The City… February 23, 2011

We spent today in the city; it was quite a difference from the village we visited yesterday. Busy streets and smaller spaces, but still people to minister to! David and Adam worked hard on rebuilding the roof of a church that collapsed during the earthquake. It is a 2-story building and they have been meeting downstairs with little to no ventilation. We met the pastor and one of the deacons, and they have a vision to feed the hungry and, in doing so, take advantage of the opportunity to show them the love of Christ. These men are passionate about their mission! We met several other church members who showed up to help with construction. One of the men, Pierre, was such a great help. He said several times, “This is my church; I want to help build it.” Such ownership and pride that we see over and over with the Haitian people! Kayce and I had the opportunity to do some ministry with the children downstairs while our guys worked in the hot, 100 degree sun. We were limited on the games we could play because of space, but we still managed to love on babies, tickle toddlers, and tell stories. We gave out candy and coloring sheets and heard “Merci” over and over from grateful kids. In all, the church has around 98 children that are a part of their congregation! That’s more than some American churches’ total attendance! The pastor asked us to pray for their efforts that God would bless their ministry. He is so grateful to us for being here.

Kayce and I also were able to visit a Haitian school today. There were 150 students gathered in ONE ROOM separated by curtains! Chalkboards were up and kids practically sat on top of one another as they learned to read, write and solve math problems. The kindergarteners met in another room, and there were about 20 of them in a 10×10 space. It was unreal. They gathered together for us to speak to them and I shared the story of David and Goliath while Esther translated. She is so great with the kids…They lean in and hang on her words! The children sang a few songs that they had learned in school; one in particular blessed me so much! The idea of the song was that when we pray and worship Jesus, the enemy is set to flight and we have victory! These people really know how to worship the Lord and are so unashamed in their expression to Him. They have little or nothing, but they sing about how great our God is. At the risk of sounding like my pastor , I’m seeing first hand that in the US, we are definitely Americans before we are Christians. We have everything at our disposal, yet we don’t see the greatness of our God. I will never sing that song the same way again.

Just a few more neat stories, and then I’m turning in for the night! It’s early rising around here…

• David and Adam joined a team from Kentucky to do the work on the church today. They were so grateful for young, strong guys to assist them! It’s amazing that not many young people are making trips to this country. We’ll have to see what we can do about that!  Anyway – The guys from Kentucky told us that on Monday, they were out there working and they ran out of nails. They weren’t sure what they were going to do, but they decided to keep working until their carpenters’ aprons were empty. The pastor told us they were able to work three more hours and still had nails left over!
• Tonight, we were packing care packages to take to the orphanage tomorrow. We had exactly enough supplies for each child to have a package, as well as one for the caregivers.
• The school that Kayce and I visited is part of another church in town. The pastor of that church was in his office on the bottom floor of the church the day of the earthquake. He was trapped in the rubble for three days and was rescued alive and healthy!

These stories keep coming and I’ll do my best to relay as many as I can remember. God is definitely at work in Haiti and I’m so thankful He’s using us to help with it!

 

Advertisement