Day 5

Greetings from Haiti! We are winding down day 5 of our trip with 2 more to go in country. We will leave early Monday to fight the chaos at the airport and are scheduled to arrive in New York around 6 pm Monday evening. Our flight to Cincinnati leaves early Tuesday morning out of New York, but thanks to some wonderful soul who donated 2 hotel rooms our team will have beds to sleep on and showers with hot water Monday night! This reminds me of a very important point that Sam made this morning during upper room. Everything that has happened, and continues to happen on this trip is to God's glory, but it is a team effort. Everyone back home who has prayed for this team and this trip, everyone who gave any love offerings to cover some of our expenses, those who helped us prepare and pack for our trip, those who are caring for our children so we could come, those in our workplaces who are carrying some extra weight this week in our absences, and those who are helping us here with transportation, translation, and meals have been and continue to be a critical part of this team. We thank God for you! Every celebration we have in our team here is a celebration you should also feel part of. We could not be here ministering to these wonderful people without your love and support.

Ryan led upper room this morning and we talked about Psalm 19:1; Psalm 20; and Hebrews 11:1, 6. We all have such amazing opportunities to plant seeds in the lives of others, and we will never know this side of heaven how much influence we have had on the lives of others. But we know we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ on this earth. After morning devotion and breakfast we headed out for our last morning of VBS. We went out in 2 teams this morning to two different churches. We did skits of Bible stories, played jump rope, made salvation bracelets, and just loved on the kids. What an amazing end to VBS - between the two churches our team led 30 children to Christ today!

After getting back from an awesome VBS experience we all went together with Brother Joe and some of the local pastors to the market to buy groceries from the children's home. I was given the grocery list and the task of taking care of the shopping. Brother Joe told me that if I was going to be doing a ministry here I needed to learn how to do this type of shopping (long story for another time). It was interesting to do and eye opening at how expensive things are here! They have a lot of the same foods and brands we do, but the prices are much higher. Workers from the supermarket helped us load the groceries onto the bus. Brother Joe gave them some money as a tip to divide between them. A man who held the door open on the back of the bus but just stood there was mad because he didn't get a tip. He didn't even work at the market. He was yelling and screaming and we thought it was going to get violent, but we were able to get out of the situation and move on. We didn't have time to deliver the groceries to the children's home this afternoon so we had to unload the groceries here at the House and we will take them over there tomorrow.

Tonight we went to four churches for revival services. For those keeping track, after the services tonight so far this week we have had 1,797 in attendance in evening services, 95 individuals saved (in both VBS and revival services), and 176 other decisions/recommitments. How awesome is that?! Tomorrow will bring a change of pace and schedule as we are finished with VBS. We are growing more tired and are missing our families. God has been here in such a mighty way this week. He has helped us keep our eyes fixed on the work He called us here to do.

More tomorrow. Good night and God bless!

Patricia