Seeing God

Seeing God!

The other night the team that is here put together some bags of school supplies that will be given to primary school kids at a local school.  The items are a combination of things this team brought along with things a previous team brought.  110 bags were ready plus 8 bags for the teachers.  The group visited the school on Tuesday morning and learned there were 121 students present.  We began to consider our options so that each student would get a bag.  Maybe God would multiply the bags so that each student would walk home with some valuable supplies.  There were 10 children present at school that live together in an orphanage so it was determined that we could take bags to their orphanage home later in the afternoon.  

The team went about sharing the bags of school supplies, and suckers, class by class while the 10 kids from the orphanage sat together outside, graciously waiting for the afternoon gift. 

There in the suitcase, after each student in the classrooms had a bag, were… (yep, you guessed it…)  were 10 bags!!  Each team member looked around at the other with amazement and big smiles.  We love how God works with mystery! Amazing mystery!  Praise the Lord!

Seeing God!

Small correction....Soup pou Malad  (soup for the sick might sound better!)

The cooks have been a blessing to the woman that has been eating the soup they have been making.  BUT, as it is with many situations, the more you give in service to God to bless others, the more blessed you feel yourself. Such is the case for Beatrice and Evenie and their Meals on Wheels soup effort.  

They wrote the recipe out and Woody, one of the MH staff, was looking to translate what he could into English.  As you might guess, there are many of the ingredients that might not have an English name!

Recipe:

Soup pou Malad

  Viann Kabwit (Goat meat)                            Fèy liann ponye

*Bannan Miskaj (Big Plantain)                        Fèy etina

*Bannan Poban  (Fat Plantain)                     *Fèy chou (in the center)

*Bannan Zedinèt  (Small Plantain)                   Fèy lòzòy

  Malanga                                                       Fèy seleri

*Mazanbèl                                                     Fèykieson

  Yanm                                                        *Donbòy Farina (in the bowl)

*Kawòt  (Carrot)

*Pòmedetè  (Potato)

*Militon

    * (list above top to bottom pictured clockwise)

Besides building up the ones serving, the soup seems to be doing just what we hoped for the woman who is sick.  She is getting stronger day by day.  It is evident each time we do a meal delivery.  

In the process of getting the recipe ready to "publish" here and getting the pictures ready, the cooks have been peeking to see just 'what is this'? that we are doing!!  They looked at the picture of the ingredients and showed one more vegetable they have today.  They brought out one "Malanga" so we took another picture.  BUT...in the picture the vegetable doesn't really look like something you would eat.  More like something you might need to....  well....  um...  how should we say....   flush.   ha!

Seeing God!

Another situation where some simple resources and knowledge can make such a HUGE difference is with a young man who experienced serious injury from a live electrical wire. 

His name is Limas Dugue.  His wife, Philomise Seneya, and 20 month old baby girl named Rith-Naida Sanaelle Dugue live in a small 2 room house in the countryside.  Limas had spent about 2 weeks in the local hospital and had just returned home the day before we met him.  The team that is currently here is blessed to have 4 women that have nurses training.

His burn wounds were healing pretty well but had a couple of open places that were still draining.  The place that concerned us the most was the bottom of one foot. looking at the location of the burns it is as though the electrical shock went through his body, down his leg and 'out' the bottom of his foot.  Yowzer! 

We felt he and his wife needed to have instruction on keeping the wound clean and access to bandages and ointment.  We returned to their house later the same day with clean water, small towels, bed sheets, gauze, cloth tape, triple antibiotic ointment and clean socks

One of the young nurses cleaned and bandaged the open wounds.  We gave the advice that the bed sheets should be changed each day while the wounds were still draining. We returned the next day to do the same. We will go again to try to continue the training they need to understand the importance of keeping things clean and dry.

One of the other gals is using her knowledge to fill ziploc bags with the things they would use to treat the wounds.  One bag for each day.  He has one place on his chest that is also draining so we are going back with several clean t-shirts that teams have left behind so that a dirty shirty isn't rubbing against the open wound.  

In each of these encounters we have been - Seeing GOD!  

Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all.  In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all.  And now, our God, we give thanks to you and praise your glorious name.  1 Chronicles 29:11-13

Soup Malad

Friday afternoon the team had food to deliver to some families around the area.  Ebens prayerfully planned where the team could be a blessing to families in need.  At the first stop the team discovered an elderly woman in bed.  Her family said she had not been out of bed for a month because she had been sick. 

Friday evening after the evening meal the team was reflecting on the day and began to wonder if there would be more they could do to help the woman.  The idea came up that we should bring her something very nutritious to eat because she really seemed weak and needed to gain her strength back.  Someone suggested soup.  We asked Beatrice and Evenie, our cooks, what kind of food would make a person strong after being sick.  They had a recipe for soup that they thought would be the best thing.  We wondered if there would be a place to buy the soup already made somewhere in Pignon.  They said no, the only way would be to purchase the ingredients and make it. 

We began thinking of other ideas but right away, Beatrice and Evenie said they would make the soup for the woman that was sick if there would be ingredients available.  In no time the cooks brought a list of things that could be purchased at the Saturday market in Pignon.  The Creole name of the soup... “Soup Malad”, translation…”Sick Soup”.  J

Saturday afternoon the ladies were busy cooking this wonderfully nutritious soup.  At 5:00 PM Beatrice, Evenie and several team members went together to bring the “Sick Soup” to the sick woman.  Evenie dished up some of the soup in a bowl and gave it to the woman.  Without hesitation, the woman raised her hand, said “Mesi Bondye” and started eating.  The team stood in amazement as she ate the soup as fast as she could.  It seemed to be that she was literally starving. 

We hesitate to say but the possibility is there that the family has not offered her food to eat.  What if the family decided there wasn’t enough food to go around so the elderly woman was left out at meal time? 

Beatrice and Evenie were troubled by the situation as well.  They said we need to bring the woman food every day because she is so hungry and weak.  They offered to keep cooking for her if we could provide the ingredients.   How cool is it that these wonderful women are willing to give their time and energy!  Bondye Bon, Toutan!  God is good, all the time!

Hmmm, what if we call it ‘Meals on Wheels’?  J

Pictures are worth...

Pictures are worth a thousand words!  We seem to be long overdue on sharing an update so pictures are going to replace the thousand words we might need and then that might only be the highlights.

In December we focused time on preparing the new dorm accommodations to comfortably house mission teams.  Over Christmas we hosted a team of 5 young adults, our son Michael being one of the team members.  This team left and the next team arrived on December 31st.  This was a group of 9 youth and adults.  Nathanael, a 15 year old Eagle Scout, was the 'team leader' who was earning his Eagle Scout badge by planning, organizing, and leading the group in all the work that was done over the week they were here. With celebrating the accomplishment of earning the Eagle Scout badge, January 6th brought another switch as the Eagle Scout group left and the 3rd group from Pella, Iowa arrived.  A team referred to as Pella Christian Winterim with 11 high school students and 4 adults.  Cross-cultural trips are part of the Pella Christian High School curriculum.

Christmas team affectionately called "The Fab 5"!
Alecia, Michael, Odenes (worker for MH4H), Taylor (front), Hank (Back), Ann 

MH4H sponsored a Christmas party at a primary school located in the nearby community of Lapila.
There was a program that the students participated in with music, bible memory, and dance.
 Some snacks were shared and a meal was served to 175 students, teachers and workers.  

MH4H gave a Christmas gift to each family with kids enrolled in the Thrive for 5 program in Savanette.
While things were being organized, Ann was shining Jesus light all around the neighborhood!

Can you find Ann, Taylor and Alecia among their MANY friends?
This was during a break the morning the team was helping with the work of pouring a cement floor.
The tools used are a shovel, some 5 gallon buckets, a 2x4, and a trowel.

Christmas night sky, the stars are very intense above the mountain peak!
Imagine stars lighting the way for the shepherds on the FIRST Christmas night.

"The Fab 5" had the privilege of helping serve Christmas Dinner
to some neighbor kids that were gathered at a local ministry called "Youth Action for Haiti" 

Prior to the meal being served under the mango tree, the kids took part in lots of singing (The tune of "Jingle Bells" was sung with Christian lyrics) and the Christmas Story was acted out with an angel, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.

Following a morning hike up the mountain the team decided to buy some food to share with a family
that lives in this stick house along the path leading to the top of the mountain.  Only the 2 boys were home at the time.
We anticipated the surprise that was in store as the parents returned home to find this gift that 'mysteriously' appeared.  :)
Does that stir up childhood memories of Christmas gift giving

The following week on another mountain hike with the Eagle Scout team, we greeted the mountain family.
Mr. Fene and his wife and 3 children expressed their gratitude through prayer for the gift that was left at their home
the week before.  We learned that Mr. Fene had formerly been quite involved with voodoo practices
and had become a Christian and asked for prayers for he and his family.

Eagle Scouts and team members organized food for a distribution to 150 families.
By the end of their week the team had delivered 3 tons of rice, 1500# of beans, 6000 bouillon cubes,
150 gallons of oil,  600 pkgs of pasta, 150 cans of tomato paste.
The team also completed 3 cement floors and completed 'crepe' on the walls of 2 houses.
Nathanael was interviewed for a KCCI news story after he returned home from Haiti.
try this link   KCCI Interview with Nathanael

During an afternoon of the team sharing food, we were using bracelets with colored beads to share the Gospel and using small bottles of bubbles to help 'break the ice' since we were strangers encountering the local people.  One team member extended a hand to give a bottle of bubbles to this woman,  She immediately put the bottle to her lips to take a 'drink'.  We held her hand to not take a drink but then another attempt to take a drink prompted a remark from the neighbor to say she is 'crazy'.  We offered her a bottle of water which she drank as if she hadn't had water for days and gave whatever snacks we could dig out of backpacks from the team.  What a heart wrenching encounter.  We prayed for God to provide what she needed and for the neighbors to show love to her.

Our friends Lumanes Augustin and Jean Robert.

One of the first 'assignments' for the Winteriim team from Pella, Iowa was preparation of gift baskets to be given to the teachers at Pella Christian" School in Ba Savanette.
 Dividing the team into 4 small groups, each group set out with a shopping list and 4000 gourdes
(Haitian currency equivalent to about $85 US) to find items to fill 4 baskets per group.
Powdered milk, pasta, sugar, tomato paste, margerine, cookies, crackers, hot sauce,
matches, and laundry soap filled each basket.
Team members encountered the Haitian culture at the ground level!  

Mission accomplished!  Teachers at "Pella Christian" School with gift baskets in hand.
Big smiles and many thanks made it complete.

At church on Sunday Team 3 presented a dramatization of Balaam and the Donkey
based on scripture in the book of Numbers 22

This scene is Balaam, the Donkey, and the Angel...Numbers 22:22-35

This young man seemed to be 'the man of the house'
and was going about the hard work of covering the walls of the house with mud. 

One word...Beautiful!

Many Hands for Haiti has an office in Pignon.  We had some supplies to unload one morning
and Junior, front, and Wisnel, back, were eager to help.  

"Job well done boys!"  their reward...a cold Tampico drink and a new t-shirt.

Junior and Wisnel aren't the only kids in the neighborhood.  The big one in the middle moved in last June.

The Winterim team from Pella, Iowa provided a song at the funeral of a girl that passed away
while the team was visiting patients at the hospital.
Her name was Edelene, 6 years old.

Beatrice and Evenie, team cooks, are "Pi bon!"  The best!
Here they are making a favorite sweet treat "Deuce", coconut candy.

Liz Clarke is the manager of the MH4H frozen yogurt shop, The Mango Tree, in Pella, Iowa.
She is spending the month of January in Haiti.
Since she is not at The Mango Tree in Pella she decided to be IN a mango tree in Haiti!

Our Haitian staff took an afternoon to investigate a nearby community to see if MH4H could begin working there.
Through our investigative efforts we discovered this foot bridge
located about 2 miles from the dorm where we live right now.

Kind of a surreal sight here in the countryside of the Central Plateau of Haiti.

So...the past weeks activity has been challenging and rewarding all at the same time. We might use words like scrambled, scattered, random to describe our current state of mind!  With cultural challenges we might even feel stalled with the need to refocus.  Physical as well as emotional challenges have left life here somewhat upside down! We need to set aside some time to re-group as well as take care of some housekeeping tasks.  When things are too jumbled even simple things can seem difficult.  

We are reading a book by Alan Hirsch called The Forgotten Ways.  It is about reactivating the missional church.  In the forward to the book it talks about defragmenting the hard drive on your computer and how we need to defragment our ideas about the church and missions.  We have so much information that has been gathered over the years regarding how to do missions, that we can get slowed down by trying to process all the information, just like our computers and somewhat like our state of being after the past weeks.  :)

HOWEVER... some concepts we are eager to see presented in the book include "to stop pining after balance, safety, and stillness; and to stop being afraid to mix it up in the cultural zeitgeist or to be in the thick of things.  When you open the windows to the world, maybe we aren't letting the zeitgeist IN so much as letting the Holy Spirit OUT to blow where it wills." (had to find the definition of zeitgeist, noun......the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.)

With the work before us it is important to maintain the focus and keep our eyes on Jesus. We don't want to be slowed down by processes and information that get fragmented.  Those things that matter most need to stay the main part of each days activities and not get scattered or scrambled so we can maintain clarity and conviction day by day to follow Jesus in ANY circumstances.

Galations 5: 6b ...the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.

Each day may we express with clarity and conviction the love that only comes from faith in Jesus as our Lord.

"We must play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, and live by improvisation and experiment."  Hans Kumg

Let the Holy Spirit OUT!  Craig and Christi

In Awe of Christmas

Jwi Noel e Bon Ane.... Our 20 year old son Michael is spending week with us during the holidays. There are 4 other students here as well. It has been such a fulfilling time for all of us. We have much to be in awe about! Craig had been sick a few days prior to the group coming. He was finally going again Christmas Day. He felt it was the best Christmas present.

The group prepared supper for the Many Hands for Haiti Haitian staff...Pizza, Mac 'n Cheese, and popcorn!
Front row:  Christi, Burns, Hank, Ann, Ebens
Back row:  Taylor, Odenes, Craig, Claudin, Alecia, Appolon, Michael

Haitian countryside sunset

These are Michael's thoughts...

From Michael Gabhart

The word to describe today would be "awe". However, the true awe moment didn't come until the end of our daily missions. The group started the day with the usual 8:00 AM devotions with the Many Hands staff. With this spiritual interaction built into our Haitian experience, we can ignite that fire for God and send it into the streets of Pignon each day. It almost resembles a pep talk before a game to get your teammates ready to go out there and give it everything they have.

After this time of discussion, Hank and I split from the girls and headed down the road with Claudin and Odenes. We prepared a nursery garden for a family, as well as 4 plots for them to transfer the young plants to in a few weeks. By starting in the morning, we avoided the blistering heat; however neither Hank nor I could avoid blistering hands.



"Muddy Hands for Haiti!" (Garden work)

By noon we had finished and headed back to the dorm to have an ice cold, cherry fun bag. Soon after, the girls showed up with some bananas (quite disappointed to find out they were actually plantains). With some diapers made by the ladies at Sewing Hope, our group and Ebens headed to the roads less traveled to distribute said diapers and some "Meals from the Heartland" (packaged in Iowa).

Over the next several hours, we walked door to door proclaiming the Christmas story through Ebens's translating.





Christmas Eve...meeting our neighbors and telling the Story of Jesus Birth








The "awe" moment is coming just be patient! The connection and interaction with these desperate families became deeper and more intense the farther we wandered. Inversely proportional to the size of the connection was the size of the path (roads less traveled). I am going to fast forward to the end of the journey then backtrack to the "awe" moment.



Beautiful baby in a new beautifully hand knit sweater. A special gift from Iowa

The very last and smallest path led to one couple with 4 young children. The parents couldn't have been older than 20 (my age). This was pretty rare to see a father figure with the mother. Often the mother and the kids will live with the grandmother once the father has left. I pictured myself in their shoes in the United States, no hope for improvement and truly the poorest of the poor. Would I be able to keep my faith and continue living life in parallel and where it seems as though time stands still? Christi kept driving home the fact that the couple had a BEAUTIFUL baby.

Trying to figure out what to do with a candy cane

Each time this was translated the couple smiled uncontrollably. It is amazing how one simple word could provide such joy in a young mother and father's lives. Even though their home was no more than 100 square feet and made of sticks and mud, these parents knew they had something right in life and had something to be proud of. If you think that's the "awe" moment, you won't believe the real "awe" moment when you hear it.

Approaching one family's home, we began talking to the mother (probably around 40). She was very excited to see us and was very willing to hear what we had to say about the birth of Christ. (This particular family was one of the poorest families I have seen first hand in Haiti). A "rough around the edges more than anyone else I had ever seen" man appeared,



He was the father (around 50) still with machete in hand, just getting back from a day of foraging. He began talking with Ebens and discussing the Christmas story, finishing Ebens's sentences like he knew the story word for word. He and Ebens talked and talked and laughed and laughed, and Ebens would translate what they were talking about so we could be a part of the fellowship as well. As a final goodbye to each family and one last chance to give portray the awesome power of God, the group would pray for the family. However, this family was different. Instead of telling them we would like to pray for them, Ebens asked the man if there was anything specifically he would like us to pray for. Assuming it would be about providing food and material things for his family, I was wrong. The man wanted prayer for him to "show God's love to his wife, his children, and all his neighbors." I stood there motionless and sick to my stomach, in complete "AWE". This man and his family have so little, and this is what he prays for? Love?



Our group's moto is "Pray and Love Others". If we do these things, we have the ability to be true servants of God in Haiti. This man, never having heard our moto, was living it out. He was praying and loving others. I had said earlier that this man was rough around the edges. Christi said something in our nightly reflection that each wrinkle and scar on this mans face tells an individual story. This made us think, what has this man been through

And still, through all these tough times with no signs of life improving, all he asks for is love not even for himself, but toward others around him.

This was a sign of hope for Craig and Christi and all others trying to be God's warriors in Haiti. God is here, and his followers are growing by the day. Hope for improvement in this life may not be present, but a hope for a better life in heaven shines brightly. Our devotion on Monday provided one verse that explains the hope for the Haitians around us.

1 Samuel 2:8 A (NIV)
"He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with the princes and has them inherit a throne of honor."


By Michael Gabhart. (1st time to Haiti was 2007, this is the 2nd time)

Christmas Eve

Michael had the chance to get reacquainted with Lemes, Mesadier, and Kadou.

He met them when he visited Haiti in 2007

Praise be to GOD our Father! for sending His son Jesus to be our Saviour!!