{"id":123,"date":"2011-12-23T05:31:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T11:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=123"},"modified":"2012-06-24T12:25:02","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T17:25:02","slug":"the-journey-of-the-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"The Journey of the Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"

11th Haiti Trip – Vol. II<\/h3>\n

Bill was due to come home from Haiti on Dec.\u00a0 14th\u00a0but on Monday the 12th\u00a0he found out that Samaritan\u2019s Purse was going to give us nearly 500 of their Operation Christmas Child gift boxes for the children going to our three schools in the mountains!!\u00a0 We were so excited!<\/p>\n

It was going to be a HUGE undertaking!\u00a0 Picking up the boxes from SP\u2019s facility north of PAP, getting them to the trail head, procuring 30 mules and horses to pack them onto, buying food and taking it up to feed nearly 600 people, and arranging to get everyone together for the distribution, etc. was going to be a chore!!\u00a0\u00a0 But what a JOY to get to do it!\u00a0 So Bill cancelled his flight and began the work of getting this done.<\/p>\n

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Loading up at the trail head<\/p><\/div>\n

We received help initially from New Hope Haiti Mission.\u00a0 They provided a truck on Thursday to go north of PAP, pick up the boxes and four staff members from Samaritan\u2019s Purse who were going with us into the mountains for the distribution, and take the boxes to our house in Fonds-Parisein.\u00a0 Victory Compassion provided a truck on Friday morning at 4:30 am to take the boxes to the trailhead.\u00a0 What an experience to get all those boxes loaded onto mules and horses for the trek up the mountain.<\/p>\n

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Children gathered<\/p><\/div>\n

We had sent the food up earlier in the day so that it could get started cooking as we wanted to feed everyone.\u00a0 We had the children come from all three locations to Robia for the distribution.\u00a0 Many of them had to walk a few hours to get there.\u00a0 We arrived around 1:30 pm.\u00a0 The food was not ready yet and all the children were gathered in and around a church building.\u00a0 Bill had an opportunity to talk with them (Yvrose translating), telling them about the gift of the people who filled the boxes,\u00a0 the gift of the people who shipped them to Haiti, the gift of those who contributed to getting the boxes up the mountains, the journey those boxes had taken getting to them, all because God\u2019s people wanted to share His love with them!\u00a0 Then he told them about the greatest gift of all, God\u2019s son, Jesus!<\/p>\n

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Children with their Christmas boxes<\/p><\/div>\n

Finally the food was ready and everybody ate before the distribution of the boxes.\u00a0 This event was probably the biggest thing that had ever happened to these children who live with next to nothing in the mountains of Haiti. We are SO grateful to Samaritan\u2019s Purse and all the other people in Haiti who helped make this happen for sharing their love for God with us and these children!!\u00a0 The distribution was not completed until nearly dark and many of the children had far to go, but no one was unhappy about it.<\/p>\n

Bill had kept some boxes back.\u00a0 They loaded up the mules, and set out for Pelerin in the dark where they were all going to spend the night at Jolius\u2019 parent\u2019s home.\u00a0 The next morning, the SP staff along with Yvrose and the children that had come with her headed down the mountain.\u00a0 Bill, our girls, and some Haitian helpers continued on to Pensek, another three hours across the mountains.\u00a0 He had a special visit to make.<\/p>\n

On the way to Pensek, he passed out some Christmas boxes to children he met on the trail.\u00a0 His goal in Pensek was to take a Christmas box to Adrienne, the young lady with the bent body we talked about in the last update.\u00a0 He also wanted to take pictures of her to bring back to the states to talk to a doctor here and see if anything can be done to help her.<\/p>\n

After the visit, Bill headed back down the mountain with our girls and Haitian helpers, arriving at the trail head after dark, exhausted, but so grateful for an amazing experience!!!\u00a0 We are thankful to God for allowing all of it to happen!!<\/p>\n

Here is the\u00a0slide show of the event on You Tube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The truck had been returned on Thursday but we had not gotten the papers we needed to drive it legally.\u00a0 So Bill went to get them on Monday.\u00a0 Those guys had obeyed the order to give us our truck but told Bill that to get the papers, he would have to give them $6000!!\u00a0 We could not believe it.\u00a0 We knew that was not what the director of customs had intended when he called them and told them to give us the truck.\u00a0 He had told Bill this never should have happened.\u00a0 Now when Bill goes back in January, he will have to try to get into that office again, which is not easy, and ask the director to intervene once again.\u00a0 Please continue to pray about this situation.<\/p>\n

We hope you all have a blessed Christmas with your families, thanking the Lord for your blessings, especially the gift of Jesus.\u00a0 He is the reason we continue to seek to bless the people of Haiti.\u00a0 For all of you who pray and\/or support us, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.\u00a0 May God bless you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11th Haiti Trip – Vol. II Bill was due to come home from Haiti on Dec.\u00a0 14th\u00a0but on Monday the 12th\u00a0he found out that Samaritan\u2019s Purse was going to give us nearly 500 of their Operation Christmas Child gift boxes for the children going to our three schools in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}