VBS - Awesome!

It's been three years since the Village of Hope has incorporated VBS as part of our program of serving here in Haiti.  This outreach to the community is serving VOH, as well as the community, well.  We have been very excited about this addition to our service in Haiti.  As part of this outreach, we include interpreters as part of our team.  Today we had five interpreters who are young and passionate and really get the kids excited about our visit and about our faith.  Our team lead off today with a skit, The Three Wiseman.  Our performance may not have been Oscar material, but the feedback from our director and the local pastor was very positive! Everyone got something out of our skit!  Following the skit, we separated boys and girls.  The boys participated in various sports ministry programs lead by our interpreters and supported by our team members.  The girls started out with the arts and crafts. They decorated crowns and colored pictures of the Wiseman at the manger.  After a while, the two groups switched.  An interesting difference between boys and girls, was the girls when they received the crown, were quick to want to decorate it while the boys were quick to place it on their heads.  You make your own interpretation of what that means.  A highlight for our team is then providing a meal of peanut butter sandwiches and kool-aid to the participants and a goodie bag at the conclusion of the program. It was an awesome morning!

Following VBS, we returned to Village of Hope and had our traditional meal - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Pringles.  Then we scattered to work on our various tasks - staining, benches, and painting.  While it was much warmer today, there was low humidity and a great breeze that kept us cool enough. We are happy to report that we are 90% done with our projects.  The plan is to complete them Thursday and Friday.  As we headed back to the truck to leave Village of Hope, Saron was summoned by Yvette and Christine.  They had found a goat tangled in its leash and it needed freeing.  Saron saved the day and got the goat freed!

We returned to Hope House, tired and sore and joyfully enjoyed fellowship which included Prestige, peanuts, and reflection on the day.  Oh, yeah, let's not forget showers!  During devotions, which is always a time of enrichment, we were surprised to realize it's day four of our trip!  Thank you for keeping up with our blog.  We enjoy sharing our adventures with you!

Hands and Feet

Today we were the hands and feet of Jesus.  Our main tasks today were cutting and prepping fourteen-foot benches, painting, and staining.  The benches will be used for parents or relatives in the waiting area so they have a safe and secure place to wait for their children after school.  The staining was done for all the cabinets that will house the musical instruments in the new band room.  The painting was done in the new music room as well as what will be the science lab room which will cover chemistry, earth sciences, and biology. Needless to say, those who stained and painted today are feeling the joys of their labor.  Between Prestige, Motrin, and ice, we will be back and ready for more tomorrow.  Interestingly enough for those of us that have been to Haiti, this was a cool, cloudy, and windy day.  It was out of character for Haiti but very conducive to the tasks of the day.  The guys who were working on the benches had a lot of spectators. School started back after the break, and they were curious to see what was going on.  Several Haitians helped the bench crew, which was good for the kids to see the collaboration between locals and mission team members - one team.

Following dinner, we did our nightly devotions followed by a couple dry runs of the skit for tomorrow which we are all looking forward to... lol.  The story is the story of the Three Kings, but as usual, the highlight for the team is making the peanut butter sandwiches, the goodie bags (which are top-notch), and Kool-aid. These will be distributed to the children at the VBS tomorrow. 

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.  Enjoy the pictures!

Staining

Cutting wood

 Staining

 Painting

Painting

Skit practice

 Goodie bag assembly

Peanut butter sandwich time

R & R

Our day started with attending church at Port-au-Prince Fellowship, the church Rob and Trish (field directors) attend. If you think we stand a lot at St. John's Lutheran, we spent the first 40 minutes standing and singing praises to the Lord. We were lead by a Haitian praise band which included seven band members.  Unlike Haitian churches we've attended, this service was kept to the standards of what we're used to at St. John's. The sermon really drew an insightful lesson comparing the physical heart to the spiritual heart. One little thing goes wrong in either and complications arise.  The three things that we can do to battle spiritual disease is first, see ourselves how God sees us. Two, be sensitive to the Spirit's influence. And finally, stay in touch with the Holy Spirit. As always, our church experience was spiritually uplifting and we really enjoyed the praise music.

As is the tradition for all servant teams, we went out for lunch, this time to a restaurant called La Fouchet. Its menu rivaled the Cheesecake Factory's and the tv was showing American football!  This is where a lot of UN, USAid, and state department folks stay. The food and service were excellent, but true to form, it took awhile to get our food.  Following lunch, we stopped at Giant Food, which is another tradition. We bought coffee, vanilla, plantain chips, and other Haitian goodies.  Dave treated us to ice cream which was delicious on a hot day!

After some time to relax this afternoon, we enjoyed a delicious taco dinner. The clean-up team serenaded us with songs from the Sound of Music.  The new Jim is no longer a rookie. He has volunteered to serve as the lead for the staining team and lead devotions tomorrow night. 

While today was a rest and relaxation day, the next five days are packed with work! Tomorrow we will go to Village of Hope school where we will paint, stain, and build. 

Our group - (l to r): Dave, Jim H., Jim L., Elisabeth, Sarah, Ken, Jana, Richard,  Christine, Scott, Saron, Greer, and Yvette.

PAP Fellowship is held at a private school.

The crowd after church

Lunch

Giant Supermarket

Tap tap (taxi)

The clean-up crew

Day 1: We Have Arrived Safely!

Our day started out before dawn as we convened at the airport at about 5:00 a.m.  Thanks to Greer's leadership and planning, check-in of 17 suitcases, three wheelchairs, and a screen went smoothly.  Despite our flight to Miami being delayed about 30 minutes, we arrived in Miami in time to make our next flight. A few of us were able to grab a quick snack.  We have two rookies on our team this year. Elisabeth Auld has already proved her worth by finding the 17th suitcase, which was missing, at the Haiti airport.  We're still waiting on Jim Haugan to contribute but we're a forgiving crowd. He's got six more days to do it!

Walking out the airport doors into the heat of Haiti was a shock for us. It was about an 80-degree difference from what we left in Virginia. Another shock was not having full sunshine; it was a cloudy day in Haiti!  We did our usual unpacking of the suitcases and repacking of items to take to Little Children of Jesus and the Medical Clinic.

It wouldn't be a complete day in Haiti without us sitting around, enjoying some fellowship time by drinking a Prestige, eating some peanuts, and telling stories.  We do this well!  We even enjoyed some rain sprinkles while we enjoyed our fellowship time.

Our first meal in Haiti was very un-Haitian.  We had chili with Fritos and lemon cake for dessert.  It was a great meal after a day of traveling and getting sustenance from granola bars!

As usual, we ended our day with devotions provided by Pat Eichhorst who was unable to come this year.  After some technical difficulties, we sang the very traditional Lutheran hymn, "The Church's One Foundation." This is a great way to start off our week together!  We look forward to a terrific week of sharing this experience with one another and those we meet.

Descent into Haiti

 Van selfie!

 Unpacking

Unpacking

T-10 Hours

St. John's Servant Team is headed to Haiti tomorrow morning! Our flight leaves at 6:45 from Reagan. Our team this year is again lead by Greer Putnam. Team members include Jim Lofgren, Sarah Finger, Yvette Moy, Jana Poppe, Richard Finger, Saron Yohannes, Jim Haugan, Scott Putnam, Christine Payne, Elisabeth Auld, Dave Siebert, and Ken Lorang! We will update you each night as long as we can get online!  Please pray for our safe travel as we begin our week of serving! 

Catch Up! (Not our choice)

We apologize for the hiatus that our blog was on for the last few days.  We had no choice in the matter - we were without internet.  We had wifi from Hope House but no Internet coming in.  But while we had no internet, we had a lot of electricity so we've realized we can't have it all in Haiti.

Reflecting back to Friday, we started the morning with the kindergarten classes during their morning opening.  This is always a highlight for the servant teams.  They were dressed in their gym uniforms and ready to play!  Following the school opening, we literally trekked out into the country for our first VBS of this trip.  Those riding in the van had to walk a quarter mile to the village church and leave the van behind because there was a stream that could be passed in the truck, not the van.  It would have bottomed out the van.  Those of us in the truck (Pat, Sarah, Sarah, and Dave) went for a rollercoaster ride as we forded the stream that had been filled in with branches to make a path for us.  Once again, VBS was a huge success.  We shared the Word of God through the story of the Good Samaritan, acting it out for the children and then having them act it out.  We shared crafts, as well as sports ministry with a parachute, soccer, and wiffle ball.  The highlight of the VBS was to see the kids act out the same story that we acted out.  The good news is that the kids were familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan.  We were joined by Pierre, Benson, Wesley, Cherie, and Jennifer who acted as our translators.  They are amazing!  We then returned to Hope House for a significant amount of work, continuing to assemble the cabinets and painting the dining room and kitchen.

Saturday we headed to Little Children of Jesus which is always an emotional visit with highs and lows.  It's never easy but always a blessing.  During this visit, we were able to not only experience time with the kids but we also helped with feeding the kids, cutting their nails, cleaning, mopping, changing sheets, and picking up trash on the grounds.  The culmination of our visit was a vigorous balloon volleyball game in the dining area.  Some of our team members tried their hand at making balloon animals.  The quality of our animals was not a key to having fun (sorry, Paul, we didn't live up to your standards).  Following our visit to LCJ, we headed back to Hope House for lunch and then went to the metal works village.  It's an adventurous visit with haggling with the artisans for artwork.  We always manage to leave with many treasures.  And yes, we returned back to Hope House to do more work on our cabinets and a second coat on the kitchen/dining room.  The night ended with a rousing game of Spoons played by Sarah F., Sarah M., Chris, Greer, Pat, and Dave.  Dave quickly got out of the game and after a few more rounds, Chris and Sarah F. tied as the winners.  Then we moved on to Uno.  We played 3 games - Dave won the first two and we didn't want to end on that note so we decided to play one more round.  Two hours later, Sarah F. was the victor.  We knew that we hadn't been playing with a full deck (so true on many levels) but didn't realize we were 28 cards short!  We have since remedied the situation!

Sunday we were able to experience the church that Rob and Trish go to in Port-au-Prince.  It's a Haitian church but the service is in English.  Many of us have enjoyed the services of Haitian churches in the past but this year we were able to participate more since it was in English.  As always, the singing was outstanding.  It's our Joy Service on steroids.  :)  Following church we the privilege to ride up the mountain and have lunch at the Observatorie restaurant which provides a panoramic view of Port-au-Prince.  Besides being at least 10 degrees cooler, the views at 3500 feet were magnificent.  The meals were pretty good but we were definitely on Haitian time.  No hurry... We were there at least three hours.  We were thankful for the fellowship during lunch but we are very aware that 99% of Haitians will never enjoy what we experienced.  We continue to pray for opportunity and prosperity for Haiti.  On our way back to Hope House we stopped at Giant Foods - not "our" Giant like in Northern Virginia.  We stocked up on coffee, vanilla, rum, and other goodies.  And yes, we returned to Hope House where some worked until 10 p.m. and others worked til midnight.  The goal was to have at least two cabinets completed so we could deliver them to the school on Monday.

TODAY!  We went for our second VBS this morning and it happened to be one that we went to last year.  The good news is that the fields we used last year for sports ministry are now fields of beans.  The bad news is that sports ministry did not take place.  We did manage to do the parachute game, play London Bridges, and Duck Duck Goose which for some of the team hadn't been played in 40 years.  We won't name names!  But again, we had the same wonderful experience this time as we did on Friday with a lot of enthusiasm, participation, and a lot of sharing.  Some of us even got to hold some babies!  Following VBS we returned to Village of Hope School where we enjoyed a lunch of beans and rice or rice and beans.  All the men in this group were extremely happy to have six strapping young men to carry the cabinets from the truck up to the school classrooms.  A huge disappointment is that no one except Sarah F. was able to meet with the students that are sponsored by members of our group.  She passed him on the walk up to the school and recognized him. Thanks to Pierre, they were able to chat for a few minutes.  We returned to Hope House with Richard, Dave, Greer, and Scott in the back of the truck, singing and playing instruments with our translators.  The rest of us were jealous we had stayed in the van!  When we got back to the compound, the rest of the doors were put on the cabinets.

As always, our team has been amazing this week.  We have gelled really well and had fun together along with doing excellent work.  We are all thankful for these experiences and can't wait to share our experiences with others.  We are especially grateful to Rob and Trish for their leadership and guidance.  They are truly amazing, humble servants.

For anyone following the blog, we encourage you to consider joining us on our servant trip in the future or joining another opportunity to serve.  You will get back more than you give!  "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"  Acts 20:35

 

Uno!

 

VBS this morning - Pat surrounded by friends

  

Kindergarten Opening on Friday

Hit the Wall!

Today was a full day of servant tasks primarily building cabinets for the teachers at Village of Hope School and painting the dining room and kitchen (a task unknown to us prior to arriving) at Hope House.  We split into teams with seven folks doing cabinets and five folks doing the painting.  As usual, the teams were fluid and many of us did several different tasks throughout the day.  We started the work day at 9:00 a.m. and finished at 5:30.  The plan is to complete seven cabinet assemblies.  We were able to accomplish building two full cabinets outfitted with shelves and have varnished both along with 3/4 of the shelves.  A few people are building the outer shells of the cabinets, some are making the centers, and others did the bases on which the cabinets sit.  We came up with a creative way to varnish the shelves for the cabinets by hanging them from the clothesline (the Haitians were perplexed by this and probably thinking, "what are these Americans doing?")

The painting crew completed the dining room - tearing it down, painting it a beautiful turquoise, and putting it back together.  As of the end of the day, the painting crew had primed and put the first coat of a bright yellow on the dining room.  We are always amazed at how much endurance and strength God gives us allowing us to get more done than we think we will.  And of course, Dave photographed every moment of the day.  He says he still has room for 7500 more pictures!

Following dinner, we made 125 peanut butter sandwiches for tomorrow's VBS and 250 goodie bags - 125 of which will be shared tomorrow at VBS with the remainder to be used on Monday.  Toro, the dog, really enjoyed cleaning out the peanut butter jars!

Our first stop tomorrow morning will be the Village of Hope School to see the kindergarten opening.  It's always a highlight of our trip.  And based on last year, we have high expectations for VBS tomorrow as well. Enjoy the pictures - more to come tomorrow!