Hello to everyone!

Ellie Newberry from Savannah, Ga~

This was truly a God driven mission for me from the start. I had no idea that I was going to Haiti until the September 27th, flight left October 2nd. God is AWESOME! I have loved every minute of everything we are doing here for God’s people  in Haiti. Although there have been a few overwhelming situations, this has been an experience of a life time, touching the heart’s and soul’s of so many spiritually and physically. Being a LPN, I have been working in Pre-op and Post-op. Having translators with us to talk with the patients is exciting, learning a few words and phrases in Creole. It has been very rewarding caring for the Haitian community!

The friendships with all the staff here at NWHCM and the people here on the mission, has been Awesome! Everything just falls into place when it is God driven, because it was already His plan!!!

NWHCM, with the grace of God and God driven, is an awesome place to serve God’s people. I have only seven more days remaining to serve the Haitian community, I look forward to every opportunity to enjoy serving God’s people here!

God Bless,

Ellie Newberry

One of the fruits of our work here is to see changed lives, and the changes we see repeatedly are improvements in health for many suffering persons.  What is equally important is the chance to see lives being lived for eternity, and in some cases being a part of that change for the first time.  Today we had three young men and one woman who knew in their hearts that today was the day for a public profession of their decision to follow Christ.  What a joy to share in this experience on the roof of the mission, and with family members (some new, some old) present to celebrate as each one arose from the saving waters of new life.  Due to our on-going water restrictions the baptismal was small, but we were true to God’s leading and heard four resounding “Hallelujahs!” as they smiled through the living waters covering their bodies! (See the photos posted for today.)

Praise to God for His work in this place…

Steve H. (Scottsbluff, NE)

This week has been a great joy. It has been wonderful to see old friends and meet new ones. It is always a pleasure to return to the mission and see the changes that have been made. The new birthing center is beautiful. The Miriam Center is colorful and full of the joyful laughter of children. We are all so happy to be here, but we are realizing that it is the simple things that when missing, cause the greatest personal distress to Americans. Like being low on toilet paper and bathing in a bucket. So unimportant are these simple things compared to the real issues outside these gates. Things like children going to bed hungry and mothers faced with deciding which child can eat today.  Somehow I think we will all survive without toilet paper.

Diane

What choices have you made today? Did any of them affect your entire life? Did they affect your family’s livelihood? Did they change your destiny? Today, we operated on a young man at the threshold of manhood. His choice was to live in horrible pain and then die, or lose his leg and possibly live. In Haiti, how does a young man make a living with no leg? How does a mother who has lost many children advise her son to have his leg removed?  Such a difficult and life changing decision to make when your life is just beginning. Today our young man made a decision to lose his leg and gain his life. Not his earthy life, but his eternal life. Today he chose Christ and after his baptismal he bravely faced the surgery that would take his leg.

As I write this blog, he lies literally under the knife and his mother cries quietly into her hands. When he wakes up he will be a different person; physically and spiritually. Please pray that he will accept his new life in Christ and count his leg worth losing to have gained eternity. Pray that his mother will not see another child die so young. Pray that his cancer will be completely discarded along with his leg so that he will be a blessing to his family and lead others to  choose LIFE.

grateful to have chosen to be here,

Diane Youmans

Today was “intake day.” 180 plus Haitian people with multiple family members trying to get through the front gate to see if they are a surgical candidate at the mission.  The surgical spots quickly filled up for the next 2 weeks we are here, and now there are patients on the waiting list for April 2010. Are you ready to join us?  Several surgery patients are spending the night as they traveled many hours to get to the mission by foot, “tap-taps”  (back of a truck) or moped.  They will sleep in the overnight stay unit, a bed outside under cover as did some of the patients for today that started arriving on Saturday.   We did 8 surgeries today.

Some of us also participated in the “Meals on Heels” which is walking into the village to give the elderly people who cannot make it to the mission for a meal, a hot meal.  How awesome it is to see people with many different backgrounds and from all areas of the country come together and all work towards one common goal.  How amazing is our God!

Today (Monday October 5th) Vicki and I visited the Deaf school run by NWHCM.  The deaf students meet in one of the classroom at the Mission school right across the street from the mission compound.  The classroom has two male teachers, both deaf.  One lives very close and the other has a distance to travel each day.  There were 12 students.  A few of them are new.  Four of the deaf kids are in wheelchairs and live at NWHCM.  Vicki along with one of the teachers worked with these four while I worked with the others (part of the time we divided them up and I took four students while the teacher took the others.  After a break I told a Bible story using the flannel graph set we brought for the school.  All seemed to enjoy the story.  We worked on signs for the colors, ABC’s, and animal signs.  We used the flannel graph animals to help learn these signs.  We also use the nuts, fruit and vegetable flannel graph.

Tomorrow we plan to go again.  School only meetings in the morning.  On Wednesday we hope to visit some of the homes of the students who live close.  We have talked with several who want to learn more and we pray that God will show us what we are to do to help in this ministry.  Well more later, if we can, from this beautiful part of the earth–sure different than IL!  We wake up to the mountains and palm trees.  God has been good.

We also helped with the Evangelism part–praying for patients, doing devotions with those in recovery.  This is an awesome group.  God bless, Debbie K.  IN HIS SIGN

What a week we’ve had! Arrived safely after long bus ride, headed for church at St. Louis on Sunday, taught Sunday School to T-mouns and left for BeauChamp. We went on to the orphanage to distribute sponsors gifts and see our children. Colleen and Jodi took their boys, Elcana and Ricardi along back to Beauchamp to help us for the week.

Monday we started out working on the outdoor kitchen. What an amazing experience to be working along side Haitian construction crew laying block, roofing, nailing tin, and passing buckets and buckets of handmade morter from Haitian to American to do the floors. We also had the opportunity to present the Far West Pastors with communion trays, met with Teresa’s Sewing for Hope group and shared in a Bible lesson, popcorn and and cola and a movie on Moses.

Amy, the water girl, hooked up with us in Miami and has been a real blessing to our team and the Haitians. We distributed water filtration systems to the Bay area, Orphanage, 10 church pastors, the school and mission. The school experience was awesome as well. Dave was able to talk with the National School of Beauchamp principal about differences and similarities between their schools…Dave is a principal. We gave them tons of school supplies and Amy demonstrated a water filter system with them and presented the school with a bucket. Amazingly, the principal began smiling HUGELY and explained that he had had a dream about putting a water filtration system at the school so his students would not be sick, many of them walk 3 miles to get to school and often cannot come because of illnesses due to contaminated water. He has 502 students in the school of 6 small class rooms. They feed the students one meal a day. We had the chance to spend time with one of the classes, sang with them and prayed with them. They were kindergarten through 8th grade. Just a great time for our team given most of them are teachers.

Colleen was spending time with Teresa’s Haitian horses…Belle and baby Bolt, Crystal and Swoosh the donkeys…while the rest of us were covered with mud and sun burn in the kitchen….oh well Colleen was mucking stalls and removing ticks from horse ears. Justine and Dave designed a new spouting system for the kitchen and I got to work with the Haitian Big Boss Man and his number one mason,Chonel. The team even made me a handmade morter board and MIke Grant gave me his special trowel…they even agreed to change the design to add a serving window…Haitiain contractors are as strong willed as American construction contractors….but they saw the light. Lots of excitement just envisioning the thousands of children who will not only be fed from this kitchen but will bring them onto the mission compound where the first sight they see is the church standing on the hill, a reminder of who is the Bread of Life. With a water filtration system being installed at the kitchen as well, these little ones will also receive clean water…again from the church they will receive Living Water.

We had a great time of fellowship with Mike and Teresa Grant and even Ne Ne Owen stayed with us most of the week. We spent alot of time with the Haitian staff, workers and interpreters and just really developed some great relationships with them…we’ve all begun to learn more Creole, even some songs.

Back at the mission tonight finally and just getting ready to hit the bed for the night. Big day tomorrow, doing devotions for the various programs, entertaining the Gran Moun (Elderly), working in the baby orphanage and helping to finish the Miriam Center for Special Needs Children so they can move the children into their new home this month. We’re going to do the meals on heels (walking) to the shut-ins in town in the afternoon and helping out with odds and ends around the campus. Colleen, Amy and Jodi will be leaving Saturday to fly back to Miami and on to the DR for a Messiah College Mission trip. Dave, Justine and I will be staying in NWHCM until next week. Signing out…great to see our friends from the past nine years and spending time with the Grants and Owens families and all the missionaries who have the biggest hearts for this country. We are all safe, healthy and full of love, joy and the desire to return to this land of hope. See you all in less than a week.

Ann-PA

be feedy gave me the nickname Big Boss Woman.

Hi my name is Grace Hendley and I am from Tallahassee, Florida with the group from Crossbridge Christian Church.

While here our group was blessed enough to spend time in Beau Champ Haiti, and we are very grateful to the hospitality of Mike and Teresa Grant. While we were in Beau Champ we were able to do many things including: visiting an orphanage, playing with the children at the mission, getting to know the elders of the town, construction work, teaching budding pastors about christ, and venturing into the town to give food and pray for families in need.

Although God taught each of us a great deal through each experience, one of the more lasting experiences for me was going into the town and meeting families in need. It was on our first trip that God truly illustrated his power. When we arrived in Beau Champ it was apparent that the town had not had rain for a few months. In a rural place such as this no rain means no food and no nutrition. At one point on our adventure we met a woman who asked that we pray for rain. As we began to pray God truly illustrated his power. The clouds above us opened in a downpour and the rain quenched the ground. It was amazing to see the joy in the faces of the people of Beau Champ as we traveled back in the rain to the mission. Each one was so thankful for this gift from God. Back at home, something like rain is minimal, in fact it can even ruin a day.  But for the people, such as the beautiful ones found in Beau Champ, Haiti, it is something that grants a degree of hope in a very hopeless place. It illustrates God’s love.

Thank you all for your support and prayers, we love you and we miss you and will see you soon.

All the groups went to Beachamp right after spending one night in St. Louis. We got to Beachamp and took a tour of the area. It was very interesting learning about this part of the country. Mike shareded his vision for the churches.

All the groups had different plans! One group is working on an outside kitchen for a feeding program and will be out there for almost the whole trip, another group went to the orphanage and did a VBS, another group and a program with the pastors, and the last group did a program with the groun moun. It was really cool to see all the teams hard at work during the day and then come back at meals with stories. I look forward to the rest of the trip. My group is back at St. Louis. The rest of the groups are in Beauchamp finishing up a busy busy week!

My name is Jamie, and I’m from Ohio. This is my first trip to Haiti. Today, I spent most of my time doing physical therapy with the special needs children that live in the Miriam Center. I’ll skip to the last child I worked with – Jean. He has issues with his legs so he cannot walk. I put him in his wheel chair and we did fine motor skills. He cannot talk either, though he is 12 years old. Despite the language barrier, we communicated just fine. As soon as I pulled out my camera to take a picture, all other activities for him were over. He was the photographer for the hour and mastered use of my camera. He pulled me close to take pictures of him and me together, and then would review them and point to his picture and say his name. It was so moving to see him pick up something for probably the first time and have it mastered in 15 minutes. I was looking for a moving moment in Haiti. A moment that would stay with me. And I found it with Jean.

Hi my name is Heather, I am also from Ohio and it is also my first time here. I spent most of the day at the clinic with a RN named Suzette. There, I experienced so much desperation, depression, and lack of medical resources and supplies. Treatment for Haitian patients is a long, chaotic process. The nurses and doctors were nonstop all day treating and caring for these poor people who travel from far places, mostly by foot, to be looked at for a brief period of time. Today was very emotional for me and I can only pray that God will provide me with an abundance of medical supplies to bring with me next time I visit. Although the sick people need more than a few swipes of iodine and a bandage, God is providing and as long as there is faith, he will only multiply. Please pray that these people are able to receive the true healing that they need in their hearts by God and the physical healing they need by physicians in order to survive.