted gets back from a weekend away.

Please pray with us for God's will in this and that the missing water systems show up in his timing!!

An estimated 90% of Port-au-Prince Prayed today

I heard an estimate that about 90% of the people of metropolitan Port-au-Prince were praying today.

We can believe it. We drove over to Bolosse today, which means we went across town. What we didn't see: there virtually no merchants selling things on the streets. We could hardly recognized Bolosse's market area since it was empty. What we did see: people gathered, praying. What we heard: singing, mostly joyful singing. And people talking about fasting. For the past few days people have been talking about how long the fast would be and it was suggested that we only eat bread and sugar water after 6pm; nothing from 6am to 6pm.

At our memorial service at Quisqueya Chapel, we sang, heard about those who died, cried, listened to God's word, prayed and talked. It was good. I was actually glad to see Venita cry, because she needs to. God led me to ask my friend Coby to hold baby Sara and I went up with Venita while she told the congregation about her family members who died. It was very hard. But good. She really misses her 3-year old son. Some people put pictures of their loved ones up on a board in front. Venita doesn't have any pictures because she lost everything in her house. Hopefully at some point we'll be able to help her get pictures from relatives or friends.

I also found out about the deaths of a little boy and a young man that I used to see every week in church. It was sad. But they are with Jesus now. I also got to hear the story of a young man who is part of our youth group. He was trapped in the university building where he worked for two days with the bodies of students who had died. His brother in law died and some other members of his family too.

2 Truckloads of Supplies from Dominicans

Today 2 truckloads of supplies came in from the Dominican Republic.

I think it was Wednesday, our friend, Jimmy, who works with Richard in YABT (Young Americas Business Trust) called and said his classmate that he had in an online school in 2006 contacted him to say that he had collected some supplies for people in Haiti--especially for orphanages. His name is Carlos Levy.

So many things that people have wanted came on those trucks! We had gone the other day to try to buy baby formula for people in this area, but the warehouse-type store wasn't open yet. Today the Dominicans brought 100 boxes of formula! Several different orphanages and camps are benfitting. There were a lot of medical supplies, blankets, sheets, towels, personal products (people have really been asking for these) clothes and shoes.

We had mentioned some people for prayer yesterday, like Cado Marcel, whose family still thinks she's dead. She was pulled out of the rubble with nothing and our friend Mme. Levy has been helping her with a few things. But there was nothing for her to sleep on, so Mme Levy just gave her some clothes to sleep on. Now we have blankets and sheets to give her! She also needed shoes and we got some for her. Our friend Venita who is living with us needed shoes too and she got some along with more diapers. God is providing!

We had great meetings today with Pat & Walt Stuart of CrossWorld about debriefing/counseling, etc. Very helpful. Maybe I'll get to share more later.

But, we are fasting, as I had shared yesterday and we're off the the memorial service.

Fasting for Haiti

Tomorrow, unbelievably, February 12th, is already one month since the earthquake.
President Preval suggested that we have memorials for people who died as a result of this catastrophe. And many people are calling for a 3-day fast starting tomorrow. Some people are suggesting that people fast completely from 6am - 6pm and then have only bread and sugar water during the night. Of course, we hope those who are sick or seriously injured don't follow this. But we are going to fast. And our church is having a special service tomorrow. The church will be open all day for prayer and then at 4pm we will have a memorial service where people will come up in front and say the names and ages of their family members or friends who have died. Venita (see posts from Saturday-Monday about Venita) is going to say the names and ages of the people in her family in our church even though she doesn't speak much English.