By Pastor R


Here are some of my thoughts on Haiti and specifically how God prepared the team and I for our trip. It was (and still is) an incredible journey of seeing God move and work. I hope that you'll come back throughout the next few weeks to read my blogs on Haiti as we will continue to post them every few days. You'll also be hearing from some of the members of the team and what God did in and through them as well.


Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”


I have a friend who embodies Proverbs 17:17 to me.  His name is Paul Foss.  Paul has a knack for listening to your story and holding your story close to his heart.  Paul prays for people while he cuts his grass.  One day Paul was cutting his grass and praying for me.

Paul is the founder of the Waterboyz for Jesus.  We have done a Waterboyz table for the past seven months.  One day Paul said to me with all earnestness:  “R, how can Waterboyz help you with the vision God gave you?”  I reflected on his question for a couple of days, called him and said “Paul, put me at a table with people with a heart for God and business savvy.”

One of the men at that table was named Phil.  He has been to Haiti many times.  He knows the landscape well.  When he heard what God had put into my heart, he suggested I look at a website called JustHaiti.org.

JustHaiti, I learned was a non-profit organization that has built a coffee growers association in Baraderes, Haiti and exported Kafe Lepawa (the coffee of hope) to America.  When they started their work, the farmers lived in abject poverty.  Last year, JustHaiti paid their farmers the fair trade price for their coffee ($2.10 per pound) and then once the coffee was sold in America sent back the profits of about $5 per pound for community development.

I began to pray that the fair trade coffee-plus deal the town of Baraderes experienced with Just Haiti might be transferred to Belladere.

I was so thankful that my friend Paul Foss made that connection.