There’s No Place Like Home…

…because, well…there is just nowhere on earth quite...like...Haiti!!

We are extremely grateful to be home, after an unexpected two month Sabbatical in the states to help Olivia with some health issues and transition her back to living in the U.S. for the next year or so. We returned to Port Au Prince, disoriented & trying to decide whether we were worn out or refreshed from our time in the states. So much of our life now is a mixture of thoughts, experiences and feelings.

While in the U.S. we did get to spend time with all of our busy kids, including Ana, who flew in and introduced Oliver to the rest of the family - so precious!! We also got to catch up with a few friends, Ted’s family and attend his sister’s very special 50^th Birthday bash! We also reveled in hot showers, In-N-Out Burger, fresh veggies & fruit (especially blueberries!!), smooth roadways & cheap gas (yes CHEAP, Americans, compared to prices here)…this particular list is rather long so I’ll just stop there.

We intentionally took a temporary break from blogging until our return & then had to postpone it a little longer when we arrived to no electricity (during our waking hours) the first two weeks, head/chest colds, fevers, a few bouts of Haitian “happiness” and an expanded family “zoo”.

Fast forward to the present and we are just now feeling back on our feet again. Life has become somewhat familiar & routine once more. We’ve reconnected with friends and ministry partners and are gearing up for interns & our summer schedule. Next week we start up formal Kreyol lessons in hopes to finally gain ground on communicating better with our Haitian friends.

I usually post this on our ministry team page, but I’ve been asked multiple times the past few days what we need prayer over, so I’ll add it here this once.

Praise God with us –

• Our home is back in “working order” – running water & regular electricity are really “awesome”!


• For some great new friends that moved to Haiti recently – Sue Spinney & Jessica Williamson


• We had three small, but fantastic, teams of friends & family here a week after our arrival.


• For the privilege of helping our WO guest house cook take her niece for cleft palate surgery this week with Smile Train. The family was so thankful to God for this opportunity!


• Events this week & God’s provision led us to find a good hospital nearby for medical care, if needed. This was a big relief for the RN in the family! We have new friends there now, too.


• Emma has completed a record 6 subjects in school since January, thanks to Natalie’s help & her own hard work. She is finally becoming an avid learner and really thriving in her lessons.


• We had an excellent time catching up, brainstorming & fellowshipping the past few days with a WO partner team from NorthRidge Church near Detroit, Michigan. It is so exciting to see how God is using them and the local church to strengthen faith, families & communities here.

Seek God with us –

• For continued protection & health in our daily lives & work


• As Tynan and Anna, an intern from our home in Poetry, TX, travel to Haiti this week.


• In lifting up the final preparations for Ron (Haiti program director) & Vanessa’s wedding on Saturday, and for His presence and blessings over their new home, life & ministry together.


• As we daily look to walk in and with Him and for continual guidance in the work He provides.


• Over our first set of interns and a busy summer schedule of partner visitation & follow up.


• While we start to unveil opportunities for sustainability projects & holistic preventative care. Specifically for Rebecca in developing plans for maternity care in each community & Ted as he identifies & develops assets in each family & community towards stability & self-provision.


• As we follow up on the many “free-time” ministries that we’ve been assisting in at Kanes Village, Diakonos Orphanage and our friend Pastor Emmanuel’s church & orphan home in Archaiae.


• For a divine measure of aptitude & memory as we begin active study of Kreyol and try to quickly get up to a functioning level of communication.


• That both the guest house and our home will both continue to be places of ministry respite and refreshment.


• For the WO guest house calendar to fill up now that we are back & provide additional stability to our orphan ministry programs throughout Port Au Prince.

We are absolutely blessed to have such a great team in the U.S. and abroad alongside us in ministry through prayer, finances, physical & emotional support. This past week God seemed to be showing us every single day the wealth of love, resources and sacrifice in His community and the amazing span of His orchestration & provision before we even know what we need!

Here are a few photo highlights of our time in the states w/ Liv:

Haiti 10

One of World Orphans American partner churches has a team that was down with us recently gathering final footage and is now putting the finishing touches on this project: a film sharing the inspiring story of one remarkable Haitian family! 

The head of the family & father of 10, just happens to also be the Pastor of their Haitian partner church for the Orphaned and Vulnerable Children program. It has been an awesome  privilege to watch how God uses the talents and resources of each partner, in the US and in Haiti, to do His work and to proclaim His faithfulness in ever creative ways...and to see the beautiful body of Christ in motion across the nations!

Read more and participate in some interactive pre-release fun here...

Haiti 10 is a true story about a family caught right in the middle of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010. The documentary tells their story about how they helped their community recover. It shares...how faith, love and music helped pull a community together in the days following the horrific event. Music by: 5 time grammy award winner, Victor Wooten  Release Date: August 2012

Baby Pictures!!

I was EXTREMELY blessed this past month by my daughter Ana & her husband Ishai, flying me up to Germany in order to help with her delivery and new baby days.

I guess he heard I was coming & decided he wanted to greet me. I missed the delivery... but got to spend some extra precious time with little Oliver our first grandson and his amazing new parents!

Here is a peek at the little guy...

Enjoyed being there for lots of "firsts"...

first day at home

first bath

first 4 hour stretch of sleep

first doctor visit

first "Skype baby" call

first train ride

first smiles

Most of us still can't believe that we're grandparents, parents, aunts and an uncle... now, but we're all thrilled to have this new member of the family & looking forward to watching him grow up!

Rebecca

Faithfulness and Joy

While everyone in the U.S. was watching the SuperBowl tonight, I woke up to Oliver’s early morning feeding time here in Germany, vigorously soothed him as mommy came in with a sleepy smile, and of course, once they settled in, picked up my iPod to check facebook for a minute! My heart was immediately delighted by a string of posts that appeared... 

I’ll quickly jump ahead here and say “NO” it wasn’t that the Giants won! I’m not much of a football buff or even a fan, but since I was born into a 12+ generation family of New Englanders, I’m pretty sure that’s where my loyalty should lie. No smile there tonight. 

These were the words that warmed me in the wee hours:

“Truly my mourning has turned into laughter!!!! God has turned the utmost saddest day of our lives into the happiest day of our lives...Ecclesiates 3:4 ‘A time to weep and a time to laugh, A time to mourn and a time to dance.’ Now it is our time to laugh and dance.” 

These were from my school mate and dear friend, Becky Manthai today as her daughter, Susie’s, now-fiance` called to ask for a mother’s blessing as he prepared his surprise marriage proposal.  Yes, Becky was the one to respond...something I know she would never have dreamed of 5 years and 1 day ago.  You see, today is also the 5 year anniversary of her husband, Stephen Manthai’s sudden death in their home. 

As I browsed the smattering of posts both by Becky and Susie this evening, I compared them to ones that I had read earlier in the day...memorial notes and a beautiful blog post by Susie sharing the story of God’s faithfulness to them these past 5-years. 

My precious friend is a widow, her 8 children are single parent “orphans”. They have hung on to God’s promises to care for both. Others have stepped up to follow God’s command throughout scripture...where even from the earliest days with the Israelites, he implored his people to:

“wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
   out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
   encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
   plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:16-17)

While many families that I know have adopted children, taken missions trips, given resources for all various charities that provide orphan care and help for the impoverished and oppressed, such as widows, it doesn’t necessarily take stepping that far out of our daily lives to do such a thing. Becky isn’t from a third world country, yet she was left without an income source, the possibility of losing her home. In an instant she became a single parent with a household of grieving children and in need of everything from comfort to companionship and school tuition to food for the table. 

Just so you see how God uses others to provide in ways above and beyond what Becky could have “ever asked or imagined” look at the joy that she has been an example of, especially today. It rests firmly in His faithfulness to her family during their darkest moments. They are a family that will forever make BOTH of their “fathers” proud with their steadfastness in allowing the heavenly one to refine their hearts and lives with such a beautiful testimony.  

Susie wrote: 

“There was a knock on the door, I opened it, and there was a man on his knee with a ring. Stephen and I are engaged. (And I know Daddy is smiling from heaven.)” 

I think both of her “Daddy’s” are standing there overjoyed, the redeemed one and the Redeemer as they laugh together over the wiped tears and beaming faces of this family! 

Susie’s blog post earlier today explains how so many “believers and non-believers” have become God’s provision for them over the years...and how she knows God will continue to provide.

I ask that you stop and remember God’s call to his people and find some way...many ways...every way possible in your current situation to obey His command. He has sacrificed so much for you, an orphan, in order to bring you into His own family...won’t you be willing to do the same for others?

If you are a widow or an orphan reading here today...I encourage you to stand firm in His promises, call upon His name, and He will LISTEN!!

Rejoicing!

- Rebecca

The sun sets on the cross at St. Christopher in Titanyen where thousands of victims were buried in mass graves. Preparations were made for the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake as workers built stands and monuments in Titanyen, Haiti, on January 10, 2012. 

CARL JUSTE / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

It's here.

That day, 2 short years ago...when in moments, an earthquake changed the fabric of Haiti forever...and God began to reveal His plan for weaving this country, the people and especially the orphans…into the eternal tapestry of our lives as well.

Unlike the Haitians we have not lost anything or anyone, but rather gained an additional “homeland” here on earth, filled with friends and lessons we never dreamed of. Most of all, we have been gifted with a little better perspective of what our heavenly world will be like. You see, the “new heaven and new earth” will be filled with the joy and beauty and love of countless Haitian brothers and sisters and we will worship together there, just as we are here and now.

As we enter this marked day of remembrance I have a picture in my mind that is due to our many experiences here over the last few months. You see we have learned that the Haitians have a HUGE faith and that they LOVE to worship!

So, I can imagine a very similar gathering in heaven today…of those that have gone on before. I can see them clearly, a huge and beautiful throng crowding around the presence of their Savior, blessing him with their heavenly voices and raising their perfect arms in love and praise. Rather than broken bodies and crushed lives, this year, I am able to envision thousands of the redeemed, standing before him and basking in His glory as their loved ones despite their mourning and grief rise up here to do the same.

From the first morning rays of the intense Haitian sunrise, people will gather in crowds throughout the city, at churches, and in their homes to celebrate the memory of their loved ones and to thank the Lord for sustaining them through these years of unimaginable tribulation. What is more incredible to me is that God has brought us here to stand with them on this very personal day. I pray that we can join in with the depth of praise and worship that is due him for the path that He set our feet on 2 years and for the grace, mercy and faithfulness that he has even shown us, who are so less deserving.

Haiti suffers still, but for most, today is a day to stop and cherish life and memories and blessings. No one can appreciate the importance of those things more than the Haitians can. Reminders surround them and the wisdom that comes from a first-hand experience of its fragility is marked on their souls.

I was reminded today of a short passage in CS Lewis’s “Screwtape Letters” where Satan’s well – versed helper, Screwtape himself writes to advise his nephew and demon protégé’, of various methods and pitfalls in gaining souls for their “Father Below”. He writes “And how disastrous for us is the continual remembrance of death which war (tragedy/disaster…) enforces. One of our best weapons, contented worldliness, is rendered useless…” Rather during such times, we are jolted into the fact that we cannot live forever, our hearts are turned toward the eternal perspective and finally, we are drawn back to our hope, our faith in God.

Americans received a rude but more subtle awakening with tragedy of 9/11, but this generation has never been rocked to the core in any comparison even near to the Haitians experience with the quake. The church in America has so much to learn from the testimony of the body of Christ in Haiti though; their faithfulness in many ways reminds me more of Job’s. He was not tested to strengthen his faith as much as he was to prove it. That is what I see here & it’s remarkable!  Faith is the cornerstone of my Haitian brothers and sisters lives, perfected in weakness, and their joy in the Lord is truly infectious!

Please stop and take a moment to pray with us for three things today.

1 - The people of Haiti…we always receive the same request from them - not for money or food or better houses or health - but “that they would grow closer to God in everything and be strong.”

2 – That the people of the U.S. and other self –sufficient countries would desire the same prayer as their first thought each day…and remember to pray less for themselves and more for others as they reach out and learn to sacrifice themselves, for the Haitians & for others who are suffering around the world.

3- Remember the orphans. Haiti remains strewn with an enormous population of fatherless since the quake, as well as those whose parents cannot afford to raise them. They are vulnerable and often alone.

May you each be blessed and be a blessing in some way today!