Just incase you haven’t heard, we arrived safely in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti last Tuesday. This month my team along with 3 other teams are living at Mission of Hope in Titanyen. We are absolutely loving life here! The scenery is gorgeous. We are surrounded by the mountains overlooking the ocean. We are living in dorm style rooms, sleeping in bunk-beds with mosquito nets – trying to keep those pesky things out! Every meal is prepared on campus for us by wonderful Haitian women. God Bless them! They also showed us the proper way to hand-wash our clothes in buckets today- clearly we looked like newbies lol.
Mission of Hope is an amazing organization. They are fully committed to indigenous mobilization as they strive to bring life transformation through Jesus Christ to every man, woman and child in Haiti. The MOH campus includes a medical clinic, orphanages, schools, a church and much more. The campus is almost fully run by Haitins.
Our first days of ministry included lots of manual labor. We were finishing up working on what will be the first training center for Haitin priests. Wednesday, we saw the first ever group of priests show up to begin their training – pretty darn cool!! Our team became pro’s at mastering the assembly line as we passed cinder blocks, bucktes of cement and pavers back and forth for hours at a time. Try doing all that heavy lifting in Haitin heat! Phewwww – talk about taking sweat to a whole new level. Thank God for our squads great attitude and smiles through it all! Not to mention, our worksite was literally right on the ocean, so we got to look out over the crystal clear blue water. Those views along with the ocean breeze were truly gifts from God.
Our first village day was the highlight of my entire week. Our teams went into Transformation Village. This village was built after the earthquake by the Haitin goverenment. We spent the morning walking around the village with our translator, going door to door visiting and talking with several of the local families. We would ask about their families and children, compliment the women on their precious children and beautiful homes and ask if they went to the local church. Occasionally, we would be invited inside the home if they really felt comfortable with us. At the end of our visits, we would ask if there was anything that we could be praying about for them. We would then join in prayer together as we prayed for their needs and/or struggles. It was beyond amazing to hear so many of the women say how they believed in God because they had no other way of knowing how else they would be surviving. Even though they had so little, their belief that God was providing for them was keeping them alive and living day to day.
That afternoon we spent playing with the local children in the village. SUCH a fun and rewarding afternoon. The little kids were so loveable. They all just wanted to be held and loved on all day! Which of course was so easy to do 🙂 The older boys and girls had so much personality and attitude! They loved playing with our hair, trying on our sunglasses and taking photos with us! It was awesome to be able to spend an entire afternoon with the children. It was sad saying goodbye even after just one day!
Our squad can’t wait to see what other kinds of ministry God has in store for us while in Haiti. We pray for Him to continue bringing us the strength, courage and endurance that we need day to day.
Stay tuned for more updates!!
