Day 1

Greetings from Haiti! We arrived safely in Haiti yesterday around 11:40am and were warmly greeted at the airport by Barb ( seen on your left standing by the truck) and Darby's father. By God's grace, we arrived with all of our bags and nothing was damaged. Praise God, and thank you to everyone that prayed for this! We have already begun to feel the result of your prayers for us during this time.

We crammed all of our team (24 people plus the staff driving us, and around 100 peices of luggage of various sizes) into 2 trucks ( like the one seen with Barb on your left) and a car, along with all of the bags we brought with us, and drove a half our to the place we're staying at called "the crech" and unloaded all of our bags. We then drove over to Barbs place called "the village" and ate a nice lunch of spaghetti- O's. In true Barb style, she then put us right to work cleaning out her food room, that we called the food depot, and transferring everything over to the new food depot. God gave us the grace to not only serve joyfully with no sleep, but also the grace to encounter lots of large bug, spiders, and even a live mouse. We are all enjoying so much this experience of the bugs, dirt, and living conditions as it continues to stretch us.

Sarah also arrived at the airport on time and made contact with our team soon after we landed. Thank you to everyone who pray for her and her flight in!

We eventually went back to the crech (pronounced kresh) and settled in for a good nights rest and some good showers. (picture of the crech seen below)

This morning we returned to the village and are working some more on construction for some of the buildings inside the village, and helping some more with the food depot.

Also, this morning some of our medical team ( Rachel M., Sarah, and Pastor Steve) were able to visit a tent community to treat a man who was suffering from heart failure. I can tell you honestly, seeing their faces and hearing them tell our team the story of that visit to the tent village, that they were deeply moved by what they saw there. The devastation here from the earthquake is everywhere around us. The streets are made of the rubble from the destroyed buildings and cement blocks are everywhere. Nothing seems "whole" here as far as buildings go. Members of our team have already been moved to tears several times over this.

There are a few other teams down here helping in the village along with us and more coming last in the week. We are enjoying the extra company, and spending time with Barb very much. Barb is a character, and runs this place in a way that you would have to be here to experience. She is straight to the point, and works hard at what ever she does. She is a blessing to our team in many ways and I'm sure will continue to be a blessing to us as we continue our adventure here along with her.

Our teams schedule is still very much "up in the air", but our medical clinic is starting today at 1pm. Please pray for our team as we seek to best serve the people coming into the village to be treated, and for our teams hearts to stay strong as they prepare themselves for what they may see and encounter today. Also pray for Robin V., as the heat is starting to make her feel ill. She is being well taken care of by our clinic, but your prayers would be greatly appreciated along with our own.

We are planning to attend and help lead the church service tomorrow at Darby's Father's church ( he is a pastor here). Please pray for not only our team as we lead the service ( pastor Steve is teaching), but also for grace being it will need to be translated as he teaches, and the service is 3 hours long. Also, there has been some radio advertisements announcing our presence here and trying to get people to come to our clinic, VBS, and church service. Please pray for a great turn out for all these events, and grace to help us effectively provide for all of the people who come out.

We will try and update again as often as we can, so check back daily for more updates. Please comment on the blog if you want to tell us what you think, if you have any specific questions about the trip, or anything encouraging to share with the team. We as bloggers for the trip would love to have encouraging things to bring back to share with our entire team to build them up while we are here.

Haiti Blogger out! :)

off we go!

well, the time has finally come! we are meeting at the church at 1am to head to the airport. so, in less than 12 hours, we will be on our way.

we are flying delta, flight 699 out of jfk. i believe it departs at 8:25am and lands in port au prince at 11:40am (12:40pm, our time). there is a one hour time difference between haiti and home.

please continue to pray for us. we are asking that our bags would not get lost, and that everything would make it through customs. people from the orphanage are meeting us as the airport and taking us back to ruuska village. we will probably spend the afternoon getting oriented and set up, etc. at this time, the plan is to start clinics, camps and construction on saturday.

we will write again as soon as we are able. feel free to leave comments, we will try to communicate them to the rest of the team. thanks for all of your prayers and support!

our team

it's hard to believe that in about a week from now, we will be on our way! i don't have our flight information, but i do know that we will leave early in the morning on friday, july 16th. we are being bussed to jfk, and should arrive in port au prince around 2pm that afternoon.

as promised, here is the tentative plan for how our team will be broken up. pastor steve is leading the entire team. we will most likely have two ministry teams (so that we can run overlapping vbs/outreach programs), one construction team and one medical team. some people will also rotate in and out to help with cooking and care giving at the orphanage.

ministry team a: ryan r, tracy s, robin v, lisa g, anna b and steve b, with tracy and robin rotating cooking duty, and lisa and anna rotating orphan care

ministry team b: darby l, mary n, lisa s, jaclyn k, carie b, and kristina w, with lisa and jaclyn rotating orphan care

construction team: dave n, dave p, matt b, lou c, dan h, matt s, mike v, rachel b, and allyson w

medical team: rachel m, lorri b, kristen w and sara p. our medical team includes a nurse practitioner, a doctor of pharmacy, and two nurses. we hope to be working with haitian doctors.

we may also do some demolition work, and we may do some evening revivals. as i said before, we have to hold our plans loosely and be flexible to the needs and arrangements that we find when we arrive.

hope to see some of you on saturday for our packing party!

our location

while we are in haiti, we will be staying at Ruuska Village, which is a facility operated by an organization called Reach Out to Haiti. they will be hosting us for the week, and our construction team will be working inside the village, where 80% of the buildings were damaged or destroyed. Reach Out to Haiti uses this community as a "safe haven for single mothers and children fleeing unsafe enviornments." the organization also facilitates adoptions, provides pure water to surrounding communities, distributes clothing, medicine and various supplies to those in need, and much more. we are excited to work with them for these reasons, but even more so because they are a faith-based organization and strive to show God's love in all that they do.

our medical and ministry teams will be working with Reverend Liberius, a haitian pastor (and darby's father). they will travel outside of the village each day to run medical clinics, run vbs for children, and share the gospel in other ways as well. additionally, our entire team will be with Reverend Liberius on sunday, attending his church. pastor steve will be preaching and our team will be providing musical worship as well.

in the next post, i will tell you who will be serving on which teams. of course, our plans are subject to change, so we will do our best to adjust to the needs we find when we arrive.

reminder: our team is having a packing party this saturday, 7/10, at 10am at the church. if you are free and would like to help out, feel free to join us!

welcome

hello! we are a team of christians from grace community church in kingsville, md. from july 16-24 we will be in haiti, serving those affected by the earthquake. we plan to do construction work, run medical clinics, and also take several opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we can.

hopefully, we will be able to update this blog as we travel, with pictures and reports of all that we are doing and experiencing. thank you so much for taking an interest in our trip. if you think of it, please pray for us, and pray for the people of haiti.