Haiti Updates

I don’t have time to write much, but things are going well. A group of us are heading out to Oriani with Dad Smoker for 5 days, including the Francois, me, and Anna. We have not had a medical clinic because of the construction going on at that location. I have been going out visiting the sick and pregnant in their shanty homes amongst their naked children and real lifestyles. I carry baby Biernie tied to my back with my medical bag in my hand. How much more fun can life get than visiting the people with a baby on my back! We still have many medical requests come to our door. Sunday I started out the morning bright and early with suturing a man’s foot. On the weekends we get to relax and go hiking or go to the pool for fun. It’s so necessary and so good for us as a family to work hard and play equally hard together.

The construction team got the foundations laid for the two housing buildings. They have been having awful difficulty with the skidloader breaking down. If the man could come to fix and run the back hoe they’d get done in 3 hours what will otherwise take days or weeks. Ricardo is trying to start up cell groups. Yesterday no one came to the leadership cell because of rain, so he canceled it.

Life is good, and hard. Pray for Rodney and Godwin and Katrina. Godwin had a horrible hard event with his Yung Goddies that brings shame and struggle and a trial of a leader. Katrina and I just sat down to listen to a girl tell us all about her family’s attack from demons, they killed her sister at age 5, a month ago killed her father, and now she has the same pain. She said they’re assigned to her family. Lord…

Oriani will be a wonderful respite.

–
In His Grace,
Sabrina Zehr, CNM, ARNP
Medical Director of Haiti Family Ministries

July 14, 2010
Each day more you live in a place called Haiti, each experience you have and touch with the lives of the people, the more you learn of humanity’s depravity and corruption and the trial of your effort to help getting stolen, beaten, or unappreciated. Yesterday Katrina and Priscilla were walking to change money and someone called her over to where a crowd of people had gathered. A ~5 month preterm baby lay dead on the side of the road. Katrina called me and we took it away from the stares to bury it under rubble and dirt by the sea. Last Friday Luckenson came to me near tears and said that the Border patrol of Haiti/Dominican stole and burnt all her livelihood of eggs and merchandise she had to sell for her business that we helped her start. Godwin and I went to comfort her and speak words of hope and encouragement and prayer this morning. On the way back we were stopped by the police. Two men were murdered the night before and still lying on the side of the road. They held us detained for no papers. You can see the corruption, they would have easily let us go if we had offered to pay or work out a bribe. We ended up getting let off by Rodney sending the cop over who he was just in the process of fixing his broken down vehicle. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Rodney said. What you give out comes back I guess!

Roselaure had her baby! She ended up not waiting for me and went to the Red Cross. Lord knows. Her baby had severe meconium staining and needed resuscitation and oxygen for a day and a half afterwards. She is now back home and beautiful Annabelle (my choice) and Roselaure are both doing well. Roselaure’s family was about to get kicked out of the dirt floor, holey ceiling garage they live in. Just before Annabelle was born I lent them 6 month’s rent for this home. Her friends’ husband (who also live there) used to have a well run business that crashed in the earthquake. He hopes to somehow restart it.

The construction for the new camp is well underway. The guys are out long hours with the rented back hoe and skid loader digging the basement and getting ready to pour the footers for the two houses. One will be for long-termers and one for teams. The whole blueprint includes a church and clinic. The entire project that would take 6 weeks in the states will likely take 5 months here. They work hard and always have a crowd of spectators. Just now they broke the hydraulic line in the skidloader a third time. Pray for smooth efficiency! We are also looking into hiring Haitian masons and carpenters to help the drastic unemployment in Carrefour. If anyone wants to help but cannot take the time off work or travel here, your plane ticket alone would pay a mason’s wage for 6 weeks.

Anna has been teaching an English class MWF and now has a Bible study afterwards. They get into very deep discussions and it has been interesting for her to see some of the inside of Haitian cultures and beliefs. Yesterday they talked about God’s merciful heart towards sinners and each person’s individual responsibility for effecting change in the world. Their mentality is “Who am I, I’m nobody, what difference can I make.” Anna spoke purpose and hope and encouragement into their lives. May they go and sew the seed!

Our God is good. Things do not always happen the way we think is best, but boy, am I glad that He knows better than we. Let us not forget the reason we’re here. Not to build or tend the sick or meet physical needs alone, but to bring the water of the Holy Spirit of Christ to a dry and thirsty land.

May God be with you!

–
In His Grace,
Sabrina Zehr, CNM, ARNP
Medical Director of Haiti Family Ministries

” As I got out of the Port Au Prince airport nothing could have prepared me for the chaos I would experience during the next four hours. Carrying our luggage me and the team walked along a high chain fence over a broken road to try and find our ride to Carrfou. The smell of sewage and body odor would stay in my nostrils for the remainder of the week. On the other side of the fence were little children begging for things. They didn’t just ask for food they were asking for anything good. We crawled into the back of a colorful bus that looked like it was a transport car for lions in a circus or something of that sort. We drove through town I got a good view of just how awful the effects of the earthquake really were. Few if any buildings standing, roads cut in half because rubble and ruin covered them, and cars crushed and rendered useless. There were many building crews clearing rubble and building buildings and it’s hard to imagine the hectic disorder of a project like rebuilding a whole city in such utter ruin. When we arrived at our destination I was amazed at what I experienced next. A family of servants working hard from dusk to dawn at not only rebuilding a town but building and expanding His kingdom. I was greeted with an embracing welcome and a smiling face, not because of relief but because of love. Nothing about these people felt burdened or burnt out, on the contrary they were willing and wanting to give more to feel and experience more of the love of Christ. In the morning and afternoon we would work on either painting a house or clearing a foundation. But in the evening we would go into a tent and have an Encounter service for the leaders of the church. We as a team would pray and minister the love and forgiveness of Jesus to the group. The Holy Spirit moved gently and powerfully during these sweet times of healing towards the group. On a Thursday afternoon I joined Anna as she taught a group of thirty or forty Haitian men and women English. Anna had to leave an hour early so she announced to the students that I would be sharing a word from the Bible with them the remainder of the time. I read from the story of the good Samaritan. The group was so hungry for truth and relationship. They were pulling so much out of me and I was giving everything I had encouraging them in the faith. I preached my heart out, and thoroughly enjoyed it! Later that same evening we had a worship service. I had been learning as much Kreyol as possible and was enjoying my time entertaining the children with my bad accent. During worship a lady in her mid thirties manifested demonically and went to the ground gathering an audience. Katrina came and grabbed me and we went to the woman. We moved her to a secluded spot and started to pray. Once the lady was calm we found out that her husband’s family cursed her and said they were going to turn her into a goat. So for five years the woman has been tormented with many episodes. We broke the curse over her and cast out the spirit. Drained and weak we stood the woman up and began to pray for an infilling. She went away from that place a delivered woman with strength and peace. I was also able to pray for a man with head, chest, and stomach pains. After fifteen minutes of prayer he was healed. Sharing the gospel many times throughout the trip I quickly found out that my approach wasn’t working. Asking questions like what “do you need”, “what do you want”, with the intention of showing them God is real and in love with them simply doesn’t work. For example: “What do you need?” –food, water. “What do you want” –money clothes. It simply doesn’t work here. I quickly changed my approach to trying to hear what God was saying and trying to see what He was doing. One of my favorite things about my week in Haiti was experiencing the life of the Mission team. These people have more fun in one hour than most people I know have all week. And yet they are constantly looking for opportunity to love Jesus in the least of these. I was honored to serve them and serve with them. My name is Stephen and I fell in love with a group of Servants and the city they serve.”

~Stephen Swan

Hello everyone checking us out in cyber world. I’m sorry this is my first post, but we’ve been having trouble with the internet connection here. The team is doing well with everyone working hard and taking in the new culture. Learning to operate together as a team and working with the long termers here has been a good challenge and lesson for the future. We had some interesting deliverance encounters tonight which we all learned a lot from, I’ll take a moment to share a little bit about everyone,
Stevo-His goal is to impressive everyone here with his creole that he is learning these first few days. He is actually doing quite well
Matt-loves to dance before the lord and is standing up to Caroline in the pranking department
Alan-is of course being loved and loving all the little ninos and ninas around here. Loves to start water fights.
Andrea-living the dream
Caroline-learned what a weave was and currently has horses hair braided into her own
Tara-trying to stay alive from all the bug bites. She has sweet blood
Jamie-Everyone loves her here and she makes us all laugh and smile. She carries a genuine love and joy.
Nate G.-Well…learning to get whatever sleep I can while sharing a room with a bunch of other ppl. Gotta luv it
Well love you all and please keep praying for us.
In HIS Shadow,
Nathan Groff