Day 25 - there is always a plan

Tuesday night:

Dom, pastor Day, and myself went to the Keskeya chapel Tuesday night house fellowship gathering.  It is hosted at a families house originally from Arkansas.  The family has been living in Haiti for 2 years now and their house was beautiful.  A dollar has the potential of going a long ways for housing here in port au prince.  There home was beautiful, did I mention that, and able to host plenty of people.  At the peak of the evening there was around 20 people.  We started the evening out with worship followed by scripture and then finishing up with praying over people.  This reminded me of being back at home except the average age here being a decade older.  There was great focus around bearing fruit and being the will of God to the world.  Not just calling out to god but walking it out by grace through faith in the word of God and being transformed to be the love of God.  It was very encouraging to see many missionaries coming together to serve Haiti and to be apart of the coming glory that will be shown through Haiti to the rest of the world.

Wednesday:

We started the morning off again with prayer at on the rock church at 6am.  Dom and I have been going outside to pray and read scripture because it is to loud inside.  There is always someone praying on a microphone with great zeal.  After morning prayer Dom and I had a lunch prayer meeting with organizations from around Haiti.  It is a monthly meeting they all have to pray for Haiti and to keep everyone in contact for needs and updates.  I met many pastors and missionaries there and it was a great opportunity to get more connected with what different groups are doing in Haiti to serve and reach the Haitians.  As I was talking with one pastor, Jacob, he was talking about how he also is a part of an organization.  The reason he said he does it this way because the Haitian church has struggled reaching out into the community.  He further explained something I have been hearing much of, because we have been far to religious.  There are some churches and pastors here living out the goodnews and reaching out  (pastor Day, Samson, pierre, dieulifort) but to many that are preaching works and not associating themselves with a hurting world.  This is where the church at large was in the United states in the past and has recently, the past 20 years, been pressing into the word of God and seeing it is not works but grace.  The church is of course not perfect and should never be the reason for someone not seeking and finding the truth themselves but as we put Christ before everything else the world will see more of His love and how He is the source of all good.  

Dom and I finished the evening playing soccer again in the street and being invited to go play with the guys Saturday morning at a field and they accepted the invitation to learn some exercises and good exercise techniques, so we planned on going to the local gym Friday morning.

Thursday:

We went to the new church site in honaville to get to know the people around it and let them know the first church service will be this coming Sunday.  For the most part many people were very friendly and God revealed some passions a few of them had to encourage them in and pray for them to be blessed in that direction of their lives.  It was interesting to watch how a few of them approached the people and shared to them about Christ.  From what I was witnessing my heart is to take a much more relational approach and to first seek their needs and know their hearts but seeing this is just a result of how we are being trained up.  This has made me reflect in my own heart to make sure I being upfront about sharing the goodnews and at the same time serving them as Christ serves me.  

In the afternoon we went with some missionaries to their ministry.  It was called outside the bowl and it feeds thousands of children a week.  It is in three countries and the organization created a way to make fast and affordable food.  The site was connected to the largest maternity hospital in Haiti so when we did a Biblestudy there it wasn't very quite for most of the time.  It was amazing to hear that just recently, 1 year, the hospital had received beds for the patients and before everyone was just on the floor.

Friday: 

Dom and I went to the gym at 7am with a couple of the soccer guys.  We walked about a mile and reached the gym.  It was truely old school.  It was about the size of most people's living room and had  10-15 guys in it.  As I started helping a few of them the rest of the guys in the gym started noticing.  It was funny to recognize that every time I would do an exercise everyone in the gym would stop what they were doing and watch.  I eventually ended up helping almost everyone in the "closet" gym.  Even the bodybuilder guys were making sure to have me watch them to correct their form.  It wasn't like any gym experience I had been apart of but it was awesome to be able to offer my knowledge to them and get to share why I was in Haiti.  

We spent the rest of the day visiting some other ministries that help teach young adults how to run a business and develope a craftsman skill.  We also visited a home that was for rent that would be great for creat a house guest for missionaries.  This would a be a very good business for creating a vehicle for residual income and to serve those coming into Haiti to help.  Dom and I both have a heart to do business along with ministry and we will continue to pursue the possibility and see what doors God may open to make it possible.

Saturday:

We left at 6am to play soccer at the field with the guys by pastor Day's house.  We were there for about 3 hours and played for a portion of the time.  There were a bunch people there to play as well just to watch.  The field was dirt so it was very slick and the guys played as if it were the World Cup and without rules.  I had a great time and took my hits and wounds without complaints.  Dom said it was good I couldn't hear everything they were saying because it was all trash talk and curse words.  I knew that what was being said wasn't uplifting because there was almost a fight every 20 minutes but we got to have some great conversations and be an example for what it looks like to play with integrity.  We spent the day driving up the mountainside to overlook port au prince and see some more of the surrounding areas.  The country is beautiful and it was good to be able to see over the areas we have been in immersed in. We finished the day meeting with our friend Jean phillipe and pierre and we also got to meet the rest of the guys on the board of their developing organization.  We will see how my relationship with them could be apart of getting them off the ground.  They were all great guys to talk with and they all should their hearts caring for what they want to do.

To come:

With only 4 more full days left, there is still much more to develope.  There are suppose to be more demonstrations, they call manifestations, this coming Monday and Tuesday so it is hard to say what the schedule will look like but God makes all things good for those who love Him.