May 12th Christa Story

Christa stole our hearts. She caught my eye as her young mother attempted to stabilize her in a broken chair so that she could feed her some sort of liquid. As Christa struggled to sit up, her mom began to lose patience. As I walked towards the crying baby, my smile was greeted by a warm but somewhat meek smile from her exasperated mom. Instinctively, I reached out to touch Christa and began to gently stroke her dirt covered arm. Her eyes wandered to meet mine and it became clear to me that she was born with some developmental disabilities. Within moments, Christa's tears turned to a smile and then giggles. Funny how love and laughter transcends all languages. She captured my heart. As I flirted with this beautiful and helpless child, Robenson, CIL's Haitian teacher and translator, communicated with her mom to learn that she is scoffed at and chastised by others because her baby is different. Her innocent eyes welling with painfulness, this teenage, jobless, homeless, husbandless mom of a severely malnourished and disabled child told Robenson of her anguish and hopelessness.

Christa's story is not unlike many children living in Haiti today. Her living conditions and malnutrition are not unlike most children living in Haiti today. Children's International Lifeline has "adopted" this tent city and two others like it totaling more than 8,000-10,000 people. Unimaginable, but they estimate that there are more than 1.2 million people without homes and living in conditions like these, more than half of them children! With every tent city that we visit and multiple others that we see along the road and hillsides, the same questions arise. "Where do they get water? What about toilets? How do they get food to eat? How do they survive? When these tents crumble and the people of Haiti are forgotten...who will help them?"

The good news is that several families have a dry shelter due to the tents that Orphan’s Promise provided to this and other tent cities. Today, we delivered “love bundles” full of hygiene items, clothing, towels, toys, peanut butter and such to this tent city. A crowd of people quickly encircled the Children’s International Lifeline truck as we arrived. More and more people lined up as we handed out the packages as swiftly and as orderly as possible. Christian gave a devotional and prayed a blessing over the people giving glory to the God who promises them a hope and a future in the midst of this horrific devastation. All glory and honor and praises and blessings to you, Lord.

Day 1 in Haiti-Port-Au-Prince. Searching for a building!

We are anticipating some good stuff out of this trip! We are so blessed to be friends with Children’s International Lifeline (Donald Curtis) and Northwest Haiti Christian Mission (Janeil Owen). Donald took the team to see some buildings for a prosthetics facility in PAP. We took a lot of photos and video footage of the flattened buildings and massive destruction in Port-Au-Prince. We have been praying for God to show all of us clearly what He wants to get done during our trip to help the children of Haiti. The devastation was incredible and it was amazing to see these buildings and think that there are still people entombed inside of the rubble.

We spent a good portion of the day assessing potential buildings to house a prosthetics and orthotics facility in Port-Au-Prince. We saw five buildings, at least two that would work for this project. The up side on both of these locations was the fact that they had second floors with rooms that could house Americans and others that would be fitting the Haitians with the prostheses.

After a long day we headed back to Children’s International Lifeline (CIL) and visited one of the outlying and very poor tent cities. Orphan’s Promise was able to team up with CIL to provide camping tents to house many of the families living there. In most tent cities, the people are living in makeshift coverings made from sticks with plastic draped over to provide some sort of protection from the elements. Now, 4 months after the earthquake, the plastic has holes in it and in many cases torn and barely providing any sort of covering. The reality is that many of these children have lost their parents and other family members as a result of the earthquake and have been relocated to these primitive communities away from all that is comforting to them.

Precious children like Christa, just barely 1 year old but with the stature of a 6 month old, living in her tent with her 16 year old mom… more to come when we return to the mission.

Hanging in Ft. Lauderdale Airport

Colleen and I flew from Dayton to Atlanta and hooked up with Yuri Khomyak who came in from Virgina Beach. We went on to fly to Ft. Lauderdale, grabbed 2-3 hours of sleep and are now ready to fly to Haiti at 7:30am this am. We'll be looking for a building that will accommodate a prosthetic facility. There are over 200,000 Haitian that have lost a limb in the earthquake, so there is a real need for this type of work in Port-Au-Prince. We will also be heading to the Hotel Montana to get some photos and footage of a statue of Jesus that has no hands (a reminder that we are to be the hands and the feet) . We may also be heading to a very large tent city with over 6000 people to hand out "Love Bundles" for the people in need. Thank you all for your prayers for this trip, we really appreciate them. Love to our children, thank you for all the people that helped us out by taking care of our kids and dogs at such late notice. Yuri says hi to Nat and the girls!!! Love you all

Schedule for Haiti is Taking Shape

• Wednesday, May 12: Arrive in PAP at 9:30am.
o Look for prosthetics and orthotics building
o Connect with Corrigan Clay. He is in Demas 75
• Thursday, May 13:
o Visit building for orphans (kids in tents)
o Visit tent city in PAP
• Friday, May 14tho Fly to PDP-11am
o Go to NWCHM-Visit Miriam Center and children.
o Talk to Courtney about new building and vision of project
• Saturday, May 15th
o Spend time with children in Miriam Center and Mission
o Head to Bonneau Property
• Sunday, May 16tho Head back to PAP 1pm
o Meet with Gary LaBlanc and Mercy Chef Team
• Monday, May 17th
o Head to airport early and leave for FLL

Getting Ready for Haiti

Getting ready to leave for Haiti. I fly out Tuesday night to Ft. Lauderdale and catch a hotel with Yuri that night. We have a 7am flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Port-Au-Prince the next morning and will be in Haiti by 9:30am. We will be spending the first two days in Port-Au-Prince looking for a building for a prostheses facility and visiting some tent cities. We also be outside of PAP to visit a group of orphans that Life Church and Orphans Promise helped build with cooperation with Children's Lifeline International(thank you Donald Curtis). We will then take a flight to Northwest Haiti to visit our partners at Northwest Christian Haiti Mission. We will be taking some footage of a project for special needs orphans that will one day house over 100 children. We really appreciate your prayers and your support by following us on our journey. We will be trying to update our blog and post film and photos each day. God Bless www.orphanspromise.com

Christian Alliance For Orphans-Orphan Summit VI

Colleen and I just returned from the Orphan Summit in Minneapolis that was held on April 29th and 30th. It was a spectacular gathering of ministries and organizations and ordinary people to share what God is doing in response to James 1:27. The conference was overflowing with information about orphan care, adoption and foster care. Some of the speakers included John Piper (Bethlehem Church), Mary Beth Chapman (Show Hope), Tom Davis (A Child's Hopechest) and many others. There was worship music from the Desperation Band and Steven Curtis Chapman. We were encouraged and blessed to be with 1200 other believers that have a similiar passion for helping the least of these. For more information on how to help orphans here in the United States and around the world, please see the offical Orphans Promise web-site at www.orphanspromise.org

Haitian Orphans Have a New Home!

Last week we got an update and some photos from Donald Curtis of the building that was mentioned in the last blog. Thank you Children's Lifeline, Life Church West Chester, Orphans Promise and all the people that donated to this project. All the parents and children that stayed out in the cold for "The Great Sleep Out" and raised money going door to door, all your work has paid off for these wonderful children. It is amazing how God works, the building could have been built before the earthquake, but it was not, and it now provides a wonderful home for many Haiti orphans. I will be in Haiti on May 12th to May 17th and will be able to see the great work of the Lord. God is good and there is so much more work to do for him.