Haiti team is home!!

We arrived home very late last night!!! Thanks to all those that met us at the airport!!!

We are tired but very happy and blessed to have been used by God for the last 9 days!!! God truly was with us every second and we could feel every prayer!!! Keep checking the blog every now and then as as I have time I will be adding a few more pictures and a few videos if I can get them from a few key people? God put an awsesome team together and each person was able use their gifts to further God's kingome. Thank you to everyone that prayed for us, helped us financially. These trips cannot be done without all of you!!! We have some great stories and cannot wait to share them!!!!

Marge had the memory verse and snack rotation
Pictures in the village
We tried to get a picture of how hard it was raining
This was a picture of the crowd that was waiting to get in
the gate for carnival.

VBS went so well and was so much fun!! The kids really seemed to
enjoy it!!!

Haiti pictures

Riding to Barbencourt



We were able to help hand out the food at Barbencourt

The team walking back

Lance and Aaron's station was games
Theresa and Brenda had the movie room

Some of the team took a walk to Barbencourt

VBS kids singing

Everyday VBS would start out and end with the kids singing songs. It was so awesome to see. The kids always sing full out and are really loud!!!

VBS

We would do two days of VBS and on the 2nd day Lance would give the salvation message and ask the kids if they wanted to receive Jesus. It was always so incredible. I tried to caputre a little bit on video.

Degage, God, and our purpose

Hello all!
Sorry we did not post yesterday. It was raining so hard we could not get the site to come up. I will try to fill you in as much as possible and then later we will try to post some pictures as we have had problems with that as well. It is hot. I mean real hot, but the biggest thing is the rain. It's not like it rains all the time, usually later in the afternoon it gets dark, and then the heavens open up. Yesterday, it rained harder than it has before. Unfortunantly we were in the trucks on our way back from an afternoon of regrouping at the resort. It was going okay until the windshield wiper on our truck went flying off. Troy was way ahead of us and did not see us stop. When I (Nate) stopped the truck and everyone in the back ( Yes, the open back) of the truck thought I was being funny. I could not see it was raining so hard and the last thing you want to do is drive on a Haitian road without seeing. So Lance and I surveyed the situation and after we realized there was no way to fix the wiper, we decided to degage. This is a Haitian saying that means make it work, soooooo Lance crawled out on top of the truck so he could wipe the windshield by hand. I got inside the truck and all we saw was this hand with a wiper in it going across the windshield. We all laughed so hard I could not drive for like five minutes. You should have seen the Haitian's faces when they saw a blan on top of a truck wiping the windshield. It was great!! When we caught up to Troy, he came to tell us the road was washed out but did not see Lance right away, when he did he about fell over laughing. We then had to go off the road to park outside the gate, as we drove in I hit a rut about two feet deep. In slow motion we watched Lance roll of the top, then off the hood, then on the ground. There was a nervous hush in the truck until Lance got up cheering with his hands in the air. We then were all rolling with laughter again. The things we do for the gospel!!
God is once again moving today. The new kids came in and are even more excited and ready than the last. We have great video we will try to post later.
I must tell you one story though. Robinson came and said that a couple boys had forged a ticket to come in. He was going to send them away. We did not feel right about this so I went to talk to them. We brought them in and they were so scared to have to meet me. I asked them if they wanted to come in because they wanted to hear about Jesus. They said YES!! I asked them if they were going to make trouble. They said NO!! I said then if you want to learn about Jesus we want you here, you may come in. Their faces lit up like I have never seen. I walked up with them and put my arm around them and they were just overwhelmed that they were welcomed. God is good. Another little girl walked in with a track that we had handed out last time, all worn and tattered, because she had no Bible, that was what she had.
Please keep your prayers coming. Souls ARE being added to the Kingdom this week. It is humbling and awesome that God would have us here to participate.
You are reading less than 1% of what is happening so be ready for us when we return. :(
We love you all. We ALL have a job to do for the Lord, look to HIM for strength!!

Busy Busy Busy!!

Hello all from Haiti. We are trying to update the blog as much as possible, but we are busy from sun up until way past sundown. Today was a great day, we wrapped up our first VBS. It was a huge success. It went way better than we could ever have expected. The kids were running in excited to come for another day. At one point I was outside and could hear kids excited voices coming from all different directions. Today we focused on the sacrifice of Christ. When the kids were watching the Jesus film, they would stare intently at the screen after Jesus' death, and when he was raised from the dead they would yell JEZI!! (Jesus) . At the closing Lance told them about the love of the father and how they could be a child of God. We then asked them to close there eyes and raise thier hands if they wanted Jesus in their hearts. We were all shocked when almost all of them raised thier hand!!! It has been an incredible trip and it is only Tuesday! We also walked to Barbencourt and spent some time in the village of La Digue. We met many great people. It was great to see the kids from VBS and spend time with them at thier homes. We even got a little physical work done around the mission. This team is great and are all working together really well. You would almost think God put this team together. ( You think?)
We are all healthy and full of energy, even though it is very hot and humid. Tomorrow is very full again, but we will have some time in the afternoon to kick back and enjoy some swimming and snorkeling in the ocean. We will try to post some pictures later. Thank you for all your prayers. Keep them up, God is defenantly moving here, BIG TIME!!

We also spent some time tonight at Cabaret kids orphanage. Once a month they do a birthday party for the kids birthday's that month and they waited until we came down to do this. What a fun time of playing with the kids and just spending time holding them!!!

We went to a school today and and we took pictures, heights and weights of the children. These children will be able to be sponsored very soon. The kids were so much fun and we had a great time interacting with the kids.

Just a few VBS pictures. The kids were so receptive and well behaved!!!



These girls were a part of the drama rotation. The girl in the green shirt with her head turned is really Tori!!

Our twins for the day! They had no idea that they were going to dress alike!!!

The church in Luly gave us this fruit as a gift!!!

Pictures from yesterday at church. The internet connection has been a little slower so it is taking a lot longer to get things uploaded. I will try to just put a bunch of pictures up and I hope to have a longer update about bible school soon. I will say that it went well and that we had about 150 kids. There were only a few small issues that went on. One of them being our projector overheated and we had to really improvise but God is soooooo good!!!

Some Monday VBS Pics

Check out some pictures from Monday's VBS here and here, too.

Hello from Haiti

After a 2 hour sit on the plane in Miami (a passenger not showing up and they had to get one piece of luggage off the plane due to security reasons. Imagine human hands having to find one bag out of hundreds of pieces of luggage or more) we arrived in Haiti at 6:30 pm our time instread of 4:00pm. We were all very tired and we had a 2 hour ride back to the mission in the pitch black but we made it very safely and only little sore from the ride. We had a wonderful Authentic Kreyold meal and then pretty much went to bed.

This morning we were all a litt more awake and we went to the church in Luly this morning. It was an amazing day. You can always fell God at this little church near the Ocean. It turned out that the convention that we raised money for was actually today and we were all there to take part in this!!! Wow! It was also the church's 14th birthday. There was a wedding, a baby dediction, 2 baptisms (in the early morning before we arrived). Nate was asked to pray for the wedding and the baby dediction and it was so neat to just be a part of all this. There was ton of singing and it was incredible!!! It gives me goosebumps everytime we take part in these services and it is also very humbling to know that God called each one of us to Haiti and this time and to take part. They knew were coming so they deciced to have the convetion when we were there. Church was packed and after 3 hours it was Nate's time to preach! It went so well and the truth was spoken and please pray that hearts were opened and that some of those that were there would come to call Christ, their Lord and savior. Its has been raining and thunderstorming but the storms here are awesome!!!! We are getting ready for our first day of bible school tomorrow. Lots of preperation but we are all in high spirits and feeling great!! Thanks for the prayers. They are being felt!!!!! Hopefully we will be able to get some pictures on soon. We had some really fun times today with the Haitians!!!!

Sunday Morning

See this Livesay blog entry for some pictures of the team heading off to church Sunday morning.

- Chad

They have arrived....

According to the Livesay blog, the team has arrived safely in Haiti! Big praise!!

- Chad B.

Things we will be doing in Haiti

This is the church in Luly!!

Saturday: Arrive at airport no later than 5:00am. Arrive at Lifelines around 6:30pm Get settled, have supper, go over guidelines and rules, and try to get a good nights sleep.

Sunday: Leave for church in Luly around 8:30am. Nate will be preaching, so please be in prayer that the message is well received. Dinner at church. Arrive back at Lifelines around 1:00pm. Take tour of mission and village and prepare for VBS.

Monday and Tuesday: 8:30-1:00pm VBS. Afternoons and evenings will be filled with work projects, trips to orphanages and medical clinic, and door to door evangelism.

Wednesday: Morning is open for projects. 12:00 we will go to the resort for swimming, snorkeling, and dinner around 4:00pm. Back to Mission around 6:30pm

Thursday: VBS in Morning. Afternoon projects and preparing for shower. Evening baby shower for Tara.

Friday: VBS in Morning. Preparation for carnival in afternoon. Carnival late afternoon, and Jesus film in village at night.

Saturday: Misc. Activities. Hike up mountain to Petit Bwa. Open market in the afternoon. Wrap up projects. Pack for departure and clean up in evening.

Sunday: Depart La Digue around 7:30am. Arrive in GR around 10:25pm

This is a tentative schedule that most likely will change but gives us an idea of what we will be going day to day.

Haiti Itinerary August 4-12th 2007

Haiti trip
August 4-12, 2007

SAT AUG 04 American Airlines
4152 Lv Grand Rapids 705A
American eagle Ar Chicago 700A

SAT AUG 04 American Airlines 1048
Lv Chicago 810A
Ar Miami 1210P

SAT AUG 04 American Airlines 803
Lv Miami 235p
Ar Port Au Prince 335p

SUN AUG 12 American Airlines 1988
Lv Port Au Prince 1105A
Ar Ft. Lauderdale 205p
Lv Ft. Lauderdale 330p
Ar Dallas/Ft. Worth 530p

SUN AUG 12 American Airlines 3781
Lv Dallas/Ft. Worth 700p
Ar Grand Rapids 1025p

Pray for safe travel home for Kenya team

The Kenya team left this morning for home. Pray for safe travels and no lost luggage!

They should be arriving home on Saturday. Here is there last flight details.



AR GRAND RAPIDS MI 234
PNORTHWEST1752L

New update from Kenya team!

We are all well and are on our way back to Nairobi.
We had a wonderful weekend with the people in the Sijoa area.
God blessed our time with them and they were very thankful to see the Jesus film
and learn more about the Bible. We showed the film 5 different times at 4 locations.
And had a wonderful Sunday worship service at the Sijoa church.

Overall the impact of our mission trip has been great and we praise God for using us
to strengthen the churches here in Kenya. The Sijoa church (which was a very discouraged
church and nearly falling apart) rejoiced at the fact that God brought visitors who pointed them
to the faithfullness of God!

Thank you for sending us and keeping us in your prayers.

The Kenya Team from Lighthouse Community Church

Tom, Rob, Darrick and Sango

Sango, Shane and Walter giving a final word and some Bible gifts to the people at the Sijoa church.
Rob playing guitar and Tom singing praise songs at the Sijoa church
Using the Bible Story Cloth at the Sijoa church.
Using the Bible Story Cloth at Sango’s village.
Showing the Jesus film at the Mambia Friends Church.

Tom and Darrick setting up for showing the Jesus Film at the Magogongo church
Children from the Sigulu Primary School thanking us for the scripture booklets
The local orphans wearing Special Ministry T-shirts they were given.

Rhinos at the Nakuru National Park.

The Lighthouse Team at the Equator

Walter and Shane standing by the Special Ministries sign at Chippema Hope Center.
Tom sharing pictures with the children outside the church.