{"id":1802,"date":"2012-10-07T19:50:29","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T00:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=1802"},"modified":"2012-10-11T17:46:04","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T22:46:04","slug":"the-greatest-journey-and-other-blessings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=1802","title":{"rendered":"“The Greatest Journey” and Other Blessings!"},"content":{"rendered":"

16th Haiti Trip – Vol. III –\u00a0September 20, 2012<\/p>\n

We wanted to update you on other events from this last trip as well, the first one particularly exciting for us. \u00a0One day while Bill was gone to get something fixed on the truck, Mike from Samaritan\u2019s Purse walked up to our house.\u00a0 He had gone with Bill to the mountains when we passed out the Operation Christmas Child boxes in Dec. of last year.<\/p>\n

Mike had Cenot with him, the Haitian director of Operation Christmas Child<\/strong> in Haiti.\u00a0 We visited for 30 minutes about the schools in the mountains and other things.\u00a0 I told him about the Christian Character classes we were teaching the children.\u00a0 Mike told me about a 12 weeks Bible Lesson booklet, The Greatest Journey<\/strong>, in Creole that they had for children. He said they would give us 500 of them for our schools!<\/p>\n

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Cenot introducing our teachers to “The Greatest Journey” course from Samaritan’s Purse.<\/p><\/div>\n

On Monday we picked up the courses and Cenot returned on Tuesday to teach our teachers about teaching the course.\u00a0 The booklets come with teachers manuals, completion certificates, AND A CREOLE NEW TESTAMENT<\/em> <\/strong>for each child who completes the course!\u00a0 We are so blessed and grateful to have another way to teach the children about the love of God! \u00a0And to have that many Bibles ending up in the mountains where books are so scarce for the children to read is a huge blessing!!<\/p>\n

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B.J., Jessica, Naomi, Isaac, Susannah, and Skip with our friend Sonel<\/p><\/div>\n

As I mentioned in the previous update, Skip Lindsey\u2019s team came for 10 days.\u00a0 They went to the mountains with us helping with things there.\u00a0 But while we were at the base, they did some badly needed work.\u00a0 B.J. led the team in framing up the closets and installing shelves.\u00a0 We rejoiced to finally be able to do a little organization.<\/p>\n

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We also put the floor in the second story of the breezeway making it safe and useable. \u00a0What a great place to spread out your sleeping mat as the breeze comes across from the lake. \u00a0B.J. cut out four of the spaces for windows and put them on hinges so we could open them to get some breeze through the rooms.\u00a0 The team made such a difference in the base for us!<\/p>\n
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The new floor upstairs, a great place to sleep!<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

During all of this, the small interactions God brings our way whenever we\u2019re in Haiti continued.\u00a0 Below are a few examples of what goes on every time we are in Haiti. The water well in our front yard is continually crowded with people from the community.\u00a0 The children and people come, pumping water continually all day and carrying it home on their heads. \u00a0Bill often walks out to talk with them as they wait their turn to pump the water.<\/p>\n

Two of the men who help us with concrete work had losses during Tropical Storm Isaac.\u00a0 Daibon had worked for two weeks to repay a loan we gave him to buy a cow.\u00a0 During the storm, the cow was carried away in the flood.\u00a0 Many people\u2019s animals drowned in the flood, a serious economic loss for them.\u00a0 Pappi\u2019s house in the mountains was destroyed.\u00a0 We loaned him some money to get some concrete to put a shelter together for himself and his family which he will work off when we return.<\/p>\n

A woman whose house contents had burned came for help.\u00a0 We were able to give her some things, including sheets and towels.\u00a0 Interestingly, she was most excited about a bottle of body wash we gave her!\u00a0 Savon (soap) is sometimes hard to come by for poor Haitians.<\/p>\n

Manolo and Juani have been going with us on most trips to the mountains and have seen the needs there.\u00a0 We are grateful that they have decided to hire a teacher to give reading lessons to the adults in the three towns where our schools are located!!\u00a0 This is a wonderful thing for those communities.\u00a0 The teacher will be giving lessons in the afternoons after the children\u2019s school is out.<\/p>\n

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Hannah and Brett in the mountains of Haiti.<\/p><\/div>\n

This trip also found us saying goodbye to Hannah Hamilton and Brett Murray who have been such a blessing to JUST MERCY<\/span><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/strong>the past year. \u00a0Hannah has stayed at Yvrose’s the last several months helping her children literally make paper to make cards out of to sell to help support themselves. \u00a0Brett stayed at our place and helped them build benches, shelves, helped Manolo and Juani build their new little house, and repaired the water catchment system on the school in Pelerin. \u00a0Both of them have gone to the mountains on medical missions trips, passed out shoes in the mountains, and worked on numerous other projects, blessing all of us greatly during their year long commitment to Haiti. \u00a0They will be sorely missed!!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jolius, our Haitian friend who got us involved in the mountains, told us last week that some people of Pelerin are coming to the school on Sundays to study the Bible with two of our teachers leading the class. \u00a0This is a new development and we are really excited about this. \u00a0The school in Pelerin is in desperate need of repair or replacement also and as there is no church building in Pelerin, one of our hopes is to build one there also.<\/p>\n

Right now, we are beginning to raise funds to replace the church\/school in Chapelle that was destroyed by Isaac.\u00a0 Our goal is to raise $20,000 by January so we can begin the project.\u00a0 We already have someone who will match any donation up to $5000 so if you can possibly help with this, any size, small or large, we would be grateful.\u00a0 Bags of concrete are $8, not $4 like in the U.S.\u00a0 Then they have to be taken to the trail head, hauled up the mountains on mules, and made into concrete blocks up there or used as mortar for rocks. \u00a0The metal for the roof will cost between $2000 and $4000 depending on the final size of the building. \u00a0We hope to be able to make this a multi-purpose building that includes a storage facility\/depot for us to use while we are in the mountains. \u00a0We currently have to haul up everything we need every trip and haul it back down. \u00a0A cistern will also need to be built and a latrine. \u00a0 All in all, it will be quite a project.<\/p>\n

The people of the mountains have brought sticks\/poles and used pieces of the destroyed cholera tent canvas to provide some shade for the Chapelle school.\u00a0 The children are meeting under that to have school.\u00a0 We hope to replace the destroyed building with a church that would be used as the school.\u00a0 Please spread the word and help us raise the money to accomplish this task by forwarding this post on to your friends and telling them of the work of JUST MERCY<\/span><\/em><\/strong> and the need for the church\/school. \u00a0You can also spread the word by liking this post on the link below for FB. \u00a0Lord willing, with your help, we can accomplish this.<\/p>\n

We are grateful for your prayers and help.\u00a0 May God bless you.<\/p>\n

For other pictures\u00a0related\u00a0to this trip click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16th Haiti Trip – Vol. III –\u00a0September 20, 2012 We wanted to update you on other events from this last trip as well, the first one particularly exciting for us. \u00a0One day while Bill was gone to get something fixed on the truck, Mike from Samaritan\u2019s Purse walked up to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1805,"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-1802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802","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=1802"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1812,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions\/1812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}