Wednesday, July 1, 2015

My Time With Blue Grass


It is about time that I blog about everything that went on when Mom and Mark were here.  The ten days were extremely busy, exhausting, fun, encouraging, and so much more.  I loved having the Blue Grass team here.  It was so fun to serve along side Mom and Mark.  I also loved watching the team love on the people that I love. 

My beautiful Haitian family with part of my American family
 
The week and a half with them started out a bit different.  I actually left campus the day after the team got to campus.  We had another team that was traveling to their neighbors project communities, and I was able to tag along with them.  While I am in Haiti, I will be traveling to all of our neighbors project communities to do a health evaluation on them.  It is the hope that we will be able to identify their biggest needs and start working towards ways of meeting these needs.  I was able to travel to Beauchamp and Mayette and meet with the pastors in these communities.  This was such an affirmation to me that I am doing what I need to do.  The first question I asked  (before I really explained who I was or what I was wanting to do) was “what do you think that the biggest problem is in your community?”  In both of these communities, the pastors said that their biggest problem was health. Both of these communities are currently fighting cholera and high childhood mortality rates, but there is no clinic or health facility within a two hour walk of them.  I was particularly inspired by the pastor in Beauchamp.  Pastor Luke shared with me both the physical struggles and the spiritual struggles of life in Beauchamp.  The physical struggles included the fact that the closest water source  is a two and a half hour walk (one way) away and the local school closed down.  However, it was the spiritual struggles that Pastor Luke was passionate about.   He said that in the last survey, 275 habitats were identified in Beauchamp.  He also said that he tried to count how many witch doctors were in Beauchamp, and he had to stop counting at 42 because it was so discouraging.  Beauchamp is a spiritual battlefield, but I was inspired by Pastor Luke’s passion for this community. 

 Mayette, Haiti

After a couple days, I left Beauchamp for La Baie.  It was quite an adventure to get there.  My interpreter, the moto driver, and I all climbed onto the motorcycle with our bags and left.  The ride was up and down these little rocky dirt paths.  I knew it was not a good sign when my interpreter kept saying “this isn’t safe!”  We may have gone the wrong direction twice, but we made it!  Though the trip was an adventure, it was so cool to be able to pass by these remote villages and see what everyday life looked like there.  Blue Grass met me in La Baie, and they never stopped.  The first thing that we did was grocery ministry.  The group had bought groceries while they were in Saint Louis, and we started hiking up the mountain with the groceries and a creole Bible for each house.  There were a couple houses that we knew that we wanted to go to, and we were able to stop at them.  We once again stopped by the house that the mother had died.  The daughter shared with us that it has been very hard for her since her mom died because she really misses her.  I pray that our devotion brought her a little peace and that the Bible that was left will continue to bring the family peace.  While we were walking with the bags, I told the group that we would go to whatever houses we felt like God led us to for the remaining grocery bags.  We nearly passed one house, and Mark said that he felt like we should stop there.  Mom told him to speak up, so he hollered at the group to stop.  We walked up this hill to the house.  The man who lived there had a nasty wound on his leg.  He had had it for a long time, but he could not get it to go away.  Mom was able to talk to him about it some, and the next day she brought him everything he could need to take care of it and clean it.  She went through how he should clean and wrap it, and he was very responsive and thankful.  It was so neat to watch her in her element.  The main thing that we wanted to do in La Baie was a two day sports camp.  We gave out wrist bands so that we could keep track of how many people were there.  The camp must have been pretty good because this little boy made his own bracelet so that he could come!

He got to stay :) 

We learned a lot the first day of sports camp and were able to make the second day run great.  I loved watching the integration between the boys in our orphanage and the community.  It was also such a good opportunity for us to open our doors to the community since we hosted the camp on the mission’s property.  Everyone at the camp not only got to play sports and do different activities, but each day they were also able to hear a devotion and be prayed over.  That was our ultimate purpose.  We were also able to do a VBS for the children who could not attend our sports camp, which was so much fun!  At La Baie, I was also able to do my community evaluation there.  Mom was able to join me for this, and I am very thankful for that.  We went through the questions with the campus director, and then we were able to hike to another town to meet with a lady who runs a clinic there.  This adventure started out a little discouraging because I wanted to see the water source, but no one knew where it was.  We then got to the clinic, but it was closed.  I felt like it had been a bit of a wasted trip, but then someone said they thought they knew where the lady lived.  We walked to her house and were able to interview her there.  At the end, we asked her about the water source.  It ended up being right behind her house, and she took us to see it!  The group was also able to spend a lot of time with the orphan boys.  They loved on them, and played hard.  There were many soccer games, hugs, laughs, and love. 

Blue Grass with the orphan boys

After returning from La Baie, there was still a lot of ministry to do!  We were able to do the bracelet boy bible study and once again pray over each boy individually.  Every afternoon before and after La Baie, the group would visit different bracelet boys’ houses.  At their houses, we were able to meet their family, pray over them and their needs, and give them a Creole Bible.  I loved watching the group invest even deeper into the bracelet boys’ lives, and I loved watching the boys respond to that.  Leah was actually able to visit Frankis’s house and pray over his family.  Frankis is the boy that she had been praying over for the last year through the prayer ministry we started last year. 

Leah with Frankis's family

The team was able to go to Ansefalour to do a VBS and pray over the voodoo monument.  That is a huge opportunity to be lights in the midst of darkness.  We were also able to take the Miriam Center kids to the beach.  This was so fun to participate in.  For the last two years, I had been trying to get our team to go on a trip with them, but it never worked out.  I am so glad it was able to work out this time.  The ride there might have been the best part though!  It is hard enough to hold yourself on a tap tap, but it is even harder when you have kids on your lap!

 
Mom with John Kerry and me with Wadly

There were so many more things that the group was able to do from going to House of Hope to visiting families, to hanging out with the gran moun (elderly people) and orphans.  I am so thankful for their acts of service and sacrifices that they made in order to get here.  I am also thankful that I was able to join their group and serve along side of them.  Thank you for your prayers while they were here, and for your continual prayers after they leave.