Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for your prayers while we were in Haiti! The entire team was protected, blessed, and encouraged while traveling to, serving in, and traveling home from Haiti. Above are 48 of about 7000 pictures that were taken during our 7 day trip. The following is a quick recap of what we experienced. [captions to the pictures will help you follow our trip]

We were suppose to fly out at 6am Tuesday morning, however, due to bad weather in FL, and no notice from the airline until we reached JFK, our team stood in the airport at 4am to be told that our flight was postponed till the following morning at 6am. Everyone graciously accepted this and we returned to our beds for much needed sleep and met up again at 1:30am to do it all again!

The following morning was successful and we arrived in the DR at 9:30am, drove to the boarder and arrived at around noon to the welcoming arms of Joseph Israel, Mack and Bob. I was so excited to introduce this team to my long time friends.

Our first day was spent walking to the mission house, unpacking and settling in to our new home. I continued to introduce the team to our Haitian team and that night we all experienced our first meal of rice & beans, with Willy’s special red sauce, fresh mangos, plantains and chicken.

There was so much that we experienced during our short stay in Ounaminthe. I personally experienced some ‘first’ that I had not in my prior 6 trips.

There are more paved roads throughout Ounaminthe than there were in November. Fire hydrants, stop signs and police trucks surprised me as we rode through the street to get to the Aslan property in Lac’ajue!

When we visited Danita’s orphanage I was amazed to see the 3 additional houses now built on the land, which will house the children in a more”family style” setting, and the medical clinic is much closer to completion.

As a team, we all experienced many, many firsts… We handed out LuminAID solar Lanterns to our friends and Haitian family. There is no electricity in Lac’ajue, so imagine receiving “light”. When we handed one to Joseph, he jumped out of his chair inside the mission house, ran outside to his small office located next to the bathroom, quickly unlocked the door and sat down behind his desk while putting the lantern on his head! You would have thought you just gave him a million dollars. It was priceless.

We also handed out Charles Stanley’s The Messager Bible in French. This solar powered device allows our friends to listen to 35 of Charles Stanley’s messages.

All of our arts & crafts and hats for the children and helpers at Bible Camp were donated, and received with such joy. Introducing a slip & slide was one of my personal highlights at Bible Camp. These children never saw one and despite a couple glitches, they had a ball each day!

Erik was a blessing to the children at Bible Camp by preparing object lessons for teaching each day. As well as, he and Jaylin & Meghan did a clown skit called “Going to Heaven” at our church service on Sunday, which was received with laughter and excitement by the 250 children.

We walked through the village of Lac’ajue and handed out baby food and clothes to some of the families as well as prayed for them. We visited my friend Gentila, who is very ill, and prayed over her as well. We were also able to assist her in going to the doctors and receiving medical attention.

 We brought down many duffels full of school supplies that we organized at the mission house for distribution in the fall.

Before leaving, through a wonderful donation, we were able to start a feeding program in Lac’ajue for 50 families [331 people]. For only $14 a month, a family will be fed 28 lbs of rice. What a blessing it was to be those to hand out such a gift to people who are starving.

There were many, many more memories surrounding this trip, but I believe these are the best highlights to share now. A DVD of the trip will be available soon on our blog.

I am so proud of each person on this team. I can not express the thankfulness in my heart for their service to the people of Haiti. I can not wait to take them down again. And thank you to ALL who contributed to the success of this trip. Jesus was truly glorified, needs were met and new perspectives were formed to now be shared among more of our friends and family.

Just One Drop,

Pam