A Fantastic Finish!

We--me and Al--have been serving with a group from Living Faith Fellowship this week and it has been a great week getting to see God working!  Praise Him for His goodness.  Here is their last Trip Journal entry talking about the final hours of their final day of ministry serving at Life is Hope.  This is where I have been and what I have experienced!  Keep watching the trip journals for where we are at next week!  God is Good!

There was a brokenness in that room that could be felt. Walls in hearts being broken down, language barriers being broken down, and even pride being broken down. We knelt before each child to wash his feet. We knelt before the pastor and the staff. We prayed as we washed. We cried as we washed. Some of us washed the feet of the children we had become so attached to. Some of us washed the feet of those we just met. Some of us had messages from God for those precious children. Some of us simply wept.

They also wept. They knew the point. They knew the purpose. They cried openly. There was a brokenness. I watched as we took turns bringing children to the basins of water. I watched the tears fall. I heard the whispers of prayers. I heard the sobbing. I heard one of the older boys accept Jesus into his heart--he was one of many this week who gave their lives to Christ. I heard the worship in the distance as the children waited.

These were beautiful tears. I have never seen such a sight before. God was present in that room--in that place. This is how He led us to conclude our time at Life is Hope. This is how we did. God touched lives here. His Spirit was very present. His heart for these children was evident. He loves them all so much--and we got to show them just a small part!

Family, friends--thank you for your prayers. We know that they made a difference in how this week happened. In how open we were to God's leading. In how He chose to work! We praise Him for this! We pray that we will not forget these precious children. We hope that you remember them too! 

Hosting Guests: In our Home and In our Country

We hosted our first guests in our new home a week after we returned from our honeymoon. We excitedly prepared chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and fresh squeezed orange juice. We cleaned the entire house and we were ready. Our day started early that morning because it was a Sunday and church started at 6am. By the time they arrived, we were tired. We welcomed them and gave them a tour of our new home. They were surprised at how quickly that house had been transformed into a home. We had some time to laugh and make connections between cultures and ministries. What a blessing to be able to have a place to host people.

These last couple of weeks have been overwhelming and restful at the same time. We have been busy working on our house, meeting with pastors, visiting the two orphanages we have partnerships with, and setting up ministry sites for teams who will start arriving on Saturday. Just when we started getting used to married life, we are hopping into a different “season”: Trip Leading Season.

In March alone, Praying Pelican Missions will be receiving over 140 short term missionaries in Haiti. We will be serving in 4 different communities and will be working with 4 different orphanages during this month.  Almando and I will start off leading a group of 33 people serving at Life is Hope Orphanage.  The Lord is really blessing this orphanage and all those who live there.  Stay tuned to see how things have progressed!  In the coming weeks, I will be working on blogging for our teams, so if I don't blog here, please check out the Praying Pelican Missions website to see what the teams we are leading are doing.  

Be praying for us as we are kickin' our life into overdrive.  Leading teams together will add a different dynamic to our marriage, so be praying that we continue to be completely centered on the Lord and what He wants for us!  We desire to give Him all the glory and point to Him every moment of every day.  He is so good to let us serve Him this way.  Pray for us as we host guests in our home and in our country!  For His glory!

New Chapter

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

I am once again beginning a new chapter in my life.  From now on, I will have a partner in all the adventures and plans and ministries God has in store for me!  That's right, everyone, on February 11, 2012, I married a wonderful man:  Almando Jean Louis.  We met in August, 2010, before this blog was even created, before I even felt called to Haiti.  God knew what He was doing when He brought me to serve Him here in Haiti.  He had more than ministry in mind, He had Al in mind.

The wedding was wonderful.  The week before was a little stressful, but the day was fabulous.  My family came down to experience a little bit of Haiti and celebrate our wedding with us.  It truly was a blessing.  We wanted our wedding to be focused on God because we want our life to always point to Him, so we included a time of worship--which we led together--at the end of our ceremony.  Worship was what brought us together in the first place.  The love and passion for our God is what drew us together.  And that is how we wanted to begin our life together--worshiping the God who worked in our lives to bring us to this: our marriage.

Looking back on that day, one of my favorite moments was when the doors opened and I saw the church all decorated for the first time.  I actually barely saw the decorations.  I looked down the aisle to the man I was going to marry.  I saw him before he saw me.  When he saw me, the excitement on his face and in his reaction made me laugh while I was walking towards him.  He threw his arms in the air and jumped off the "stage" and onto the floor where he greeted my dad with a HUGE hug!  I thought he was never going to let dad go!  We walked up the stairs together and thanked the Lord for this day...this love...this relationship.  What a wonderful experience.

The rest of the wedding was a mix between Haitian and American cultures, traditions, and languages.  God was with us.  Now we are looking forward to a lifetime of love and worship and serving the Lord together!  All for His Glory.  Always pointing to Him!  He is so good to us!

Friends, keep praying for us!  We are heading into several busy months of meeting with pastors, setting up trips, leading trips, and maintaining and growing relationships here in Haiti.  We will be needing your prayers and encouragement!

Fresh Look

Fresh look Setting up for teams to come is part of what I do here in Haiti. Teams expect to be well taken care of when they come with Praying Pelican Missions and have an opportunity to genuinely partner with a church while they serve. Besides the service side of things, we believe it is important to show the teams the beauty of Haiti.  One Saturday afternoon we decided to go on a hike to explore a possible "recreation" option for a team.  What we experienced was more than what we would have imagined. After driving through a very dry area of the country where almost everything was brown and through some very steep mountain roads, we got out of our cars as they could go no further. We were a little intimidated by the walk before us because it looked alike the great wall of china but straight up. That was just the beginning. We went up and down these steep hills, jumped over small rivers, climbed over a fallen tree, and balanced on a slippery block wall before reaching our destination: a cold spring flowing from the mountain.  The beauty of creation and the miracle of a spring in the desert made us repeatedly say and think, "wow, our God is amazing!" Surrounding the spring there is a community. A community almost untouched by the outside world. A community where transportation consists of walking or riding a donkey. A beautiful community. After wading in the water for a few minutes we began the hike back down the mountain. I saw a building that looked like a church and a man who looked like a pastor sitting next to it. I stopped to greet him.  He was the pastor of this church. We chatted for a few minutes and exchanged contact information. He expressed a desire to have missionaries come and help with his church and the school in the community.  I look forward to connecting with this pastor again soon to see if this would be a good place for a team to partner. To think that all of this was discovered because of a search for a beautiful "recreation" option. We were able to find a beautiful area, a new community, and maybe a new partnership. All for the glory of God!  Praise His Holy Name!

Back to Basics

Our new Praying Pelican Missions missionaries arrived three weeks ago:  Marlo will be here for one year, and Bethany will be here for four months.  Both of these young women have a passion for God and for children that inspires me! 


Some of the questions I was asked upon their arrival was "What are our goals?", "What exactly do we do?", and "What will our typical week look like?".  I have thought about this long and hard and decided that I should share my ideas and answers to these questions with you, my prayer warriors, supporters, and friends.


So...


What are our goals?
As Praying Pelican Missionaries, our main goal is to develop relationships with pastors, churches, communities, orphanage directors, children, and any one else who is placed in our path to learn about their history, vision, heart for ministry and encourage them in whatever way we can to achieve the vision that God has laid on their heart.  This means that we visit and pray for our different contacts, find new contacts, learn a lot about different areas, find where we can place teams, and figure out how we can best serve our pastors, leaders, and orphanage directors.  All of this we do for the glory of God.  


Sometimes we have more tangible goals we can reach on a daily basis, but, overall, this is what we do.


What exactly do we do?
We have been given the amazing opportunity to meet with and encourage pastors and leaders in Haiti.  When we are meeting with a pastor, we ask him about his history and about what God has laid on his heart.  We learn a lot before we do anything else.  We are beginning to write down the history for each pastor like a biography and also write down where he sees his ministry going.  This is an exciting part of the "job".  I have loved learning about these pastors.  We ask him how we could encourage him and explain to him who we, as Praying Pelican Missions, are. After building a relationship with the pastor, if the pastor desires, and it's a good fit, we offer to bring a mission team to partner with him in ministry. We work with the pastor to determine ways that the team can encourage him and his congregation as well as serve his community


Basically, we make sure our relationships with our partners are healthy, we develop new partnerships, and we work to encourage them in their ministry as much as possible.


What does a typical week look like?
Each of our weeks will look a little different.  Some weeks, we have teams, so we are leading them on their mission.  Some weeks, we are doing set up for the big mission season coming up--which includes finding lodging, transportation, cooks, and effective ministry for our teams.  Some weeks, we are visiting our current partners to see how ministry is going, asking them follow up questions, and learning more about them.  


We have different weeks, but we are typically pretty busy with everything that is going on.


I think it is so exciting to know so many different men and women of God doing so many wonderful things and being able to just learn from them, be inspired, and pray for them.  Maybe God will even allow me to be  in some way involved in their ministry from time to time.  What an exciting life and ministry.  I am again humbled and blessed to be where I am doing what I am doing.  


I am so glad Marlo and Bethany stopped and asked me these questions so I could reflect on how God has chosen to use me.  I am so glad He has chosen me.  I am so blessed.  


And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.--Hebrews 10:25

I Remember that Day.

When the earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, 2010 that left thousands and thousands of people dead, many more people injured, and a city filled with the dust of collapsed buildings I wasn't there.  I remember that day.  I remember getting a call from my boss.  I remember talking to my co-worker and friend, Jim, who had connections in Haiti.  I remember hearing from my grandpa that my missionary relatives in Haiti were okay.  I remember that day.  I remember it well.  I didn't know how much that day would change my life.  I didn't think it would really affect me.  But it did.

Praying Pelican Missions was praying about opening a new country in 2011:  Haiti.  The organization hadn't served in Haiti before the earthquake at all, but, after much prayer, we decided to move forward in planning trips the July of 2010.  A year earlier than we thought.  I volunteered to go help lead groups in Haiti in August that year.  I didn't know that God would call me to this place.  I had already been in Belize and Jamaica that spring and summer and I was ready to be home for a while, but it was time to go to Haiti.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 13, 2012

In those first days here, I found a great friend in Almando Jean Louis who is now my fiance.  He was here when that earthquake hit.  He has a story about that day.  He was spared along with his family on that day.  I've heard him tell the story several times.  I've heard him talk of the dust and the hope after the dust settled.  I've heard him talk about the fear people had and still have two years later of falling concrete.

I didn't think that January 12, 2010 would still have an impact on me, but it does.  It really does.  As I have been living in Haiti for a while now, each of my friends here have a story from that day.  Most of them were here. Almost all of them lost someone.  I remember that day, so do they.

January 12, 2012 marked the second anniversary of the earthquake and it was a day when shops and schools were closed and 4,000-5,000 people were remembering that day and praising the Lord for the life they have been given.  We heard testimonies of the rescued.  We heard shouts of praise to the King of Kings.

That day will be remembered for a long time.  That day will continue to impact the people of Haiti.  I remember that day.

Random Thoughts I'd Like to Share

I have been having a lot of random thoughts lately and would like to share some with you as I have experienced life here in Haiti.

1. I've always wondered why missionary women tend to braid their hair.  I still don't really know, but I braid my hair often--it adds a little variety to a ponytail.
2. The chill in the air here in the evening, night, and early morning combined with the heat of the day really reminds me of a Minnesota early fall or late spring--no frost here though.
3. Almost everyone here gets a cough during the winter months because of the lack of rain.  It is really dusty.  Even the trees aren't as green, but it's cool so a lot of people enjoy it.
4. You can recognize a taxi by a red ribbon hanging from the rear-view mirror.  Good to know in downtown Port.
5. Waiting for 3 hours at a hospital is sometimes frustrating--especially after the doctor I was waiting for was in his office the whole time, but the relief of finally getting what I need far out-weighs the frustration with JOY!
6. Living with a family in Haiti is the best thing I could have done for the past several months.  They have adopted me and I have had a chance to learn what living in Haiti really looks like.
7. I may be gone all day long, but only get couple of little things done.  Those little things MUST be looked at as important little things because they ARE.  They just take a lot of time to get done.
8. Planning and preparing for too many things at once can be overwhelming.  Remembering that GOD is in control is KEY!
9. When a small child on a tap tap turns to me and says "Blanc, wi?" (meaning "White Person, yes?"), I can't help but smile!  As the child turns to get off the tap tap and says "Orevwa, Blan."  I don't have a choice.  A smile, a wave, and a laugh is sure to follow.
10. My favorite part of church has been when the whole church is worshiping and praising and suddenly, the power cuts out.  All that can be heard are the 3,000 voices singing praises to the Lord!  It's amazing!  It's beautiful!  I love it!

Praise the Lord for random thoughts.  For all the things I am learning.  For all the things He is teaching me.  For how He chooses to use me.  And that He calls me His child.  I am so blessed!