Death & Praise

As I sit in my office, preparing to go to church on this Sunday, I can hear the music playing, our people singing from their hearts of a God that is truly all they have in this world.  Most of them are sleeping in tents or under make shift tents, all their worldly possession gone but yet the church is full, they look great, and they are singing like they have it all.

At the same time a car just drove by to pick up the body of a man that died last night.  This has become an alomost daily scene and one that I will be glad to have leave us. There are so many stories of lives saved, people that have accepted Christ, and also those that are no on their way to see Him.

Here is my take away from this morning.  Matthew 7:24-27 tells us to build our lives on the Rock, Jesus, and we will be able to withstand the storms of life.  We will be able to sing praise in the midst of loosing it all because all we have on this earth is not what our lives are built on.  This allows our people to sing today.  At the same time it allows us to rejoice when someone does die, knowing that they have built their lives on Jesus the Rock and are now with Him to sing eternal praises.

Dumped

Just a few miles from the mission is where over 80,000 bodies have been taken from the city and dumped.  As if the horror of the earthquake was not enough, many families are faced with the fact that they will never be able to see their loved ones again.  Never be able to give them a respectful burial.  They are faced with the grim fact that the person they called mom, dad, sister, brother was dumped with 80,000 others.

As our medical teams from Texas did multiple surgeries from our clinic and many lives were put on the road to being healed.  Tonight we had a young boy that was dumped at our gate.   This little boy, maybe 9 years old, was dumped at the front gate of the mission.  The young child is mentally challenged and had been burned on his face.  He was left with the hopes that he would find refuge at the Mission of Hope.  He did!  OUr medics and doctors went to work on him.  When I arrived, this little guy, although burned and could only see out of one eye, had joy.  Joy?  How could he have Joy?  The only thing I can think of it’s that he found Hope

There is Hope, no matter what you are going through, no matter how bad it may seem today, in Jesus there is Hope.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Since I was a young boy growing up I have sang the song “Great is thy Faithfulness”.  My grandfather, who is one of my heroes, love to sing this song and tell of how faithful God has been and will be.

Today, as I sat in church, I heard Ruben play his saxophone.  The song was “Great is thy Faithfulness”.  Ruben is a young man that understands God in a new way.  He understands God’s Faithfulness, he understands that had it not been for the Grace of God, and the helping hand of a friend, a good Samaritan, that he would be among the list of the thousands dead.

Ruben was at Bible School when the quake hit.  He, along with 60 other young men and women were there to learn of how they could impact their nation for God.  As the quake hit, Ruben was covered in rubble.  A young man from his class fell on top of Ruben and saved him from the fallen roof.  A few hours later, Ruben was pulled from the rubble alive!  He and 12 others made it out, the rest died.

As he played “Great is thy Faithfulness” you could see in his face that he understood the Faithfulness and Goodness of God.  As we have worked the last two weeks to empty our warehouse and have provided over 1.5 million meals to those in need, we have seen daily God’s Faithfulness.  Supplies come in and then we work hard again to empty the warehouse.

God is Faithful and Great is His Faithfulness!

Can You Imagine

Think about what you do on a day to day basis.  The home you live in, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, your family, your place of employment or your school, the place you shop at for groceries, the doctors office you go to, today in Haiti everyone’s life has changed.

Life has changed in Haiti for everyone.  As I drive through the city I see thousands of people that are living under tents. Many have lost everything they had.  They lost their home, schools, all they knew is now gone.  Many still have such a blank stair and are continually traumatized by the after shocks that persist.  In spite of all that though I see the people of Haiti starting to try and recover.

Yesterday we served our Millionth meal, Praise God!  I just praise God that we had the food to be able to send out.  Our goal is to empty our warehouse to the people of Haiti and pray that God will continue to fill it up so we can empty it again.  This next week we will be meeting with the pastors from all over Haiti to encourage them, to pray with them and to talk about how the church will help Haiti recover.  Thanks so much for your prayers.  We are all running on fumes but God is good, people are being served and coming to know Jesus.

Words from a Pastor

Pastor Jay Richardson, pastor of Summit Church in Florida, and a team of surgeons and other docs worked through the night at a hospital in Port au Prince.

Its rough. I have seen things I never wanted to see. The amount of amputations is astounding. Watching people die, hearing the screams and cries of loved ones is heartbreaking. I carried a 13 year old boy dead out of the hospital last night - it was excruciating. The smells are not good but not as bad as expected - God’s protection. I can handle visuals but I don’t do well with smells. Our shift last night was hard and long but we made it through. Things are starting to pick up at the hospital, but there are so many with closed fractures that desperately need care and there are just too many that have more severe fractures and wounds that are a priority. I can’t imagine laying around with a compound fracture in my tibia or femur for days. I had to move a couple of these patients and their legs were literally like jelly - awful. Anyway we hope to head back to MOH soon and get some rest and then head back to the hospital. Please pray for return travel for not only us but the other teams who have been working tirelessly!

Day 5

Day six and we are still seeing people that have open wounds, exposed bones, and lines of people that need surgery. I was so moved today by a mother holding her 4 year old son. His leg had a part of the wall fall on it and it had been broken for six days. I just could not image my child being in agony for six days. Our doctors put a cast on him and he should heal fine. Another lady came in and had third degree burns on her. Again for six days.  We are over 250,000 meals distributed to those in need and we are giving more and more out each day through the local churches. It is amazing to see the HaitiOne alliance come together. We are getting reports from all over of the damage and the need.  As our staff continues to come back to see us so many are now homeless. It is heart breaking to hear that all they have worked for so long is now gone. To look into a dad’s eyes and know that he can not provide one of the most essential things to his children, shelter. If you think of the task ahead, it can be quite over whelming, but you have to take a day at a time and help all the people you can.  But there is Hope.  We were able to buy fuel today! That is great news because now we can keep our trucks moving.  It was amazing to watch our team at work today. From the guys that manage our warehouse, the drivers, the visiting doctors, and those giving out the food it was a beautiful picture of people being the Hands and Feet of Jesus. Many organizations have joined together to help those in need and we are seeing people start the long road to recover. We are seeing people that realize there will be a better day.  Thanks so much for your prayers. I am not sure how many of our staff is able to do it. They get up early, exhaust all there resources during the day and then plan at night, only to drop into bed and do it all over again. I do believe that God is giving us the strength and courage to take on this task and it has so much to do with the prayers being lifted up.  Thanks

Day 4

Gabraelle is 10 years old and sweet as anything. Her leg was broken in two places and needed to be set, she also suffered a head injury and many scrapes and bruises.

While so much aid is coming to Haiti and reports are that it’s not getting out, Mission of Hope has delivered over 250,000 meals since the Earthquake, helped thousands medically. We have a team in that will be drilling water, a team that is working on mobile water sanitation units, a team of surgeons from Ft. Myers Fl., a team of general Docs going out to those in need.  God is using MOH and the HaitiOne Alliance to reach the people of Haiti despite what the news is reporting. The Missions of Haiti are working together like never before. It’s amazing to see how God has Joined the body together through this.  Please keep our staff in your prayers. We still have over 60 staff members that we have not heard from. Our North American staff are wearing down and it’s by God’s Grace and power that we continue on.  As I drove through town yesterday, the devastation was horrific, but the Stories of God saving people was what Shined. There is HOPE. Now our biggest challenge will be how do we recover? There is a mass exodus from Port au prince and many people are going to the country sides. Food shortages are everyone due to all pipelines being broke.  In the days and weeks to come we need your prayers and support. We are supposed to have tents and water coming by air cargo soon. We had a shipment arrive yesterday via air and one this morning. Please pray for Fuel and more supplies.  God bless you

Day 3

Friday, January 15, 2010  Joy & Pain   
It is incredible how my emotions have been so low and so high. Today, slowly walking up to the office, was our director of security that we had not heard from. Oh the joy to see that He was alive! We feared he was dead. We hugged and as the tears came rolling down his face, a former military man that has not shed many tears in his life, he told me of his four children and niece that died as his house fell.

Oh What Pain.

I can not imagine what he is feeling. I talk to staff here at MOH and many have lost family and friends. Others are still missing. There is so much pain throughout Haiti, but the amazing thing is people are singing and praising God. Many people at night get together and thank Jesus for life. I just can not imagine what they must be feeling.

We are sending food and medical teams out to serve the people of this nation. Today we will distribute over 100,000 meals. In the coming days we plan to distribute food, tents, and water. We have large church in Port au Prince where our medical teams are now working.  Please pray for the ports to open so we can get aid into Haiti. We have those willing to send aid but all the ports are broken at this point. The airspace is too crowded for many planes to come. Praise God we have 18 days of fuel and over 1 million meals to give out.

Please pray for our water needs. We are transporting water right now for the MOH base, but diesel fuel is hard to find. It is needed to transport both the water and food. I know that God will provide. His word tells us that if we seek his Kingdom first, our needs will be provided. God will provide!

Thanks for your many prayers. Our days are very long here but we are honored to serve the Lord in Haiti. If you can, please help us financially. The efforts are costing us a great deal of funds and resources we had stored, but the need is so great we must be obedient with what we have here at MOH to help those in need.

Day 2

God is good. Today we got up in Santo Domingo and went to a small airport to meet our choppers. When we arrive we were welcomed by many news agencies all trying to get to Haiti. Fox, NBC, CBS and many foreign agencies. Our Chopper was taken by the Red Cross and was working in Haiti. We worked for an hour and a half with our brother that lives in Chicago but is from the Dominican and he found us a pilot with a leer jet. Our pilot was a long haired Columbian looking fellow. He did not emit a lot of professional conduct as I have grown accustom with American Airlines but he assured me that he could get us to Haiti in 22 minutes. So with much prayer and a lot of determination we went with him. The jet could hold five. After five hours of waiting, God open the door for our jet to go. So many others including the news networks could not get a ride to Haiti, but not our God… He got us a jet to take us in.

As we let the airport in the Dominican I sat co pilot and could see the beauty of the nation. It was very peaceful. As we crossed the mountains into Haiti I could see the smoke rising from the city. When we landed it was an unreal sight. Military, cargo planes, helicopters, and news agencies. The airport was all busted up. Many broken windows, cracked walls there was only one hall way open to go out.

As we left the airport it was so good to be home… but so sad to be home. The fear in people’s eyes… Hundreds and hundreds of people walking along the streets with blank stares and their hands full of stuff, many I am sure had lost their homes and were now with out any place to go. As we continued to drive we saw many dead bodies and four and five story building that were completely flat. One hospital on the edge of PAP was completely flat. The loss of live will be unimaginable. The reports are very grim.

As I arrived at Mission of Hope all I could do was Praise God. It is entirely intact. God’s hand was on the MOH and I have to believe the prayers of so many came to fruition in one of Haiti’s darkest hours.

Now I am meeting with our team to form our plan of ministering to Haiti. It may be Haiti’s darkest hour but that only means that being Christ hands and feet will now make our light that much brighter. Thanks for your prayers they are cherished.

MOH Clinic Activity

The following photos are of the MOH Clinic. There have been non-stop patients since the Disaster happened. Pray for our staff and the visiting Medical team for strength to endure. There is no where else for the Haitian people in that are to go for help. We are running low on medical supplies and will need funds for food, water, and fuel also. If you can help please do by clicking the donation button at the top left of the blog.

Everyone is helping. Michelle, daughter of one of our North American Staff Families, is holding hands and praying for all she can.