Day 3 In Haiti - Hope Filled Eyes

Hey, sorry this is a morning post we were a little tired after a long day yesterday! Let me tell you about me day. We woke up and had a normal Haiti morning ate breakfast, made sandwiches, and made some preparations for that days craft before the boys heading over to the hardware store to get some paint and the girls heading over to the orphanage.

Once we made it to the orphanage the girls had to wait for the kids to get out of school before we could visit them. Once the kids got out of school and got out of their uniforms and into their normal cloths we headed over to their play area, where I found the girl that I had particularly bonded with, Sophonie, whom they also call "Muet", which means mute, because though she can understand Creole well when she tries to speak it comes out as jibble jabble. As the day continued on and I continued to get to know Sophonie more the more I realized the great joy she had from the Lord and it completely amazed me! She has more hope and joy than I could ever imagine having, you can see it in her eyes and how she conducts herself with the biggest smile I have ever seen! 

As I went into the church service later that day I retained that beautiful picture of her gigantic smile and hope filled eyes and as I stood before the Lord worshiping him with my Haitian family I saw a vision of Jesus with his arms around the orphans and at that moment I gained the  hope and joy that Sophonie has, the joy that just a few hours later I could have never imagined having. How great is our God!

By Emily Green

Day 2 in Haiti Sweet Reunions and New Beginnings

I heard the soft music of my alarm fade in as I blinked awake. Another day to wake up at 7:45 to a world I had only dreamed about visiting forever. 

The morning consisted of breakfast, devotional, and sandwich making before we headed out to deli mart and the Source de la Grace church. 

The whole time I could not help but think, why am I so relaxed in this developing country? Why, after all of the unsafe things that fill this world has the Lord chosen here for me to find an overwhelming peace? I may never know, but as the day rolled on and I found myself in the Orphanage of Source de la Grace I saw peace overcome many people, including the orphans and the mission team.

At first when we walked up to the orphanage I saw the way that so many of the children attacked the returning people from our group with hugs and kisses galore! I was jealous of all the love between them, and I wanted a piece of it! Haha! But I felt a voice telling me to 'hold back'. So, regretfully I trudged over to the stairs away from the group of great reunion to fulfill what the Lord had to me to do. Immediately I knew when why I had been called to walk over to the quiet corner near the stairs when I turned around to see three young girls starring intently into my eyes, they were the shy ones, and I liked them. 

It didn't take but 5 minutes of me standing awkwardly by the three shy girls, and trying to communicate with them without a translator for 2 of the girls to walk away. But the third slowly strolled up to me and leaned her tiny body on mine and took my arm over her shoulder like a bird protecting its chick with a wing. I was surprised and inspired by this girl. I asked her her name with a bit of improvisational sign language and learned the brave young soul was 'Cencia' (that's me trying to write creole). Cencia quietly followed me around the rest of the time at the orphanage and we bonded over an unusual understanding of each other's worlds. 

I saw a vast beauty of God in Cencia's eyes. When she looked up into mine, I could undeniably see the hope she had for her future. God's doing some crazy things in that girl's heart. She is a teacher of peace, and today she taught me in a new way that no matter your circumstance, anyone can find peace in their hearts by trusting God with your future. 

I carried the picture of her hopeful eyes in my mind as our group attended the first ever youth group at Source de la Grace. The gathering of the youth from two completely different back grounds was very interesting, but with the help of our wonderful translator we all communicated greatly with each other and shared our hearts equally. 

Overall, I found today that regardless of the situation you are put in, whether it's awkward, quiet, or joyful, love is always given from human to human when the Lord is near. 

To close, I will quote a line said by Emily Green from our discussion time tonight, "It's a beautiful thing to never have to say Amen, knowing that your conversation with the Lord is ever constant." 

A Hot Day 1 in Haiti

Ladies and gentlemen, we made it. Through a few hours of weird and rather random delays, as well as many hours of way-to-crammed flying, we arrived in good ole Port-au- Prince, Haiti. We landed with relative ease and passed through customs without a problem, and I'm happy to report that all of us are safe and well, except for abby of course......just kidding mrs Freund. 

Once we landed it was a very fast moving and rather breathtaking ride in a tap-tap (which could make for an entire blog in themselves) to the guest house, a beautiful home that doubles as a church under Pastor Moise Vaval, who visited Riverside in 2014. We were greeted by friendly faces and cheerful moods, and the team had a pretty positive feeling headed into Monday...... that is until the heat hit.

The gentlemen (being myself, Josh, Logan, and John) have been staying in a room that is known as "the devil's armpit" - Logan Mcdaniel. In other words, it is a very hot room and we sweated through the couple hours of sleep we managed. We awoke to find the ladies nearly as tired as we were, but it was soon replaced by nervous excitement for the days events, after all the goal of the day was to get a sense of the city as well as get to know our translators. Throughout the day i can safely say both of these goals were accomplished to there full extent. To share a total God thing with you all, me and Josh were prayed over before we left on the trip and one of the things that was spoken over us is that we would make good connections with the local leaders. Both me and Josh automaticladly connected with PG, Sandro, and Jonas. We made many memories in the first day, but the best one is when our Tap-Tap gave out, so all 20 of us piled into the other, now make no mistake, this is normal for Haitians, but for Americans it was a wee bit um....snug, lets just say we got to know each other REAL WELL. The better part was when the Tap-Tap was STRUGGLING to make it up the massive hill to Moise's. About half way up I looked at PG and said "We gonna make it?" he responded confidently "I think so." Sandro just laughed. But through an act of God we made it to the top. 

So as a last report all is well here in Haiti, and i would love some extra prayer as we are going to the orphanage for the first time tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed, Love you mom!

- Ryan Heare

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How could we not know our neighbor? A Lesson From Iganga....

Today our day started at the Prison in Uganda. The same “warden” was there and this time he allowed no photographs! You can all imagine how difficult that was for me. The good news is that there were not many inmates that I recognized which means that many of the men have been released since we last visited in February. Because I had been there before I took the lead, started talking about how we have all made mistakes in our lives and how we are forgiven and allowed second, third and even fourth, fifth and six chances. After that I opened the floor up for questions and we got some really interesting ones. The first one was to explain the differences between the US and Uganda. I started to explain the differences in community. How in America we tend to stay in our houses and not know our neighbors. This concept was so foreign to them. The question kept getting more and more involved as to how this could happen. How could we not know our neighbor? How could we be ignorant if our neighbor needed help? I had nothing to offer because this is one of the things that has always touched my heart about Uganda. That the people are outside communing with their neighbors and though they don’t have much they would give the shirt off their back if needed. We spoke to the men for close to an hour before we moved to the women’s part of the prison.

Thirteen women were currently incarcerated. One of the women had an infant son with her. So his first months of life he’s been raised in a prison. The men had just asked us for help with one of the dorms that was rampant with bed bugs. So in the women’s dorm we were invited to sit on their beds (I have to say we were all privately thinking bugs). Each of the women (ranging in age from 16 to about 50) started sharing their stories. The stories were all heartbreaking. The crimes were such that had they occurred in the US these women wouldn’t even be held for trial. But here at the word of a man, they really didn’t stand a chance. And the terms of confinement are really based on the amount of money they can pay to get out. For some of these women getting any money at all is an impossible task! And most of them have several (more than 5) on the outside depending on them for care! One woman’s husband asked his wife to get a loan so he could start a business. He went away for a while to start the business, but left her pregnant. She sold their bed to pay the rent and the loan payment. While he was gone she had a miscarriage. Her husband returned and demanded that she either return the child (a little hard after a still birth) or he was turning her in to the authorities for theft. Now she is spending her days in prison! We left a pile of underwear for these women who had none of their own. They were really grateful. We will be doing some additional shopping for these women in an attempt to rebuild their dignity.

The day was really good but it was hard too. Seeing the women who have no say and then seeing the kids who are just struggling to stay alive makes you realize just how blessed we are. The women marry so young and really have no voice in what happens after that. They are at the mercy of their husbands who often leave them or bring new wives into the mix. They are always surprised to hear that most of us have only two or three children and that that decision is based on how well we can care for them and provide for them as they grow into adulthood. One of the mothers we visited today had all sorts of tattered clothing on the ground outside of her home. When we asked Agnes why they were there she commented that was where the children probably slept at night. I can’t imagine having my children sleep outside on the ground without any protection. I just love the children of this country and seeing them in these conditions just hurts me. I know I have said this for the past three days, but I believe all children deserve to be loved and cared for. I am so thankful for Wilson and his program. He may not be saving them all but he is saving some!

On a closing note, tonight is the second consecutive day we’ve been without water. Last night I didn’t take a shower and tonight it was no longer an option. Lynda kindly boiled me some water and I was able to mix it with water from the jerry can and honestly it was the first completely hot shower I’ve had. The only drawback was that I had to squat in a bucket!! But now being all clean and sweet smelling it was so worth the effort! So it is off to bed for me. Tomorrow Vicki is going to Idudi to train the Village Health Workers. Lynda and I will be going to Bulubandi to see the kids and work with Julie, then head into the market to buy some items for the women at the prison and then head back out to Kokombo. Our days are long and we often feel like we are on an emotional roller coaster, but in the end we feel we are going where God is leading. At the end of each day, we sit with Yvonne, Kristen and Amy (tonight Brin joined us; she is here with another ministry she has started) at dinner and spend some time talking and laughing! Laughing is always good!!!