St. Marc!

I am sooo excited to be here. St. Marc is different from Port-au-Prince in many ways. Here it is more GREEN, mountanous, and more of a suburb enviornment. Yesterday we arrived here in the morning after a bittersweet goodbye at the orphanage/Port-au-Prince base. We took a big air conditioned bus, that was nice, but the ride was crazy bumpy like usual, with beeping every 5 minutes ahaha. I'm still not completely sure what the meaning of them beeping at eachother is, other than "GET OUT OF THE WAY!".

So when we arrived here, I was soo thankful to be here. The base is much more established being founded 10 or more years ago. It has a lot of open area, a pool, a huge cafeteria area, and more. Tomorrow is church, I'm excited to see how they do church. Anyways, when we got here we did a scavenger hunt and got to walk around by ourselves in groups. THAT WAS SOO NICE! We have been locked up on base all outreach after the outreach times. So once we did ministry in the morning and afternoon we weren't able to go out and interact with the people just doing life. Being here we have freedom to go DO life with people! I'm so excited. I want to make the most of every opportunity.

The Lord is revealing Himself to me recently in a way that is bringing me back to the basics. Following Christ is not hard, it's easy but we make it difficult. He is revealing His pure character to me, and that leads to me finding myself and my character in Him. Humility is something that was on my heart yesterday, you truly have to humble yourself to fear the Lord. These are all words and words cannot describe what my heart is doing. As I write these words, I can see they don't describe anything haha that the Lord is revealing to me. I still want to tell you about it because I believe it is something we miss everyday. To lay down ourselves. To allow the Lord to restore us, heal us, change us, to become more like Him. His righteousness is freely given to us, but we have to lay all our rights down. Oh, I wish I could describe what He is doing. It's something great. =] Maybe I can find better words later, or maybe the Lord just wants it to be left as unknown so He can personally reveal it to you in your heart.


<3

Pray for big things, receive big things

This morning we headed to City Soleil while Dani, Jorn, Hilary, and Cyrielle stayed back to get an interview with Peterson, the director of this base. So, the rest of the team started praying for God to go ahead, and much much more! When we got to the tent city, there was an acting team. They were Haitians from another area and the tent city was getting a kick out of the play! One of the kids took my hand and dragged me through the crowd to see what was going on! It was sooo funny, they would dance, and they re-enacted the World Cup theme song and moved their hips! One of the men was dressed up as a girl as far as I knew.

Once the acting team left, we hung out with the kids a bit, and than Jill started her teaching on "Intimacy with God". After she taught, we had an "altar call" or prayer time and 3 adults prayed to accept Jesus as the leader of their life. There were several that asked for prayer because of an evil spirit is in them. So, the first lady we prayed over, the second lady is where Holy Spirit broke some chains. Jill was praying for her to receive the Holy Spirit and right when she prayed that Helene (the second lady) started screaming, shaking, and fell to the ground. We prayed over Helene for a while and cast out the demons in her by the power of Jesus Christ. It was very unexpected. The Lord is an unexpecting God, the Lord's ways are so different from our ways. God is good! So good!

There is a pastor that keeps track of everyone prayed for. It's a great thing to see the church rise up and disciple one another.

Power of the invitation and dependence on the Lord!

This morning I had the crappiest morning. I was not feeling well, still being sick. I was getting discouraged and unhappy that it is not going away. Yet, our team met for prayer time before we left for ministry. We split up into groups and prayed for one another and did some encouraging. That was awesome. Emily Williamson prayed and we had great fellowship with the Lord.



Still not feeling 100% better, we left for ministry, and arrived not longer than 10 min. later to tent city--Cite Soliel. This is prob. my favorite tent city. When we arrived I was out of it, not very happy, asking the Lord for His joy and for HIM. Steve and Christine set up the speaker and microphone and turned on worship music, in English! It was great to bring the Spirit of the Lord there first thing. He played "Freedom is Here" by Hillsong and a lot of Chris Tomlin. I totally received the joy of the Lord as my strength and starting dancing with a little girl, she was soo happy. I know it was the Lord because there was no part in me that wanted to move and ohhh it was soo fun to dance to the Lord, laugh, and have true joy in my heart. I felt like no one was around accept us three...The Lord, the beautiful Haitian girl, and myself.



I didn't want to leave, but teaching started and the little girl wouldn't let go. I had to take her somewhere and say I'll be back, not even knowing if she understood. There were MANY adults today, I would say about 50 and more continued to come as the teaching went on. About 6 accepted the Lord as their Savior. We had a lot of prayer for healing. We haven't seen anything present but we don't see what the Lord is doing in between or inside. We went to a gas station for lunch to eat our M.R.E.'s. I got a chocolate energy bar, and peanut M&M's in mine today! =D yayyy Jesus! A little gift of chocolate! haha. Anyways, we headed back to the tent City and hung out for an hour. We got a tour and saw the crops that they are trying to grow and got to see the back of the tent city. That is the poorest part of the tent city. After the tour, we were hanging out with the kids and a teenager came up to me asking to receive Jesus. I was shocked because I thought he was asking for a picture and the translator corrected me quickly, haha! His name was Samuel, he was 17 years old and understood in his heart what he was doing to accept the Lord. We led Samuel in a prayer and than asked him if he wanted to be baptized, smiling he said "Wii!"

So we took the bottled water we had and sprinked handfulls in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit!



Little did we know, a 18 year old boy Sonny, was watching and wanted to accept the Lord also! We told Samuel that he has the Lord inside of Him and now can lead others to Christ, by His power alone. So, Samuel led Sonny in a prayer and than baptized him with the bottled water! That was soooo soo cool! Just to see disciples baptizing disciples, just like we were taught in lecture phase, one of the last teachings on Church Building! This is awesome to be a part of! My day totally got turned around by the Lord! Thank you Jesus!



When we fix our eyes on His Kingdom, all else truly fades away. When we take ourselves off focus and look to the Lord, there the Kingdom will come!

a few pictures of City Soleil

Yup, what everyone tells you...

This is what everyone says you'll definately have at least one on outreach. We've heard story after story about sickness'. So on Monday it became a reality. The sickness hit that night. I got a fever and my throat was killing me. Tuesday I had to stay back I felt like I wasn't even here, my head was crazy. I haven't felt that fatigued in, well really ever. It was pretty sad because I wanted to be going with my team to the tent city! God reminded me that He still has a purpose for me also. Emily Rice, Hilary, and I were the teams prayer warriors for that day! Our team had a great day AND a person became a follower of Christ! How awesome!?! The best part was that the Lord was my strength. I actually had joy while being sick! haha, how often does that happen?!? The Joy of the Lord truly is my strength, and that was so cool because that was our team's motto for the past 2 days!

I really like this tent city, Delma six. It's fairly smaller than a lot of other tent cities and YWAM has befriended this tent city a lot so they have open hearts towards us. This week we taught on the "Character of God" by Steven, Dani taught yesterday but I'm not sure on what, and today Jill is teaching on "Intimacy with Christ". I can't believe the week is almost over already! We leave for St. Marc next Thursday, so a week from today. At first it seemed like outreach was going so slow, but now I realize how fast it is actually going by. Once you get working time does fly.

So, today I stayed back once more to recover fully so I can go completely refreshed and won't have to relapse a sickness. Please continue to pray for my team, and all the teams in PhotogenX. Currently there are around 4 people on my team sick. Pray for our team to walk out in the vision God has called us to do. Pray for no procrastination and no fear of man. Pray for health and speak LIFE over us. Pray against any spirit's of the enemy and pray for protection. Pray for live's to be changed. Pray for us to be bold.

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26

"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen." Philippians 4:19-20

7/14/10

Today the highlight of my day would prob. be...the mircale God did through the Holy Spirit. I got on facebook after a very tiring day at the tent city, and saw Audrey Assad being advertised. I remember seeing her in concert with Jonny Diaz one time and really liked her songs. So I looked her up on youtube and clicked on one that looked like a good title for a song, "For Love of You". After I listened to it a couple times, I loved it and so I sent it to Carole on facebook. Right in that SAME minute, Carole posted the lyrics of the same song on her status! =P God is so crazy. I was like woahhhhh, Holy Spirit the true connector to Christ. In Christ, we have all He has. Christ has my sister and we are connected no matter how far apart we are. =]

This morning I was very tired because I went to bed so late, so I am ending this blog early to go to bed earlier. Pray for our team. Ministry cannot go out because the Hatian people announced manifestation against the president. The UN can't do anything about it because it will just make it worse if they fight against it and rioting will break out. So tomorrow's schedule is unknown.

Hoping these blogs bless you all in some way!

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 12:28-30

He's calling you.

7/13/10 was a wonderful day!

The day started off with breakfast duty at 6am! =] Cleaning, and prep for breakfast. After eating a huge bowl of frosted flakes, and making 2 peices of toast, Walter (our great cook) came in with a lovely surprise...CINNIMON ROLLS, not just cinnimon rolls, but HOMEMADE cinnimon ROLLS! After clean up around 8am, I headed off to a prayer meeting for eyes of hope, getting the vision of God for this idea of God's. We will be praying daily for all God's plans for "eyes of hope"! Around 9:15 we headed off to the tent city! =]

Emily Rice taught on the Father Heart of God and did an amazing job! It was so personal and relational. Dani, Emily and I did a few songs of worship. I think it'd be awesome to learn some Creole worship for them, so they can understand the words. The girls loved to play hand games!

We got back for lunch, chicken, beef, or PB&J sandwiches. Then an hour after, 2pm work around the base. I ended up being on the group that loaded the truck with wood and a bunch load of metal poles. Phew we were showering in our sweat. I loved it, I love working outside like that, it reminded me of past mission trips I used to go on in high school with the youth group. We headed off to unload at a church. When we got there no one had the keys so we were going to head back unload ALL we loaded and than re-load it tomorrow. Well, we waited and a man came up, and J asked him if he had keys (while we were praying) and thank God, he had them! So we started unloading, and after unloading about half it started to rain! It was such a nice cool off gift from the Lord! Today was the first real rain since we have been here! On the way back to the base I had my first ride in the back of the truck. In case you don't know, the driving here is crazy, my parents prob. would have gone a bit crazy, but it was great! I love being adventurous and out of the box!

We got back, and I missed the children because I didn't get to see them all day yet. It's like I'm missing something if I don't go visit and play with them everyday! Well I walked to the hallway and saw the boy, I cant remeber his name since there is 120 of them, I'm working on it. Anyways, he is in a wheelchair and can walk, only if he's holding someone's hand. There is nothing better than blessing someone and unexpectedly being blessed back. That is the Lord for ya!! This little boy was so happy to get up, he started bopping his body, later I realized he was trying to jump! =] It was so great to see that unfading joy!

A bit after hanging out with the kids, I started doing my laundry and 2 orphans, Jefferson and John came up and wanted to do our laundry. We weren't doing it right...haha...they saw our laundry on the line and said bad, there was still dirt on it. Boy, they ended up doing Emily AND my laundry! It was bright clean. I tried doing it with them, and they laughed because I didn't know how to perfectly do it the way they do! =P haha

The night ended with AMAZING Holy Spirit filled worship. We did "He Loves Us", "Sing of your love forever", "Open the eyes of my heart", and so many good songs! Hearing all the children sing is an experience of faith and hope right in front of you. It's funny though because the young children fall asleep, no matter how loud it is! So cute!

=] Alrighti, ending this night with a nice shower to clean off all the dirt from today!

God always has the better plan

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9

Today we had our whole day planned out. We were going to a tent city for our first teaching on the "Father Heart of God". Emily was going to speak and we had worship planned out. Well, we loaded up in the van squished and dripping sweat. =]

We arrived there and found out they were having food distribution so we were not able to do what we had planned. So, we waited for a bit as Lucy, the director's wife of this base made a few calls. My team got permission to go to another tent city and spend time with the people and children living there. Oh how fun it was to hang out with them for a few hours! =] Right when we got there a 18 year old boy who looked like he 14ish freely offered to give us a tour. We got to play with the children, and take pictures after we hung out for a while. There are some beautiful beautiful people here.

I'm so thankful God knows what is best for us, and does everything for the good of those that love Him!

Random Stories of the first arrival

Story #1:

We went on a prayer walk on Saturday. On our way to our destinations we got into a car wreck. Our car kept giving out and the gears wouldn't change. We were headed up a hill with 18+ people added onto our team of 11 people. The car gave out and we started rolling back and before you know it we hit the car behind us. A policeman came up to the driver, I'm not sure exactly what happened but we never saw him again after we prayed and declared "Lord, help us get up this hill!"

The hospital in Port-au-Prince was pretty intense. One of my team members saw a baby be covered and taken away. In that moment, a life just ended. There were many families there. It looked like a lot of single mothers with month old babies. We got to pray with them, and allowed the Holy Spirit to lead us on what else to do. We didn't have a translator for everyone so it was a bit difficult to make a good connection with a person.

Story #2:

There was a tarantula outside of the main house here. Someone killed it with a rock. =P

Story #3:

Here in the orphanage there are a couple girls that capture my heart. One is Isabella. I'm not sure what problem she has but she is very stiff and has to be in a wheelchair or laying down. Every single time you smile and say something to her she grins the biggest smile of joy and doesn't allow it to fade very easily. I wanted to hang out with her yesterday so I rolled her around for a bit and sang to her. Than when I took her back I wanted her to be able to swing, so I picked up her stiff body and brought her over to the swings and we swung for a bit. She loved it! I get so much joy out of bringing them happiness! I'm so glad we don't have regulations on hanging out with them!

Talking about it makes me want to go check on her, I haven't seen her today yet! =] Catcha Later! =]

Country of Hope

7/9/10

We arrived to Port-au-Prince, Haiti yesterday. It was about an 8 hour drive. We left around 4am thursday morning! So almost everyone slept the whole way, even our driver....the WHOLE ride he was bobbing his head, and his eyes would close every other second. Thank the Lord for HIS protection! Wow, and all the prayers from you guys! I think the worst part of that is that our driver had to go all the way back to Santo Domingo that same day.



My team and I were praying most of the way there, if not all the way. Crossing the border was crazy. Cars, food, tables, chairs, more cars, mopeds, food, drinks, traffic, police men, and on...
They didn't even end up checking our passsports, but we had a few people we had to give money to in order to cross the border. The Lord's favor was on us the wholeeee way! We ended at Petterson's house, it was beautiful inside and outside. Nothing that I expected to see. Petterson is head over this Port-au-Prince base. When we got to his house, he just told us an introduction. He mentioned God spoke to him in Nehemiah, just how God spoke to me to come here for outreach. =] It was just a little whisper of God's voice, reassuring me that He has plans for me in Haiti. We relaxed at Petterson's house for a while in the air conditioned room. After a bit, we packed our bags on the truck and a few ended up riding in the bed of the truck with the luggage and the rest in the van. We arrived at New Life's Children Home, where our home will be for the next three weeks! =]

We set up our 3 tents. Boys on one side, girls on the other with huge white cover's for our luggage and stuff. The weather is not as humid as Dominican Republic was. It actually gets a little cooler at night here, which is nice. The orphans are sooo fun. Right away they loved our company. Some of them, it takes a bit of time to get comfortable, but I'm sure by the end of three weeks they won't want us leaving. There are two babies--John, and Kevin. They are beautiful. There are many orphans in wheelchairs, and a lot with medical problems. Half of the orphans are from the earthquake. There are about 120 in all. We have free range into the orphanage at anytime except bedtimes. It is so nice to have the freedom we have. I love to be able to actual have real relationships with them.

7/10/10

One of the most touching moments for me was their night worship. They were watching and singing with all their hearts to a Michael W. Smith (live) DVD! I haven't felt the Holy Spirit like that since before we were in Dominican Republic. Overall, this is a very humbling experience. I'm always asking myself, if I was in their place what would I want from a visitor. I try to live out the command "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

My team and I will be teaching this week to tent cities. I'm excited to see lives changed. We will be teaching on the "Father Heart of God", "Hearing the Voice of God", "Prayer and Bible", "Holy Spirit", "Relationships, "Obeying God's voice", "Intimacy with Christ" and more. I am teaching on "Prayer and Bible" with Jorn. My goal is to bring them to realization of how important Prayer and Bible is to your daily walk with the Lord.

We Made it to Dominican!

Here is a quick update on things:

We had 11 hours in the air, a five hour lay-over and about 30 min. ride to the YWAM base here. We are still recovering from jet-lag. =] We like the food here better than the food on the base! haha. =] It's good! We only have designated days to get on the internet, it's a rule on the base. Being photographers, we have only been allowed to take pictures, and have only 2 photographers for the whole group. It is for safety purposes. It is hard because it's our passion and we see all these awesome things we want to take pictures of, but the Lord knows our hearts, and He also knows the best for us.

=] The driving here is very adventurous! I love it! People don't use the lines and you feel as if you are going to crash but then right before you hit the car, the driver puts the breaks on! haha. =P There are always people selling things on the street. For expamle, they sell cold water, snacks (like wafers), cell phone chargers, newspapers, sunglasses, and more! =] With the driving, comes the honking, haha, I still do not know why they honk? haha =]

This has been awesome so far. We will be leaving for Haiti on thursday or friday depending on whether we find a ride or need to rent a car.

Today we went to a leprosy colony. Most of them were in their old age. Many of them did not have all their limbs. We went to encourage them. We played and sang 2 songs for them, shared 2 of our testimonies, and shared a teaching on "Hearing the Voice of God". They said they enjoyed it very much.

This is Julita:

There were a few people who touched my heart. One was Julita, she didn't talk very much, but for some reason my heart went out to her, so I tried to communicate with a translator. There was another lady, 75 years old, I cannot remember her name at the moment, but she was so joyful and the only one really to show her excitement towards us. She loved to dance and sing. Jorn would play the ukelele and we sang to her how beautiful she is and she would join in and add-lib to the song. It was awesome!

Yesterday we went to help a church feed the homeless. I went with Hannah to help in the kitchen as the others went and invited people to come. We made beans, rice, salad (I tried a piece, it was very good!), and fried meatballs! It was so hot in that kitchen, frying the food, I would not stop sweating. As I stepped outside, there was a temperature difference, and I thought it was cool outside! =P phew I enjoyed it soo much! I bonded with a girl named Yesther. She was about 14 if I can remember correctly and these people were just so sweet to us.

We will be going back to both of these places to help again when we get back from 6 weeks in Haiti. I can't wait to get some pictures, stories of hope, and testimonies of what the Lord keeps doing!

Please keep praying for us! Love you all, Elizabeth