So this week has been a little rough, but really good. We have been working on painting the building we’re renting, but the people that own it keep changing their minds about the colors and different things. They’re driving me crazy and making us double work. So we're waiting on the right paint to get here to finish.
Monday, my back/neck were hurting more than normal, so at our staff small group, I mentioned to Lucy that we should have prayer for anyone in physical pain. I think there were only 5 or 6 out of about 20 that were not in pain. Wednesday, I woke up in horrible pain. I lifted up my head to look at my clock and almost cried from the pain. I don’t know what caused it to flair up so bad, but I didn’t like it. I told a few people about it, but I didn’t want to be a baby about it, so I didn’t tell everyone about it. I said something at dinner about it and Volter (our amazing Brazilian chef) said I could have one of the pain reliever shots he has for his knee. I was going to have Kristen (an EMT, that has since gone back to Canada) inject me with it, but it was in Portuguese and she couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. We have a PhotoGenX team here right now, and when some of them heard about this shot, they wouldn’t hear of it. They prayed for me and one of the guys got Matthew 11:28 for me. Which says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” I had started crying when I was being prayed for. When (boy) Dani read that, I started laughing. Everyone was wondering why I started laughing, and I said, “Remember this morning when (girl) Dani was looking up what our names mean and mine means ‘weary’?” I don’t know why it struck me as funny, but it did. I have been praying about why I still have this horrible pain, and it has been alleviated some. One of the PhotoGenX girls learned some chiropractic stuff so she’s been doing that on me and it’s helped. Also, when I told Lucy my pain level was a 12 on a scale of 1-10, she told me to take it easy for a few days. So I have been. There is a Swedish girl here til Thursday that knows how to give massages. We have not utilized this yet, but we will be. And Lucy said I’m on the top of the list. Sweet!!
I got to go with a team to a hospital to pray and give out bags of food this week. It was really cool. I hadn’t been to the hospital before. A lot of the patients are outside in tents because part of the hospital was damaged by the earthquake and they have a lot of patients. My group had Vogly as our translator, and like 3 or 4 more of us. We went to a tent that had a bunch of sick babies. It broke my heart. A lot of them had fevers, some heart problems, stomach problems and a few premies. The premies were so tiny!!! It made me cry. But then, another one of our staff, Amy, said that it gives her hope to see all those babies there getting medical care that they wouldn’t have had access to if the earthquake hadn’t happened, so that gave me hope for them as well.
Kristen had been working with the PhotoGenX team, but since she left, (girl) Dani and I are going to be tag-teaming them a little bit. That will help with me being able to get off base. I think I am going to one of the tent cities with them on Monday.
We did a feeding program on Friday for about 600 kids. That was pretty cool. Quite a few of us had to go earlier than needed because our lack of vehicles and drivers. I just walked around and played with kids most of the time. Vogly wanted to show me a little tent city that is at the end of the street that we were at. So I had him translate when needed. It was a pretty small one, but he said it is a lot better than it used to be because they used to have just sheet tents, but now they have actual tents.
Please pray that our vehicles would stop breaking and that we’d be blessed with another one and with more drivers. Also if you could continue to pray for my back I’d appreciate it!!!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
7/10/2010
Where to begin… It has been an interesting week. I have taken over housekeeping and it’s been an interesting role here. There are problems getting people to do their work. Leadership has been spoken over me quite a bit in my life. But this is really my first leadership role. I have been told I have been doing an amazing job, so that is encouraging. One of the girls does everything on her own timeline, and doesn’t like to work, so it has been a struggle to balance enforcing the work and not being rude.
I have been asked a couple of times how I am doing with being here. I don’t really have an answer to that. I feel like I’m doing alright. But I feel kind of emotionally numb. Except to frustration, I am not numb to that one! I am feeling that one pretty well. But I have gone to quite a few of the tent cities here in Port au Prince and I have not been extremely affected by it. I do feel that that’s not how it should be. While it does make me sad to a point, I have not been brought to tears because of it. I realize there is an amount I have to be numb to because I wouldn’t be able to survive if I let every single thing affect me. But I just find it weird that I’ve been so little affected. I think back to when I was in India in January and heard about the earthquake. I cried every day that I went to the internet café and read articles about Haiti. Pray that God will reveal part of His heart to me. That my heart will break for the things that break His.
There are about 25 people on staff here at YWAM PAP. There is also a Mission Adventures (youth group mission trips) program that I going on this summer. They are staying at a church we are renting. There are quite a few staff over there as well as a couple teams of youth. We have a team from YWAM Kona here. There are 11 and they are in a PhotoGenX DTS. So they all have cameras and are uploading pictures a lot. This slows down the internet quite a bit which can get a bit frustrating for people that need to do work on the internet during the day.
I am learning a little bit more Creole. I have been talking to some of the older kids at New Life that speak good English to try to help me. Also, one of our Haitian staff, Jude, said he would like to help me with it. I told him I want to learn anpil (a lot) Creole by the time I leave in September.
I am sleeping alright in my tent on my cot. It doesn’t rain as much as I thought it was going to. May and September are the really rainy months here. It’s rained like twice since I’ve been here. The other morning I woke up confused as to where I was at. I thought I was in a real bed…then I moved and realized it was a cot and got really sad. My back/neck have still been hurting quite a bit, so if you could please remember to pray that the pain wouldn’t be so bad, I’d appreciate it.
We have worship at different tent cities every Tuesday and Thursday. This week we went to Cite Soleil and Delmas 30. Delmas 30 was really great. Jude usually leads the songs in Creole, but there is a Mission Adventures team here that has an amazing worship leader, so he did some songs in English. I held a little boy almost the whole time and he fell asleep on me. This probably did not help my back problems, but it helped my heart.
Over all things are going well. Some days (like yesterday and today) I feel like I just need a hug. Some one to hold me and say everything is ok. Pray that I will feel God doing that because I know He is.
I have been asked a couple of times how I am doing with being here. I don’t really have an answer to that. I feel like I’m doing alright. But I feel kind of emotionally numb. Except to frustration, I am not numb to that one! I am feeling that one pretty well. But I have gone to quite a few of the tent cities here in Port au Prince and I have not been extremely affected by it. I do feel that that’s not how it should be. While it does make me sad to a point, I have not been brought to tears because of it. I realize there is an amount I have to be numb to because I wouldn’t be able to survive if I let every single thing affect me. But I just find it weird that I’ve been so little affected. I think back to when I was in India in January and heard about the earthquake. I cried every day that I went to the internet café and read articles about Haiti. Pray that God will reveal part of His heart to me. That my heart will break for the things that break His.
There are about 25 people on staff here at YWAM PAP. There is also a Mission Adventures (youth group mission trips) program that I going on this summer. They are staying at a church we are renting. There are quite a few staff over there as well as a couple teams of youth. We have a team from YWAM Kona here. There are 11 and they are in a PhotoGenX DTS. So they all have cameras and are uploading pictures a lot. This slows down the internet quite a bit which can get a bit frustrating for people that need to do work on the internet during the day.
I am learning a little bit more Creole. I have been talking to some of the older kids at New Life that speak good English to try to help me. Also, one of our Haitian staff, Jude, said he would like to help me with it. I told him I want to learn anpil (a lot) Creole by the time I leave in September.
I am sleeping alright in my tent on my cot. It doesn’t rain as much as I thought it was going to. May and September are the really rainy months here. It’s rained like twice since I’ve been here. The other morning I woke up confused as to where I was at. I thought I was in a real bed…then I moved and realized it was a cot and got really sad. My back/neck have still been hurting quite a bit, so if you could please remember to pray that the pain wouldn’t be so bad, I’d appreciate it.
We have worship at different tent cities every Tuesday and Thursday. This week we went to Cite Soleil and Delmas 30. Delmas 30 was really great. Jude usually leads the songs in Creole, but there is a Mission Adventures team here that has an amazing worship leader, so he did some songs in English. I held a little boy almost the whole time and he fell asleep on me. This probably did not help my back problems, but it helped my heart.
Over all things are going well. Some days (like yesterday and today) I feel like I just need a hug. Some one to hold me and say everything is ok. Pray that I will feel God doing that because I know He is.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
07/01/2010
Well the first couple of days I was here, I just kind of did whatever people were doing. Yesterday, we had a staff meeting yesterday morning. I got to meet Peterson and Lucy finally. Peterson talked a little bit about their trip to Columbia and Panama. He talked a little bit about the building they want to build on their new property. After the staff meeting, they met with a counseling team that is here for a while and the 3 new staff, including me and Hannah. They talked to each of us three about what we want to do while we are here. I am going to be taking over the housekeeping and hospitality department when the current girl leaves a week from Saturday. I will be making sure there are enough places to sleep for visitors and teams that come in. Make sure they have everything they need. I will be making a schedule for cleaning our common/bath house. Please be praying that I will be able to communicate well to the staff and teams. I will also be in charge of buying supplies for cleaning and toilet paper and things like that. I also found out today that the orphanage we are renting our building from wants us to paint it. Apparently they have been talking about painting for the last several weeks, but today a guy from the orphanage talked to me today about painting. So I have to find volunteers to help me out. I was going to get started on it this morning, but my contact left the compound, so we’ll see when it actually gets started on. We all joke about something being at a certain time, like 4 o’clock “Haitian time” which means that it probably won’t actually happen at 4. Also, Lucy told me I need to get a Haitian phone, so Hannah, Kristin (the other new staff girl), and I are going to get phones at some point today. I have not really been taking pictures, but I will try to start more.
This afternoon, we are going to a tent city called Delmas 33 to do worship with the people. I’ve heard that these times are really awesome, so I’m pretty excited!
Also, it hasn’t hardly rained since I’ve been here, which I’ve heard is really odd. I’m thankful, but I’m sure it will start again at some point.
Oh, and I almost forgot!! I'm so excited!! I talked to Lucy about going to visit Lifeline and she said that would be possible. It will have to be on a Saturday, our days off, and I will have to pay some for the gas to get there, but I will get to see my kids soon!!! Praise the Lord!!!
Thank you for your prayers!!
This afternoon, we are going to a tent city called Delmas 33 to do worship with the people. I’ve heard that these times are really awesome, so I’m pretty excited!
Also, it hasn’t hardly rained since I’ve been here, which I’ve heard is really odd. I’m thankful, but I’m sure it will start again at some point.
Oh, and I almost forgot!! I'm so excited!! I talked to Lucy about going to visit Lifeline and she said that would be possible. It will have to be on a Saturday, our days off, and I will have to pay some for the gas to get there, but I will get to see my kids soon!!! Praise the Lord!!!
Thank you for your prayers!!
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