Bonjour, im not even sure if that is a proper greeting to start a letter off with but what the heck. so I have been in Haiti for 3 and a half weeks now im going to do a little chronological overview of what things we have been doing and really just talk more about Haiti and what Gods doing here.
YWAM Haiti has 2 bases one in Port Au prince and one in Port St. Marc and so I am in Port St. Marc which is about 2 hours away, so what has happened is that some people have fled from Port Au Prince because of fear of another earthquake or with other reason, initial reports were that 25000 people made the move but that number is probably significantly lower more around 15000 refugees, some people have family in port st marc but we (YWAM) have 3 tent cities that we work in. YWAM from what I've seen has been given responsibility of relief in port st. marc from the UN and other organizations.
so the first day we arrived in Haiti it was like one moment we were in America and the next moment we were somewhere completely different, a little bit of culture shock, alot of temperature shock. We arrived in Haiti spent like half a hour looking for our bags, its a little bit of a mess looking for them, spent like 4 hours in port au prince at a orphanage while our driver ran errands, got to have a first hand experience of the children of Haiti. we rode in the back of a mini truck (can't remember what brand) 7 people and our bags, the hour and a half to port st. marc going 100km a hour on the highway navigating our way through traffic of cars, scooters, piles of rubble, semis, farm animals, etc.. Got into port st. marc, set up our tents, at the base there (a gated walled base that doesnt even really feel like Haiti other than the heat) got a little settled, found out the sun goes down at like 6pm and then the following morning found out it rises at like 4am and gets so hot by 5:30am that you dont mind having breakfast at 6:30am. The next day we started working, started with doing some stuff for the base by going to the dump to shovel the trash off the trailer (there were people at the dump going through our trash, made me realize what i take for granted). now I'm just going to do a general overview of what we did the next week and a half but we helped in the process of building a school by working to level off the floors to be ready to pour concrete, helped prepare the base for the people who are going to be coming soon to work on house projects by preparing the housing for them, did alot of sorting( of medical supplies, etc.), the UN sends us food to distribute so we give it out to pastors to hand out , we spent a day in a refugee camp (tent city) pouring concrete posts for a foundation to be built on/ assessing (finding out what the people need/ where they came from/ what there plans are), alot of preparing ourselves for our our actual time of living in a tent city. me as a leader trying to develop a team to be ready to be in the physical but also very spiritually draining place, working through some trust issues, we also spent some of our afternoons learning more about how to develop a community opposed to just giving them all they need for a short time and making them feel like we will be there forever to give them all they need (physically) and really developing (spiritually/ physically).
this past week we were in a tent city in a pace called parisee all week, we really were there to work with the people, really have alot of relationship with them, create part time jobs, try to assess whether or not they know how to budget, worshiping God with them, even being in charge of day to day happenings of the camp. really immersing ourselves. this was the initial week of assessing more so and next time we are going to be more goal orientated. we do give most of the adults jobs 3-4 days a week working to start building houses, alot of manual labour, digging dirt and filling foundations that have been partly built, and then making concrete pads ontop of that and I was overseeing that project this week. really trying to tell them the reality is that we wont be able to feed you cloth you build you a house, but we will try to teach you how to. give a man a fish he eats for a day teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. progress was had, we made a lot of first steps towards rebuilding the hearts of the people.
pray for us as we battle what the devil is trying to do by making the people live in fear of voodoo.
pray for us to proclaim the truth as 80% of the country claims christianity and 60% of the country claims voodoo, God is not happy with the mix of His name and the imitation power of the devil.
pray for strength and encouragement for our team as we work in a very hard environment.
pray
thankyou
chad
