The devastation in Haiti is immense. As a church we're praying for opportunities to help. So far God has given us the opportunity to preapre and send 50,000 meals to help address a small part of the hunger crisis, He has opened the door for us to send Amy Whipp to travel to Haiti in the initial days following the earthquake to provide medical care, then in March David Wood & Emily Sterkel served there with a team of 7 other students.
Pray: for those affected in Haiti and for those striving to help.
Love: Another huge issue that is on our hearts as a church family is the large number of orphans - some estimate there are now one million Haitian orphans. (Click Here for more info.)
Give: To give to our Haiti relief efforts, please click here.
The 50,000 meals we purchased, packed and sent to Haiti have arrived and were being distributed at Love A Child Orphanage tody - Easter Sunday of all days! Below are a few pictures of the food being distributed - and if you zoom in you can see Sugar Grove on some of the boxes. :)
Kids Around the World, the missions organization we worked with to send the meals to Haiti, is there now installing the playground that they sent with our meals. God is good!
Weather Forecast in Port-au-Prince Haiti: 95 degrees. RealFeel: 103 degrees... But despite the heat we are seeing the Lord in so many ways. He is doing wonderful things here in Haiti. Praise Jehovah!
Tonight, I will preach to about 750 men, women, and children. It will be from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. I already preached this sermon to Village about how God's Power Is the Answer to Human Weakness. It will be the gospel to the unbelieving and encouragement to the brothers and sisters to spread the message of Jesus Christ to loved ones. Pray for the Holy Spirit to speak through me as I preach a message that transcends country and language and color and social class. Just like Paul shared in this passage of 1 Cor. 2 that he preached the gospel without eloquent words, Moses brought God's message to the Israelites in Egypt without eloquent speech. In Exodus 4:10, Moses resisted God's commission by stating, "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent...," but the Lord reassured him that God has made people and even intended their inabilities. God gave Aaron as a translator to give the message of salvation to the Israelites. What is even more incredible is that the people believed despite the weakness of the speaker. This is a powerful reminder to me that the Holy Spirit can use anyone to spread news of Jesus Christ. The Israelites believed the message and worshiped God! Pray that the Spirit will cause the same reaction in the souls of these Haitians!
This song was sung on Wednesday night at the Revival meeting by two young musicians. When we first arrived, only 25 people sat in the two front rows of the church. As the worship continued, the place filled up with about 750 people. They heard the Word of the Lord and became acquainted with the Gospel and how to share Christ's message of salvation with loved ones or strangers. Right before the message, this special song set the tone for the night's tone of surrender to the Lord's perfect will. May that be the prayer of all who hear this. Please listen to the whole song, as the end is the most powerful!
David: On Tuesday morning we were able to get up and have breakfast as usual. This is typically some bread, peanut butter, fruit juice and maybe some banana. What we were able to do after breakfast was our initial plan of teaching a lesson on integrity. For example, in the case of Joseph, he had integrity even though his brother treated him wrongly, Potipher’s wife treated him wrongly, and he was accused of many things he was a man of integrity and did the right things because of his relationship with God.
Emily: It’s interesting that we were able to teach on this, because back in September when we were first starting to plan this trip before the earthquake we were planning on doing huge Vacation Bible Schools. When the earthquake happened we kind of had to drop that idea because, obviously, our whole mission and vision here was going to be different. But it was really cool that what we initially planned we were still able to use.
David: We spent some time doing that with the orphan girls who live on the compound. After that we teamed up with Bishop Juene’s son, Danny, and he is in charge of this whole ministry compound because his father’s jurisdiction stretches father, but they both still live here. Danny is in charge of, basically the mayor over one ninth of Car Four. We’ve been able to eat meals with him, talk and joke with him and one time when we were talking with him he said that we could send a good message to the people. So we did it! What we did was, we went out among the 20,000 people staying here. One of the problems is there are huge piles of rubble and it’s filthy. It’s just sitting there rotting. So we put on our boot and gloves, grabbed some shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows. We decided just to take care of this because no one else was. Danny’s vision was that maybe then the people would then think, “Hey, we should be doing that!” and then take over the responsibility for where they were living. So as we were doing it maybe 25 of us were working and about 500 people were watching. They then began taking over and saying, “This is my country. I should be taking care of it!” It was co encouraging to see them not being offended, but taking ownership of their county. They saw that if other people from another country can serve us, then I can surely serve my brothers and sisters in my own community.
Emily: I think the key is that in Haitian culture you would rather have no money than to potentially degrade yourself. So these people are in a cycle of not wanting to degrade themselves and not wanting to pick things up. We were then able to be an example of these people and show them it was okay to pick us this filth. Then today, Wednesday, we were driving back into the compound we saw the Haitian people still working on the project. That was such an encouragement to us!
David: On Sunday we were able to see a lot of things happening in the church., but on Monday we got to see the work being done in the ministry compound. The first day after the earthquake 15,000 refugees arrived on the compound seeking some place to stay. The compund is only 20 acres. There are now 20,000 refugees staying within these walls each night. The man that oversees the compound also oversees 200 churches. His name is Bishop Joel Jeune. He is basically a pastor who is supervising 200 churches instead of just one. Monday morning we visited the boys' orphanage within the compound. We were able to spend time with the boys and hang out with them. We were able to talk back and forth because we had a translator with us. It was cool to be able to encourage them and play games with them and bring smiles to their faces. It’s funny because whenever children see us the first thing they notice is that we’re white and so they always say the word for white, which is “blanc” or blank. Another section of the compound is the widow center and it’s kind of like a nursing home. We were able to give supplies to widows such as medical ointments, wraps, and various things to do.
Emily: After that we went to another section of the compound and David was able to teach a lessons on Daniel not only to the orphans in the compound but also with the street kids ran after us as we arrived in the bus. When we got back to our portion of the compound, we’re actually staying in the girls’ orphanage portion of the compound; we visited a hospital that’s part of the compound. It’s a very solid building due to the “Zero Safety Code Compromises” so they didn’t take any short cuts in the construction of the building.
David: So they were unable to get a whole lot of people in there yet, which is good because if they had taken short cuts to save money to make it open and operable sooner it probably would have collapsed on all the people in it. It’s completely in tact and we were able to go on top and see the view of the compound from there. You can actually see it in one of our videos.
Emily: The view was beautiful. We were able to also see the mountains and the oceans. That night after dinner we met a congressman from Car Four and he oversees about 1,000,000 people in Car Four (that’s the city we’re in) and he told us that he would rather America send missionaries than the military. He sees that the missionaries are more sympathetic and compassionate. The military has been helping, but the missionaries seem to be doing more good.
David: The money that goes to the military and the expenses that they have to take care of the peace does help, but more work has been done by the missionaries.
David: We’ve seen many eye opening things here in our visit and travels in Haiti. For example on Sunday a lot of cool things happened. Sunday morning we went to church in the ministry compound. One of our team members, Chris, whose name actually in Creole actually means “Christ” is one that we have to be careful of and actually say “Christopher” because it might sound offensive if we say it flippantly. He spoke and gave a sermon that Sunday to the church. It’s encouraging because there were over 1,000 people in attendance and they were all worshipping God so fervently. There was so much joy despite the circumstance. The pastor of the church lost two of his children, yet in this service he urged the congregation to repent if they had doubted God or had not kept on believing that God was In control He is loving. So on Sunday we learned more sayings in Creole and practicing them with people. Such as:
Emily: “Bonjour” means “good morning” and…
David: “Bon swa” means “good afternoon” and “s'ak Pase” means “what’s up?”
Emily: Then you answer with “map bule” which literally means “I am burning” and a lot of the Haitians believe that life is hard and you just have to get through it. “I am burning” can also mean “I am getting by.”
David: Or “I am fighting” because a lot of the things they are trying to do is just provide food. If they have a really luxurious life then they can send their kids to school and allow them to have an education.
Emily: Before the earthquake the unemployment rate was 90% and now after it is 95%. So the people who were not employed to have food and to send their kids to school would be the ideal of a good life.
David: Well, on Sunday night members from the team, including us, got to share a testimony of what God is doing in our lives with about 800 people who were attending the evening service.
Emily: It was an interesting concept because our team leader, Welson, who is Haitian, had to translate into Creole for us. So that was an interesting experience that none of us had ever experienced before.
David: It’s amazing to see the people who know God in Haiti still worshipping God despite things literally crashing down. They don’t have houses and maybe have one pair of clothes. It’s just beautiful to see.
Here are some travel pics. We're safely in Miami. We had a flat tire and near vomiting but we regained hydration and weren't delayed - Praise the Lord! We also had to dump some deet repellent and sunscreen, but we made it through security to Miami. We leave for Haiti at 1:35PM!
We made it here safely to the Grace Village compound in Haiti. Our hearts are heavy after seeing the devastation and poverty that has been multiplied by the quakes. Imagine a wet marsh the size of our church parking lot filled with two tarp tents per parking spot. There are people everywhere seeking shelter. Their reality continues to be a camping weekend gone wrong. Despite this tragedy, praises to the Almighty can be heard at night. The ministry compound's church has rescheduled Sunday School to meet earlier at 7 AM because of the many people seeking God. We are continually reminded that while the task of rescuing Haiti is not humanly possible, the task of rescuing Haiti is not ours. God has designed history with a plan of love and redemption and He is capable of all things. Those who serve Him should never look to themselves for the standard of success. To invent our own ideal of succeeding by giving Haitians the American dream or worldly happiness would be idolatry and demoralizing to those attempting the task. While we cannot mastermind a plan of social healing, we can worship the Master with the service He has in mind. Being faithful to His calling saves us from aiming for worldly standards of self-righteous self-approval. We just received word that we will hold Revival meetings for the rest of the week. The church holds 1000 people, but has had significantly larger attendance since many refugees still chose to praise God for His goodness, glory, and grace. Please pray for our team as we preach every night during the daily 6-9 revival meetings. Pray for humility and power from the Spirit of God. He ways of working are innumerable! -David Wood and Emily Sterkel
Please remember to pray for David Wood and Emily Sterkel as they spread the love and Gospel of Jesus to the people of Haiti.
From March 6th through the 16th, they will be ministering in Haiti with 7 other Moody Bible Institute students. They are planning to minister to refugees staying at a ministry compound in Carrefour, the recent earthquake’s epicenter.
Lord willing, they will:
Provide 16 families with much needed tents (shelter).
Distribute 2,000 Gospel tracts in Creole (common language).
Preach translated sermons on both Sundays of our trip.
Demonstrate Christ’s love through manual labor, construction efforts, and food/water distribution.
Supply permanent ministry leaders with post-traumatic-stress-disorder education and counseling materials in Creole.
Bring hope to those we encounter through our prayers, presence, and power of the Holy Spirit.
Additionally, please intercede on the behalf of those in Haiti who need Jesus and have physical needs. Pray that:
God would use our availability and efforts to demonstrate the saving love of Jesus Christ.
The message of Jesus Christ would penetrate the needy hearts.
The Holy Spirit would fill our team and be at work in every opportunity we encounter.
The physical needs of the people would be met as God desires.
