Travel to Haiti

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.

John 2:5 “His mother said to the servants: Do whatever he tells you to do”

So on Monday, April 2, our team of 14 members & myself tried to make the journey down from Washington Dulles Airport to Port au Prince, Haiti.  The airplane we were supposed to fly didn’t make it.  But the airline said they had a replacement.  The problem with the replacement was that it was fueled to fly to California.  It had too much fuel to fly to Miami and therefore; the airline would have to take fuel out of our airplane.  The only problem was all of the fuel tankers were full!  So we had to wait for one of those tankers to remove the extra fuel on our plane so that we could finally depart!

When it was all said and done our plane was delayed an extra couple of hours.  That would have been okay except once we got to Miami, we had to catch our connection flight to Port au Prince right away.  When we arrived a couple of hours later, our connector flight had already left.  So we wound up spending the night in Miami!

While some may find such a moment upsetting, I found it quite encouraging that we were encountering opposition from the earliest part of the journey.  Our enemy is relentless in his quest to discourage God’s children from doing God’s work.  The reality, however, was that we had one less day in Haiti!

When we finally arrived in Haiti we met our Food for the Hungry Program Director, Odines and translator, Wilson.  I began to tell them what God had put in my heart to do for Haiti and it was amazing to see God at work through them as our hearts became more and more unified. 

SOAP on Mark 5:21-43

By Nicole Gibson

Scripture: 

Mark 5:34- He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Observation: 

- faith alone could heal in Jesus’ time and it can heal in ours

- healing can take place in our physical bodies and in our spirit

- if we have faith that God never leaves us then we can view any storm as an opportunity to glorify God by our peace and take comfort that these things are in His capable hands, Mark 5:36

Application:

- Do I speak my own strong convictions about faith in a manner that glorifies God?

- Our words have power and either glorify God or take credit from Him.  Do my words speak to the power of God?

- I realize that when Jesus left his Holy Spirit here to guide us through this sin filled world it was not for my benefit alone. 

Prayer:

Lord, help my faith in You to strengthen each day as I see miracles in physical and in spiritual healing happening all around.  Help me to be bold and to share the numerous scriptures that speak to the power You have given each one of us through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  May I take note of all the ways that I see you moving situations which may seem bad and turning them for Your glory.  Amen. 

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.

God Opens Doors

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.


Hebrews 10:24 “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”

About a month after my fast and vision experience, I was invited by Scott Avey’s father, Tom, to come to New York City.  Our host while we were there was Mac Pier.  Mac took us to two very influential churches in the Big Apple:  Redeemer and the Christian Cultural Center.  While Marc and I were eating lunch, I shared the vision God gave me to transform the city of Belladere by dehydrating mangoes.  Marc’s gift is putting people together.  He gave me the name and email of the leader of the NY Leadership Institute on Haiti.  His name is Tom Nolan.

Tom and I began emailing and talking on the phone.  It wasn’t long before I was hearing about initiatives happening all around Haiti.   I would learn about plastic recycling centers enabling Haitians to earn money gathering discarded plastic.  I would learn about Haitian workers building chicken houses all over Haiti.  I would learn of the Soleil Group building a solar power dehydrated mango plant in the central region.  I would meet Dave Genzling with Partners Worldwide who had been involved as an engineer with mango initiatives.

It was occurring to me that Tom was opening a door to let me see how God is moving in Haiti’s direction.  I was seeing the heart of God showing compassion to the Haitians.  I was meeting people with the very same heart.

It was becoming clear to me that the problems of Haiti were too big for any of us to solve alone.  But, the problems were not too big for God.  God is bigger than the problems they face.  If we get next to God’s heart and release God’s love and power, great breakthroughs will happen.