Prayer update: Solid Foundations

It's 3:36 am.

Yes you read that right. Earlier it was torrentially raining and my internet wasn't working. When I say torrential I am not kidding. I was shouting at my sister, Grace, who was less than a foot away, because of the noise. When the rain stopped I think the silence woke me up... or the almost silence.

Drums. Chanting. This appears to be the marathon of voodoo ceremonies. Currently they are somewhere between hour 12 and 13. I'm actually really suprised they didn't stop for the rain!

Because I'm up, and because the rain stopped, (but really because I'm so excited about it) I figured I'd do a short ish update on what is going on here spiritually.  I am so excited for this upcoming week and would love for those of you that see this to commit to daily praying for the church here!

Gersan, the pastor that I am partnered with is here in the village this week and will be going through a foundational class with the church members and others who are interested!! I can't even begin to tell you how much they need this. This is a very basic, but important class that Gersan teaches in Port Au Prince to the baptism class in order to be sure that people understand and have a good, solid foundation in Christ. But here, he is doing it with the whole church!

Here is where the church is now: They have a body of members that loves the Lord. They really do. They Love Jesus and call Him their Savior, and love that God is their Father. But the vast majority of them have no idea what any of that means. They don't know why they need a Savior, they don't know that you can't lose your salvation. They think that Salvation is by works and baptism, and they don't understand grace and faith. They are not recieving sound biblical teaching from their pastor, nor is he setting a half decent example of living a life of integrity and character. He is muddling the gospel and honestly has told some of us that he would rather be doing other things than pastoring this church. To add to the problem, many people in this area cannot read, and if they can its only Kreyol. The Kreyol Bible is not the best translation, in many ways it is more of a paraphrase or interpretation like the Message, and so they do not have the resources to feed themselves God's word, but are relying on the church, which is not delivering well. And there are many other struggles that they face as well.

I have been praying since I got here that God would raise up a man who fears God ONLY, who lives and breathes God's word. A man with leadership and boldness, with love and wisdom, someone who can speak the truth to these people and love them fiercely. I have been praying for a man of integrity to rise up from this village and shepherd and disciple this flock. Someone who will pour God's word into their hearts and help them gain a firm foundation. Their houses are built not on rock, but on sand. And, as we have seen tonight, the rain does come! (and so do the earthquakes! but not tonight thankfully)

How to Pray: This week, while Gersan is here he will be teaching this foundational class. His first class took place tonight and he said there were about 20 people there. Pray for him, and for the students as they walk through this class together. After class tonight Gersan said that one of the most difficult things may be for him to go slow enough to make sure that everyone understands.
This is a class with NO spiritual background in truth, but rather lies and distortions of truth. Even after hearing the truth it is very hard to change the thinking and ideas that people have had for years and years. Pray for wisdom for Gersan, and for open and soft hearts towards the truth for the people. Thankfully truth shines greater, peirces further, and stands stronger than lies. Gersan is a man that loves the Bible more than anyone else I've ever met. He loves God and loves truth. Pray that God will give him wisdom to speak truth into their hearts. Pray for the body, and for each individual. Pray that they will understand! One of the beautiful things about Christ is that faith, while we make it so hard sometimes, is really so simple! Pray that they will grasp that. Pray that God will be raising up in this village a man, after God's heart, full of truth and wisdom, and love and patience.

Just pray.
If you want to commit to praying (and getting your friends to pray too, hint hint!) it would greatly bless me, the Valcins, and most of all the church body of Ti Guinea. I would love to know that you are praying daily! I promise to post more updates as the week goes on. Leave a comment or Facebook me and let me know that you are praying!

Also, it is 4:19 and appears that the voodoo ceremony is over. That aspect of life here is a million prayer requests as well. But for tonight, I'm finished.

Goodnight.

Lets compare and contrast....

Ok. So I know we've all written compare and contrast papers. I am a little out of practice, so I thought I'd choose something easy with lots of differences. How about.....                           ... Yesterday and today?

EASY. here goes.
Yesterday... awful.
Today... awesome.

need details?

So yesterday I woke up (later than I had hoped), I wanted to go up on the mountain to do my quiet time and pray, but it was too hot by the time I woke up to go, so instead of really enjoying my time, I rushed through quiet time. I spent the morning working on my kreyol and preparing for school, but preparation was difficult because I still wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. Around noon I headed to the school for my first English class. I was pretty excited, but also a little nervous. I mean, I can speak English, but that doesn't mean I can teach it! I struggled through class, the kids didn't really understand what I was trying to teach them. (Good morning, how are you?) I mean. I didn't really think it was THAT difficult?! There were about 30 students in my class, maybe more. (I took a picture, but accidentally deleted it.) I ended class after about 30 minutes because I couldn't think of anything else to say. (When you have a limited vocabulary its easy to run out of things to say!) I trudged back to the camp compound where I live with a somewhat heavy heart. I was a little discouraged, I mean, I didn't think "Hey how are you?" was that hard. But whatever. I got home and this lady said something in a rude tone to me in Kreyol like she was mad at me. Having no clue who she was I brushed it off and decided maybe she had me mixed up with the other white girl that lives in the village... (for those of you new to this blog... I am the only white girl for miles around.) Well I was informed about 15 minutes later that she was here to see me. So I walk back and ask her what she's here for. Turns out she was one of the patients that we treated last week at the clinic and she had a diabetic ulcer on her foot that she wanted me to put a dressing on. "Ok. no big deal. I can do that!" As we were walking over she said a few things that were not very nice and hurt my feelings (remember, I'm already a little hypersensitive because of school not going well.)

here begins the mood. This mood affected my understanding of Kreyol somehow. I couldn't understand anything that anyone was saying to me. Maybe I wasn't trying anymore. I don't know.

I spent the rest of the afternoon halfway between Eyore and Oscar the grouch. Except Oscar only said mean things in my head in English. Janet, the lady who makes food for me was there, she got upset and impatient when I couldn't understand her, then a few other people came and tried to help translate. This escalated into me feeling like they were talking to me like a little baby alien. They were using baby Kreyol AND treating me like I was from outer space. I had to fight tears for 4 hours straight. It was awesome. I knew that I was in a bad mood and just needed a good 10 minute cry and an attitude adjustment, but I am supposed to stay in the kitchen when Janet is here, which, yesterday was for 4 hours. So the mood just got worse and worse. I started crying 6 times...
Finally she finished and I told my roommate that I was tired and going to bed. What I wanted to do was go be somewhere alone and cry forever. Mostly because I was frustrated because I was in a bad mood. I struggled a lot with the "why am I here" question and came up with no answers.
Anyway. the night ended with me going to bed at 5pm. I decided it was best just to sleep it off. Which I did. 13 hours later I woke up feeling much better. Which brings us to TODAY.

TODAY was great.
I woke up early enough to go up on the mountain to do my quiet time, but we found 4 inches of water in the pantry... I guess we found the lowest spot on the slab! Oh well, TIH-this is Haiti. We spent the next hour or so trying to get all the water out of the pantry. At least I was working with friends. P.S. I did work when they let me, I think there is a rule that whiteys can't sweep... little do they know what a great sweeper I am (inherited that trait from my mom.)




So here we are sweeping water out of the pantry. Don't be fooled by the iceboxes... not plugged in. haha.

So after this little hiccup in the day everything was smooth sailing. I felt like I could understand almost everything said to me and actually had a few conversations that weren't pertinent to life. Like, just hanging out and talking type of conversations. It was great. Before school I called Gersan and Betty, my Haitian parents, and they prayed with me over the phone. It is such an encouragement to me to know that they (and my American parents) are in full support of what I am doing. Even when I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything here. Or I feel like I can't do anything worthwhile, they tell me they are glad I'm here and that they KNOW I am blessing people and loving people. So after praying with Gersan I headed off to school. Guerline, my roommate, and Tala the lady who climbed the mountain with me on Tuesday said they would miss me. As I was leaving Guerline yelled at me, "Mwen renmen ou, anpil!" (I love you a lot!) That made my whole trip worth it!!
I went to school all prayed for and feeling more confident. Today school went much better, probably because the students were older, or maybe they just hid their confusion better than the little ones. I'll never know.
After school I came back to camp and did some more hanging out and chatting with my friends here. Today I understood almost everything! And I learned some new words...which is always a plus!

Overall. Today was much better! God is good. So very good. I'm trying to keep myself not focused on what I see myself actually accomplishing (I mean, its ridiculous to think I can have the whole village speaking English in 3 days.)


 I decided today that my motto, at least for the week is:

"Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart." Prov. 3:3

The Plan: Part deux

Ok, so hopefully my previous post helped to lay the foundation in your minds of where I'll be. Now I'll try and tell you what I'm going to be doing. This may be difficult because its going to be a learning experience the entire way through the process.

My roommate:
I will be staying at Jacob's Well Youth Camp (JWYC) from January 5th, 2011 to early May 2011. So this trip will be roughly 4 months long. I will be living with a girl from the nearby town of Limbe. The village that I will be living in is called Little Guinea, this is where the camp is located. I do not personally know the girl I'm staying with, but I do know that she is close to my age, but a few years older. This past summer, a Mango Tree project was begun at Jacob's Well. The intent of this project is to plant and grow mango trees to produce mangoes that can be sold to generate some revenue for the camp, this way it is a little bit self-sustaining. This girl has been helping organize this planting project. My understanding is that she is acting as Jacob's Well's secretary for both the mango project and the school.

Security:
Along with the safety of having a roommate at night I will be supervised by security guys. Gersan and Betty call them "elders" meaning they are either elders in the community or in the church. Either way, The Valcins trust them with my safety and the safety of this other girl and the camp property. They are already conducting 24 hour surveillance on the campground to make sure that none of our materials and camp supplies wander off or get broken. They will continue to do this while I am there. I will be with someone, either my roommate, the elders, or a teacher at the school at all times. The elder's wives will help feed me so I don't starve, they will hopefully show me how one would go about doing laundry in Haiti, which I'm excited about, all the ladies do their laundry on the same day and just hang out together in their front yards and hang-dry their clothes on the nearest cactus fence, I hope I get to participate soon!

My Jobs

School:
In August the two schools that serve the area around Little Guinea closed down because the teachers weren't being paid, so they quit coming to school. The families in the village don't have the resources to pay for school for all their children and usually only the oldest child of the family is able to attend school. Jacob's Well had a long-term goal of opening a school and a clinic in the far off future, but because of these schools closing and the Cholera epidemic these have both become needs that were forced to the top of the list. This past Fall a school has been meeting in the church building at the campsite. Haitian teachers from the village are currently working for free hoping to receive compensation very soon. The girl I will be living with has been in charge of collecting money from the parents and keeping track of the children's registrations. There are currently about 150 children registered and 115 attending school. There are around 300 school-aged children in the village and we would like to provide them all with the opportunity to attend school.  My involvement with the school will be to teach English to the upper grade levels. I'm honestly not sure what "upper grade" means, because the oldest grade I think is some where around 5th grade. I have never taught English as a second language before, so if anyone reading this blog has any ideas they are more than welcome. I don't want to reinvent the wheel here, so I'm planning on using an English-Kreyol bible and going through it starting in John. I will memorize verses in Kreyol and they will memorize verses in English. When I was little I memorized everything by singing songs and I have some old cassette tapes with singing bible verses that I'll probably take. Also I think its easier to learn songs in a foreign language than just learn to speak. So that's the plan for now.

Health Education/Clinic:
There have not, up to this point, been any cases of Cholera coming from the village itself, but there is a very large hospital in Limbe which is not far away (and upstream), so there have been several recent cases of Cholera occurring inLittle Guinea because of people bringing Cholera to this hospital in Limbe. I will be working to educate the people of the village about water safety, general sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, etc. This will be a large task because I will be reinventing the wheel in a way here. Not only will I be mainly speaking Kreyol, but there has been no program like this in the area. Because of the camp I have come into contact with many of the children, but I have not seen many adult faces around the camp in the past few years. I will be working to build relationships with the women of the village. Not only do I want to love these women, encourage them, tell them they are precious and not worthless, but I want to help them provide better lives for their families. I don't want to take them charity. I want to teach them skills. But most importantly I want to do this all with the love of Christ. If I walk into their village and in my uppity white-girl voice tell them that they shouldn't drink from the river and they shouldn't feed their kids this or let their kids do that I will probably hurt feelings. I will probably destroy the gospel of love, and I will NOT form relationships. They will not change their behaviors and I will do more damage than good. I would appreciate much prayer for this area of my work. I want to be an encouragement. I don't want these women to think that I am telling them they are bad mothers when they are breaking their backs to provide for their families. I want them to leave feeling loved, worth something, joyful, having built relationships with me and the other women in the village, and if they learn how to be more healthy along the way then I have succeeded. I don't want to walk into a village that has drunk water from the river for 6 generations and tell them that they can't do that anymore. I want to be able to teach, but to teach in love and with encouragement.

I will not be "running a clinic" per-say, but I will be using my first aid and response training to help in whatever ways I can. I really have no idea what types of things I'll see. Because I have served as the "camp nurse" on the past trips as soon as I get to the village now everyone runs up and starts showing me their cuts and scrapes. Hopefully I'll be able to use these opportunities to talk about proper hand-washing and wound care. We'll see.

In summary: (For those who scan the long blog and just want to get to the point.)

I'll be teaching English to children and educating the women of the village about Cholera and other health topics while hopefully forming encouraging relationships with all. 


I'm really not sure what this is all going to look like. I'm trying not to imagine it all in my head and form ideas and perceptions of what it will be like. I know that no matter what I day-dream it to be it will end up being vastly different, and I'll be discouraged. I am fully prepared to fail at everything a few times. I already know this will be a humbling trip. I want to glorify Christ and that is currently my only goal.

Please join me in prayer.