In Haiti I think the hardest experience was loving my team no matter what. It's hard to love your neighbor as yourself and look to the interests of others. It's difficult to put others before yourself and do as you would have people do to you. It IS possible though or we would not be asked to do it. We are capable of it, through God's strength and fruits. One thing I love about Haiti is the servanthood. Everytime we would go to the brothel the women would give up their seats right away to welcome us and to honor us. In Haiti they do not sit on the floor. It is very dirty to them and no one would ever ask you to sit on the ground. The women at the brothel ended up giving us pictures of them, we definately built a love friendship with them. We actually hung out with prostitutes and shared the love of God and spoke it when possible. When we left the last day Judith, one of my favorite ladies, came and sat with us on the street to wait for our ride, EVEN though it's totally against her culture. Some of the last days we were in St. Marc YWAM was hosting a week long crusade. It was AWESOME. Thousands of Haitians coming to praise the Lord! I had 3 boys who hung out with me and played with me the first night. The second night they ran up to me and found me in the huge crowd! Inexpressible joy filled my heart as they ran with HUGE smiles and grabbed my hand. I pulled them close and hugged them to show them I love them too. We even got up during one worship song and with dozens of Hatians ran around the auditorium dancing and singing to the Lord. When we sat back down I was sweating bullets and the boys used their hands to wipe off the sweat running down my face with concerned looks on their faces because everytime they would wipe drops off more would come back on. haha. It was hot! I loved that when you told someone "God bless you" they would respond with "God bless YOU!" In America that prob. would not happen. It crazy how God is known to be their provider, it's written all over the streets, on bus', store's and wall's. Merci Jezi (Mercy Jesus) was written all over too. I really enjoyed the humor and joyful hearts of the people. They always have huge smiles on their faces, the one's who know the Lord.
Now in Dominican I will be writing about the new things God is doing. Soon =]
This is a place to see pictures and stories about the rainy and the sunny seasons in my life. I hope you will be encouraged in all seasons of your life.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Oh sickness =P
Has happened within our team. Although a few are suffering from throwing up, fever, back pain, and diarreah, We are NOT giving it authority over our lives. Neither are we going to praise it in our bodies. We belong to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit dwells within us. I'm so thankful the Lord has promised to never leave or forsake us. I'm so thankful for the comfort of the Holy Spirit and for the peace that surpasses all understanding/knowledge. God I praise you for never changing, for forever being the same. You are Lord in the good and bad times. You are on your throne, and you reign. We are your children and have the authority of Christ, given to us in salvation. Jesus, we declare in YOU we have health and that sickness has no hold on us. The Joy of the Lord is our strength. I will repeat again, the joy of the Lord is our strength! We pray against any more sickness in our team. You would keep those who are healthy, healthy and those who are sick to heal. Holy Spirit come stronger and bigger here on this base and here in our life's. God we love you and declare that you still have the glory! Be glorified in our sickness and health.
Hannah, Emily and I went to the brothel on Monday. What an awesome day we had! Emily shared her testimony that really got the women connected. We hung out with them for a while and gave them back massages, and they loved it! I think they felt treasured. We than prayed with them before we left. Tuesday we went to Perrise, a tent city here in St. Marc. It was so wonderful! As we hopped in the back of the truck I looked up at the sky and said "it looks like it's gonna rain" and a few mintues later it started to rain and the rain turned into almost 2 whole hours of POURING rain. It was like a dream arriving to Perrise with the mud streets all turning into rivers. We got invited into a house and got to hang out with them for a little bit. It was so fun playing in the rain with the kids, holding one under shelter and praying for her mother, helping one mother that was running past with 2 children in her hands. One a baby, the other a toddler hanging from her mothers hand. I helped her and grabbed the toddler in my arms and ran after the mother until we got to their tent. =] I love those little blessings! We were actaully planning on doing a DTS and making a craft with them, but the Lord changed our plans, and turned them into even better than we had planned! Tuesday afternoon the women from both brothels came to watch a movie, hang out, and have a snack. We watched Spiderman 2 and related it with Spirtual Warefare, how there is good and evil, and talked about that for a bit. It was nice to go to a house here on base and we were able to make rice crispy's for the women and cook for a couple hours. It felt like we got away somewhere and weren't in Haiti for a bit, it was nice to relax together.
Wednesday is today, well today my team is sick. Hannah, Emily and I would have gone to Perrise again and do a VBS teaching, and than head to the brothel at 2pm, but our plans once again were changed. The Lord makes everything work together for the good of those that love Him. I believe it!
We will see what the Lord has planned for the rest of this week!
Hannah, Emily and I went to the brothel on Monday. What an awesome day we had! Emily shared her testimony that really got the women connected. We hung out with them for a while and gave them back massages, and they loved it! I think they felt treasured. We than prayed with them before we left. Tuesday we went to Perrise, a tent city here in St. Marc. It was so wonderful! As we hopped in the back of the truck I looked up at the sky and said "it looks like it's gonna rain" and a few mintues later it started to rain and the rain turned into almost 2 whole hours of POURING rain. It was like a dream arriving to Perrise with the mud streets all turning into rivers. We got invited into a house and got to hang out with them for a little bit. It was so fun playing in the rain with the kids, holding one under shelter and praying for her mother, helping one mother that was running past with 2 children in her hands. One a baby, the other a toddler hanging from her mothers hand. I helped her and grabbed the toddler in my arms and ran after the mother until we got to their tent. =] I love those little blessings! We were actaully planning on doing a DTS and making a craft with them, but the Lord changed our plans, and turned them into even better than we had planned! Tuesday afternoon the women from both brothels came to watch a movie, hang out, and have a snack. We watched Spiderman 2 and related it with Spirtual Warefare, how there is good and evil, and talked about that for a bit. It was nice to go to a house here on base and we were able to make rice crispy's for the women and cook for a couple hours. It felt like we got away somewhere and weren't in Haiti for a bit, it was nice to relax together.
Wednesday is today, well today my team is sick. Hannah, Emily and I would have gone to Perrise again and do a VBS teaching, and than head to the brothel at 2pm, but our plans once again were changed. The Lord makes everything work together for the good of those that love Him. I believe it!
We will see what the Lord has planned for the rest of this week!
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Open Opportunities!
8/4/10
The Lord is giving us so many open doors here in St. Marc to do what we have called to do. We have gotten 3 interviews in one day for Voice for the Voiceless book! The eyes of Hope team got a lot of material for today. Emily and I heard the Lord tell us to be in the brothel and do ministry there. Thank the Lord here on outreach we have freedom to walk out what the Lord leads. We took a "taxi" or "tap tap" over to the brothel and it was one of the FUNNEST things I have done. I am not sure if it was because I was so excited or what but boy I could not stop laughing! Emily and I could not stop smiling, it was such a great time! When we arrived at the brothel there was no sign or anything but it was just in between a building and than you saw all the doors with numbers on them, as the women greeted us and kissed us on the cheek, smiling with their immodest clothing. It was I can't put it into words. We met some of the women from tuesday meeting. Every tuesday Traci, one of the staff here, leads a get together for them. We had a snack for them, did their nails and makeup, and took a glamor shot of each one and got to print out their favorite to take with them. We had a short devotion on Identity and Approval in the Lord. Some would not listen, but its ok, what matters is that they are coming and are comfortable with us to that extent.
I'm not sure what the Lord is doing completely, but usually He only reveals steps. We will continue to be going into the brothel this week and next. These women have such value and they do not know it. We are going to reveal God's love to them during the days we spend with them. To build a relationship and disciple them through friendship and allow God's love to shine through that. Of course we will let the Lord lead all of what we do. We are going back today at 2pm. We will share our testimonies with them, and bring them a little something. One of the days we are there we are going to clean the trash outside of the rooms so they don't live in filth.
I know many of these women want to get out of the brothel. Please pray for wisdom for Emily, Hannah (who is now with us), and I. We make a great team. Our testimonies are all leading up to eachother, like they comment eachother. Each are different so it proves God can use ANY normal person! To save anyone, and to use them for His special purpose!
<3 Can't wait to see what the Lord does.
The Lord is giving us so many open doors here in St. Marc to do what we have called to do. We have gotten 3 interviews in one day for Voice for the Voiceless book! The eyes of Hope team got a lot of material for today. Emily and I heard the Lord tell us to be in the brothel and do ministry there. Thank the Lord here on outreach we have freedom to walk out what the Lord leads. We took a "taxi" or "tap tap" over to the brothel and it was one of the FUNNEST things I have done. I am not sure if it was because I was so excited or what but boy I could not stop laughing! Emily and I could not stop smiling, it was such a great time! When we arrived at the brothel there was no sign or anything but it was just in between a building and than you saw all the doors with numbers on them, as the women greeted us and kissed us on the cheek, smiling with their immodest clothing. It was I can't put it into words. We met some of the women from tuesday meeting. Every tuesday Traci, one of the staff here, leads a get together for them. We had a snack for them, did their nails and makeup, and took a glamor shot of each one and got to print out their favorite to take with them. We had a short devotion on Identity and Approval in the Lord. Some would not listen, but its ok, what matters is that they are coming and are comfortable with us to that extent.
I'm not sure what the Lord is doing completely, but usually He only reveals steps. We will continue to be going into the brothel this week and next. These women have such value and they do not know it. We are going to reveal God's love to them during the days we spend with them. To build a relationship and disciple them through friendship and allow God's love to shine through that. Of course we will let the Lord lead all of what we do. We are going back today at 2pm. We will share our testimonies with them, and bring them a little something. One of the days we are there we are going to clean the trash outside of the rooms so they don't live in filth.
I know many of these women want to get out of the brothel. Please pray for wisdom for Emily, Hannah (who is now with us), and I. We make a great team. Our testimonies are all leading up to eachother, like they comment eachother. Each are different so it proves God can use ANY normal person! To save anyone, and to use them for His special purpose!
<3 Can't wait to see what the Lord does.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, July 26, 2010
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!
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!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
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