The week before we went to Missionary Orientation (Nov. 16-20, 2009) I woke up with the account of Abraham and Isaac on my mind.  God woke Abraham up and told him to take Isaac, his only son, to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there!  (God was testing Abraham to see his love, faith, and obedience.)  Abraham got up early the next morning, gathered the wood and the fire, and set off for Moriah with Isaac.  While they were on the way Isaac said to his father, “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  Abraham answered, “God himself will provide.”  (Read the rest of the story in Genesis 22:1-19.) 

Here is where God began speaking to me.  Earlier that week Heidi and I had received an e-mail telling us approximately how much money we would need to raise for our first four years of missionary service in Haiti.  As the story was playing over in my mind the Lord spoke to me about it.  God impressed on me that the moment Abraham “set out” for Moriah He (God) knew the ram that He would provide for the sacrifice.  God then made this truth personal.  It was as if He said, “Greg, you and Heidi have started walking toward Moriah (for us, Haiti), and I know every “ram” (church and individual) that I am going to provide your support through.” 

“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns…and sacrificed it as a burnt offering…So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide.  And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’” (Genesis 22:13-14)

When Heidi and I visit churches and present our missionary call to Haiti, we feel like we are just going around “collecting rams!”  We are overwhelmed several times a week by how our God is providing.  He has already provided over 50% of our support, and we are believing Him to continue to be OUR PROVIDER!!!

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Last night as I climbed in to bed I commented …

(by Lowell Adams – new Missionary to Haiti)

Last night as I climbed in to bed I commented to Robin, it feels good to be in our own bed in our own house for the first time in 5 months.   Then the question came, “Why are we doing this?”   Robin was not happy with that question and neither was I, but many times that is the burning question that we are asked by good friends, family and strangers alike.  The answer is complex yet simple.  It has two parts that are related but different.  First is the call.  The call of God to do something uncomfortable and sometimes out of character, but is always where we are the most content and happy.   The call of God is not about us it is about doing God’s plan and seeing how we fit into that plan.  God’s call is the rock that keeps you sure when everything around you is uncertain.  It is the part with a promise, Matthew 28:20 “I am with you always.”  God is with us because He has called us.  God gives us strength because He has called us.  God gives us peace and safety because He has called us.  God gives us wisdom because He has called us.  The second part is the need.  Haiti is poor and in desperate need, that was before the earthquake that shattered the country and killed around 260,000 people.  The need is not only desperate but complex.  Right now, for many the focus is rebuilding, as it should be, but we cannot forget that need existed before the earthquake.  The need for healthcare, the need for jobs, the need for education, the need for food, the need for clean salt free water, and the list goes on.  I find myself sitting on an Island off of the main Island of Haiti.  It is called La Gonave.  It is where for the last 50 years the government has ignored except to send unwanted people.  It is an Island of 300 square miles and a population of 160,000 people.  The influx of people post earthquake has made it almost famine conditions.  There are villages on this Island that are nearly unreachable due to the lack of roads.  There are villages here that the monthly income is less than 5 dollars per person.  This is where I sit and where God has called us.  How do we help?  How can we make a difference?  Again the answer is simple but complex.  Through the implementation of CHE or Community Health Evangelism we intend to touch every community and every life on this Island.  CHE is a comprehensive development plan that uses local people and local resources to transform lives and communities.  In two weeks we plan on starting our first Trainer of Trainers class.  This is the beginning to change.

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My two day visit to La Gonave was coming to an end, but walking through the Saline that afternoon would be an experience that I will remember for a long time.  Earlier that day I reconnected with a friend our team met last January on my first trip to Haiti.  He is a carpenter who works very hard to provide for his wife and three children.  His name is Michelet, and very few people impressed our team as much as he did.  We felt an immediate kinship with this Haitian brother in Christ. 

After helping me finish a project for one of the WISH houses, Michelet took several men from the Scottish team and me down to his home on the Saline.  We visited his home and met his new son.  He told us that he had been in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit, and it was three days before he could get a message to his wife that he was alive.  The small two room home now houses an additional family whose home was destroyed on the mainland.  The mother held a small infant who had been injured as their house fell.

Michelet then led us down to the salt flat where hundreds of children and teens were playing soccer and hanging out.  The Scottish guys jumped into an intense soccer game and Michelet and I walked down to edge of the water.  What happened next left me broken hearted!  A Haitian woman approached us holding a beautiful infant girl.  She looked at me and began talking in Creole.  I looked at Michelet hoping for some translation.  He looked at me and said, “She wants you to take her baby!”

What do you say to a mother who is willing to give her child away to a stranger just so they will not go hungry?  My heart is broken every time I visit Haiti.  Please don’t forget to pray for the people of Haiti.  The news media is gone, but the need is greater than ever!!!

Greg with Michelet and his family...January 2009

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Homes on the "Saline"

Kids run barefoot behind the truck as it rattles up the road past tin-roofed shanties and drives toward the Wesleyan Mission Station. “That’s the Saline.  The poorest of the poor live there,” a missionary explains to the team of nurses riding in the back of the white pickup.  Plastic bottles, Styrofoam cartons, and discarded food line the ditches along the unpaved road where pigs and goats munch away.  The nurses look on with motherly gazes as they wave to the shoeless, pant-less children. 

Each year a hundred or more volunteers, like these nurses, pass through the Wesleyan Mission in Anses-a-Galets, eager to help the people of Haiti.  In this, the least developed country in the Western Hemisphere, there is no shortage of need.  Teams come to do anything from construction, to accounting, to hospital work, to post-earthquake food distribution.  As they give, instead of finding feelings of satisfaction at a job well done, many teams find themselves feeling discouraged that they couldn’t do more.

“It’s just not enough,” Caleb Thompson said to me in a conversation last week.  Caleb, a key player in major food distribution efforts, has already helped bring in over 140,000 pounds of supplies to La Gonave.  No matter how much he gives out, however, he hears people telling him that they need more.  A surgical team that recently visited our hospital had the same impression.  Working late into the evening on Sunday and then again all Monday morning before their afternoon flight, the team kept saying, “We wish we had more time. There’s so much more we could do.”

These feelings that the need is too big and the time too short are almost universal among volunteers here.  When looking across the Saline at rows of one-room, stick, mud, and block homes, most visitors feel overwhelmed.  It is true that there is no way a short-term team will change the life-style of the 80% of the population who live below the poverty line. If taken too far, however, these feelings of helplessness could discourage volunteers from trying to do anything all. 

Just because the need cannot be met all at once, does not mean that the need cannot be met at all.  In just one year of service here, I have seen teams vaccinate over 800 children, bring thousands of pounds of medical supplies, treat hundreds of patients in the hospital, give thousands of families food for the day, feed 58 orphans for several months, and invest hundreds of hours in education, work projects, and relationships.  And though this isn’t enough to put shoes on the feet of all the children in town, each team that comes in walks another step with Haiti in its journey to prosperity.

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“Never determine the truth of a situation only by looking at the circumstances.  Don’t evaluate your situation until you have heard from Jesus.  He is Truth (John 14:6).” 

The disciples were in a boat in the middle of a storm and Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat.  They thought they were going to die and cried out to Jesus to save them. 

“In a moment Truth Himself would stand up and calm the storm.  Then they knew the Truth of their circumstance.  Truth is a Person who is always present in your [the Christian's] life.  You cannot know the truth of your circumstance until you have heard from God.” 

Whatever storm you are going through today remember that God is in control.  He knows the Truth of your circumstance, and He knows the solution before you even knew you had a problem!!  He still calms storms today.  (Quotes taken from “Experiencing God” workbook by Dr. Henry Blackaby)

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One of many "Tent Cities" that millions of Haitian people now call home.

(This is the latest update from the Wesleyan missionaries in Haiti on http://gpcaribeatlantic.com

This past week the rains started. They came early in the evening and lasted late into the night as they usually do this season.  Normally Haitians, thankful for the cool winds and the increased crop, welcome these rains.  But this year that is not the case. 

This year the rains come as an added stress to an already overwhelmed people.  Haitian citizens are still trying to adjust to life after January’s earthquake, looking for work, waiting for schools to start.  All across the country families are still sleeping outside under tarps, tents made from bed sheets, and make-shift tin shelters.  Just last week, when people were starting to feel comfortable enough to re-enter their concrete homes, we experienced two more tremors.  Now families who were contemplating normalcy are back out on the street and out in the rain. 

The rains will continue to come in the following months, and with them we could see an increase in typhoid fever, dysentery, and other illnesses.  “The rains are death,” a visiting French nurse commented as he looked out at a cloudy sky yesterday afternoon.  And death is the last thing people here need to experience.  After a month and a half of grieving and foraging for a new way of life, people here are ready for some semblance of stability.  But with the changing climate and the introduction of new challenges, this stability may still be a long way off.

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This video is incredible!!!  Follow this link and click the play arrow at the top of the post.  http://gpcaribeatlantic.com/ 

GOD IS WORKING IN HAITI, AND HE IS USING ORDINARY PEOPLE TO DO EXTRAORDINARY  THINGS!  THIS SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE THOUGH…THAT IS THE WAY HE HAS ALWAYS DONE THINGS!!!

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(This post is copied from http://gpcaribeatlantic.com, the website of the Wesleyan mission work in Haiti)

The first Sunday after the earthquake, I walked into church, expecting to take my usual seat about halfway to the front of the sanctuary.  Instead, I found that the only seats left were a few toward the very back.  As the service continued, more people crowded in.  By the time the pastor came up to preach there was standing room only.  This was a far cry from the week before when about a third of the benches were empty. 

There was a different feel amongst the congregation as well.  The casual talking of teenagers mid-service was silenced and the occasional Amens and mmm huhs of agreement louder and more frequent.  Grown men bent forward as the pastor preached and middle-aged women wiped tears away during the special music. 

The prayer which started with the repetition of the phrase “Ou se Bondye. Ou se Bondye.  Ou se Bondye,” (You are God.  You are God.  You are God.), continued long past the usual ten minutes. And the service ended with a string of testimonials.  People who had been trapped under rubble or had lost family members came to the front and told stories of their new decision to turn back to God.

This testimonial time has become a normal part of the service since the earthquake as each week more people give their lives to Christ.  I heard one story about a little boy who had been in a school building when the earthquake hit.  A falling rock hit him in the back and pushed him outside.  The school collapsed behind him, killing all of his classmates.  He knows it was God who kept him safe. 

And the stories and the people keep coming.  Four weeks after the quake, and churches are still full.  Just last week during the nationwide prayer time, I could not find a seat in the church.  The pastors there, at the Wesleyan Church in town, had moved all the benches outside to make more space for church attendees to sit on the floor, and still they ran out of space.  They even arranged the benches outside to create three sections of seating for those who came too late to get in the doors.   

They may continue to need extra seating in the coming weeks as more people come to Christ.  Since the earthquake, they have seen 120 converts at the Wesleyan church alone.  Churches all over town are seeing a similar trend.  In the week since the prayer time, we’ve seen evidence of this trend ourselves in the number of people who have come asking for bibles.

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The Haitian man told this doctor, “Because you are here, I know God has not forgotten us.”  God still cares!  He has not forgotten the Haitian people!  Please don’t forget about them just because the news crews have left.  They need our prayers, our gifts, and our time! 

Why do we go to Haiti?  To show the people the love of Christ by being His hands and feet, and to let them know that God has not forgotten them.  That is why we do what we do!!!

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Our South Carolina medical mission team returned Saturday night from a ten day relief trip to Haiti.  The stories we heard, the sights we saw, and the experiences we had will forever change us.  One of our team members referred to the trip as a defining moment in his life. 

I’ve heard people say that miracles don’t happen anymore.  Following our trip last week I will now respond, “They do in Haiti!”  I have been blessed to be a part of around 25 mission and disaster relief trips, but this one was unique.  The goal on every trip is to be the hands and feet of Christ and share His love with the people in need.  Last week we saved lives!  There are actually people alive today that probably would not be if not for our team of medical personnel and the other teams who joined us there!

Our team arrived at the clinic in Petit Goave, Haiti on Friday, January 29th around 5pm.  Less than an hour later a child was brought in with a pick-ax wound to his head.  The father was clearing debris and the child came too close.  The pick struck the child in the head exposing “grey matter.”  The medical personnel stabilized the boy and immediately called for him to be flown by helicopter to a surgical unit in Port-au-Prince.  One of our Haitian American nurses flew with the boy to PAP, and surgery was performed immediately.  The word we received last Wednesday was that the doctors were talking about when to let him go home!!

This is just one of many stories our team could share.  A few would make you laugh…many would make you cry.  At the end of them all, however, I think we all would agree…WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE SERVE!!! 

Miracles do still happen.  To see one though you might have to visit a small clinic in Petit Goave, Haiti under the mango trees.

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