This month, after our adventure getting into Haiti, we
arrived at Pastor Louis St. Germaine’s home in Les Cayes Haiti. We only stayed at his house for two nights
but they were blessed nights. We all had
beds. There were warm showers with water
pressure. We had 3 square meals a day
that we could barely finish. There was
air conditioning and even ice for the water in our Nalgene bottles.
Pastor Louis took us out for a tour of a couple of
orphanages, his church, and the surrounding area we would be ministering in for
the month. We liked Pastor Louis from
the very beg
inning. With every story he
told his love for the people of Haiti came through. We learned about the poverty of the area, the
reaso
ns behind the poverty, the desperate situation for women in the country,
the problems men faced to provide for their fam
ilies, the spiritual strongholds
that kept both men and women bound up in all sorts of destructive cycles and
sin, and we learned what his ministry was trying to do about all of it.
Our first stop was an orphanage outside of the city. It sat off the
main road, down a very bumpy
and washed out dirt road, and high on a hill.
This place was Cambry. On your
way up the hill was a church, then you came up on the school, then the
administration buildings, the pharmacy and clinic, and the orphanage
houses. If you traveled up to the top of
the hill there was a building that housed a technical center. The Cambry Technical Center only took up two
small rooms in a gigantic building. The
other parts of the building were being renovated. At one point the building was originally
intended to be a home for retired pastors and ministry workers. For some reason, that planned never came
through. Some of the rooms were used for
orphan housing at one point, but the most recent plan was to turn the entire
building into a guesthouse for mission teams, pastors, and anyone who came
through the area.
We left Cambry after visiting all the classes and went into
the town of Les Cayes to see Pastor Louis’ church, and the orphanage within the
city. It was incredibly close to the
road and the center of the bustling city.
We met the orphans through their classrooms once again, and then got
back into the Land Rover to go somewhere else.
Pastor Louis took us to a site they were just beginning to
turn into an orphanage. They had only
staked out the land for the foundation the day we showed up to see the
project. Pastor Louis had been telling
us all about Voodoo and the powers the enemy has over the country on the
way. When we arrived, he told us that
this particular orphanage was going to be 10 miles from the city that was seen
as the voodoo headquarters in Haiti. 
Wow. The kids were
moving right up to the gates of the enemy.
So Team Manna and I decided it would be best to pray over the land,
anoint the area, and declare its use for the Lord. We wanted these kids to be protected! We prayed with Pastor Louis and then covered
the entire area with prayers and blessings.
Later that night, the team spent time praying over our
options for ministry for the month. We
decided that the Lord was leading us to live and work at the Cambry
orphanage. So the next morning, we
packed our stuff, left the beds and air conditioning, and moved to Cambry.
We had talked with Pastor Louis and he said that we could
set up our tents on top of the hill where the Technical Center was
located. When we arrived, he went as
far as to open up a couple of rooms in the building that was being turned into
a guesthouse so we could at least lock up our stuff and be inside. So I suppose that you can say we were the
first guests in the house, though it was just a couple of empty rooms.
All of the girls set up our tents in the two rooms. The boys set up their tents in the room with
the kitchen. The kitchen only had a
propane tank and 3 burner cook stove. We
got keys from the people working at the Technical Center so we could use the
bathroom behind their doors. There was
no running water, and only electricity when the Technical Center was running
their generator. To get water, we had to
haul buckets from the well at the very bottom of the hill, to the large barrel
in the bathroom at the top of the hill.
It was quite the change from our luxury stay at Pastor Louis’
house.
From the top of our hill we had the best view possible. We could see the entire site at the foot of
the hill. To one direction we could see
the coast and an island not to far away.
To the other direction the mountains and valleys were visible and
breathtaking. The wind would sweep
across the hilltop with a nice breeze to stifle the heat of the midday
sun. It was a wonderful place to see.
Nature’s Air-Conditioned Orphanage.
For the past couple of weeks we’ve been living with the
orphans of Cambry, making friends with the folks at the Technical Center (they
all spoke English), and helping/learning from the construction workers who were
remolding the rest of the building. We
spent time in the classrooms teaching English.
Pastor Louis had wanted us to sand the walls of the soon-to-be
guesthouse in order to prep them for painting.
That meant that we were given a box of sandpaper and put to work. It’s a big building, and I’ve never fully
appreciated and electric sander before this month in Haiti, but I think the
inventor must have had to sand a building like the guesthouse. He knew there had to be an easier way. We’d visit the church on Sunday and some people
attended the 4 AM prayer meetings. Most
of the time we were just loving on the kids.
We would worship with them in their houses with bucket drums, and
aluminum plate cymbals.
The main goal of this month was to love the kids like Jesus
would have loved them. We had prayed
about our location and God had asked us to spend an hour in intercessory prayer
for the country of Haiti every day. So,
every evening after eating our dinner, we’d get together outside under the vast
starry sky, and lift up some prayers for the people of Haiti. Around 9:30 PM we would all trickle off to
bed.
It was a great month of ministry and of pouring ourselves
out. We loved living with the
orphans. It reminds me of my month in
India on my World Race, except it wasn’t nearly as hot in Haiti on that windy
hilltop than it was in Delhi’s dusty suburbs with the 115 degree heat. I had a lot more energy to play with the kids
this time around.
This is basically and overview blog. Expect to see some more posts on my month in
Haiti soon. I hope to write about our
experience with the Christian Festival on Friday the 13th, and more specifics
on the kids I fell in love with during my stay at Cambry.
Continue to lift up this
squad and our ministry. We want
desperately to make a difference in this world and to have God change us to be
more like Him in the process. Also, pray
that more support money would come in to pay for my stay on this World Race as
the squad leader.
