This blog post was intended to be posted yesterday, Wednesday, but due to internet connections, could not be posted until now. Sorry, but here is part one!
One of the specific challenges we have charged each member of our team with on this trip is to look for a specific story within each day that when combined will weave a tapestry picture of our time here collectively in Haiti. More than just a visual, or a thought, the story allows us to re-enter the moment, to take it with us, and to share it with others. At night, we share these stories with each other as a means of beginning to actively process what is happening around us and happening to us.
Tonight, while we shared stories about first airplane rides, first ocean swims, and some of the happier moments of the last two days, we also began to wrestle with some of the more difficult stories that are beginning to unfold as a result of some of the things we saw and experienced during our first full day in Haiti. Wrapped up by a beautiful drive up the coast to Saint Marc, today was spent predominantly on touring the earthquake damage in and around Port Au Prince. We saw the tumbled Presidential Palace and the destruction that consumed the Cathedral. In contrast, we saw a beautiful, resolute, and enduring people, determined to see their stories continue. Many of them now find themselves gathered in groups of thousands in ad-hoc tent cities where beautiful parks used to gather similar sized crowds for concerts or sport. Their lives have changed. As Ronald, our translator, said tonight – “The beauty of the city has disappeared, but not the people.”
As we talked, people began to voice thoughts they had fought through the day like “This seems so unfair” and “Do I really have to say ‘no’ when it would be so easy to just give a handout?” and “How can I communicate care and concern with someone whose language we don’t speak?”. It would be a lie to say that we didn’t struggle today. We’ve been asked to give no money, to leave nothing behind in charity, but rather to trust the 410 approach where Haitians are empowered to work together to move beyond recovery to long term growth and development and where we work along side them in that process. We saw today people who have come to depend on handouts. While we trust that the hand-up approach is better for the Haitians long-term, believe me, it is not easy to say no.
Eager and ready were the two most common sentiments tonight as we look forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow, we go to our 410 community and get to see the 410 model in action. Tomorrow we will bring our encouragement to a people already set on seeing their story change for the better, and we get to receive from their gifts as we begin to build a relationship with the people of Chadirac, Haiti.
See multiple photos from days 1 & 2 in Haiti on Flickr here.
It’s 11:30 at night on Monday June 27th. In about 4 hours, Amy and I will be headed with a team of 10 of our friends from Shannon Oaks Church in Sulphur Springs, TX and a staff member from the 410 Bridge into “unknown territory”. We will be only the third or fourth team to partner with the community of Chadirac, Haiti since the arrival of the 410Bridge there in late 2010.
Prompted originally by our daughter Emily’s interest in Haiti following the earthquake, and because of her desire to either drill a well or otherwise help provide a water solution for those who she saw struggling on the news, we began to investigate serving in Haiti about a year ago. Through that process, we found out that our friends at Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee were also looking into Haiti, and had found a community interested in working with them to develop a new coffee cooperative. As their planning progressed, so did ours. When LOTH decided to partner with 410 Bridge to facilitate and service the logistics of bringing in teams, we were ready with our team of 12!
Now we are off to Chadirac. The next seven days will be filled with new experiences, new sights, new insights, and new relationships. For some on our team, it will be their first time out of the country. For one, her first time on an airplane…ever… and she is in her 60′s. Stretching your boundaries is good for you. Its how you grow, and most assuredly, this next week will be a time of growing. I just feel that in my gut. I don’t know what God has for me in this next week.
What will it be that will stretch me? I know it’s there. I just won’t know until I am in front of it. Perhaps it will be the abject poverty. Perhaps the joy that some have in the midst of it. Perhaps something I’ve not even considered. I think that is what has my mind racing the most right now…
What lies on the other end of this journey that begins in four hours?
Join the SOC Haiti team as we grow, learn, and serve along with our new Haitian friends. Stay tuned!
At the middle of a small community in East Texas lies a small neighborhood. You can’t see it from the highway, and if you aren’t paying attention, you’d miss it driving by. None of the main roads go through the middle of it. It is a little more run down than the rest of town, and the homes suggest that the income levels are a little lower as well. It could be anywhere in any state in anytown, USA. This neighborhood, however, is in the town where we now live, and in the center of this little area that runs from Martin Luther King Blvd to Elm Street, to where Ardis Street meets Whitworth, sits Pacific Park.
We first saw Pacific park during Sulphur Springs Work Camp, as 3 of the crews that I was supporting were painting homes for residents in that area. One home was directly across the street from the park, and Emily and Dillon saw a few children playing in a great little water fountain area the first day. I promised them that they could bring their swimsuits the next day and join in.
The next day, Emily and Dillon (along with about 12 hardworking highschool age student missionaries) took full advantage of the water in the splash fountain in the 104 degree heat. Playing alongside them were several kids from the neighborhood. Their faces shouted their their joy like a loudspeaker.
The faces of the parents, brothers, sisters, and aunts sitting around and watching them, however, told a different story. The faces showed struggle. The attitudes betrayed their thoughts. You could tell we were outsiders, and they seemed to wonder why we were there. We played anyway.
That day, as I rounded the corner of the park, I noticed how run down the sign was. It looked like it was riddled with bullet holes, the paint was peeling, and it just generally looked as depressed as the faces I had seen earlier. I remember thinking, “Somebody should do something about that.”
As you can probably predict, before the week was out, we realized that “somebody” meant “us.” Using lumber donated by a local church, and with leftover paint donated by the grateful owner of one of the houses that we painted (the one facing the park), Amy, the kids, and I began the repair and re-painting process on the four signs. I spent a day or two replacing rotted wood and getting rid of all the peeling paint. Then we caulked all the joints and filled all the holes. 4 signs in all, one on each corner. With each day, we got the same strange looks that seemed to ask “why are these people here?” When kids would come up to talk to us, they wanted to know why I was getting paid to do this work, and how much. I told them that I wasn’t, and that I just saw that it needed to be done. I guess a few of them told someone about it.
By the end of painting sign two, we began to get into conversations with the adults in the community. Since the lettering all had to be done with a fine tipped brush (each sign took us about 4-6 hours), we had lots of time to talk. Bethany’s initial seizures and our trips to Dallas Children’s Hospital delayed our completion by a few weeks, but on the day I completed sign four, I had five cars actually stop to say “Thank You”. We met a youth pastor from a neighborhood church who was shocked that he hadn’t seen the need right in front of him. I told him that I now felt confident that I knew who would be maintaining the signs in the future. He smiled, shook my hand in agreement, and headed on home.
Someone told me once that a revival doesn’t start because of great preaching or a nonstop prayer vigil. They are all important parts, he said, but for revival to start, the true spark, is when the preacher pulls a weed in his own parking lot instead of stepping over it.
May we all choose to pull the weeds and meet the needs that are right in front of us this week.
See the rest of the photos, including a completed sign, on our Flickr account!
Before I could even consider bringing everyone up to speed on what has been going on the last few months, I realize that I must, regardless of whether this is just my impression or my guilt, deal with a major “elephant in the room” of my own soul. I have done a horrible job at keeping up my end of an unspoken deal, a commitment to our friends, our family, and our ministry supporters.
You agreed to support us, whether through prayer or finances or laughter or tears, and in return, we offered that we would share with you the ups and downs of our journeys and our life. As calls and contributions, emails and text messages came in over the last months, I saw that you held up your end of the deal. I didn’t, and I owe you all an apology. Not the kind of apology that you mechanically make when you accidentally burp at the dinner table. More like the one you would make if you left the country and forgot to tell your mom…
I’m sorry that I seemingly fell off the face of the earth for the last three months and in so doing cut many of you off from your only line of contact with our family, our stories, and our life. I’m sorry that I went from about 3 twitter and facebook updates a day to an average of 3 per month. For some reason, re-entry to “normal” life just kinda kicked me off the grid. But I’ll talk about that in upcoming posts.
So… for all of these things, I ask you to please forgive me.
So sorry for not getting more information out sooner, and please allow me to thank all of you, from churches to individuals, that have called, emailed, tweeted, placed Bethany on prayer lists, and overall prayed and supported both Bethany and our family over the past number of weeks.
On Father’s Day, June 20th, we witnessed Bethany experience two of what NOW appears to have been a number of seizures of varying degrees. I say a number, as we have learned that many of the behaviors we had previously passed off as normal or simply random MAY have potentially been seizure activity.
For example, many of you may recall laughing with us or marveling when she would sneeze five to seven times in a row. Since she began her medication, we have not noticed her sneezing ONCE. At a total loss of understanding, we have come to call these previous attacks “sneeizures”. They may have been seizure activity, and they may not. We may never know.
I tell that story to give a slight insight into what our lives have been in the past two weeks. Everything we’ve ever watched happen to our daughter now has us wondering, “Was it a seizure? Did we miss something?” It’s a hard position to be in as a parent. It kinda sucks.
On a good note, the Phenobarbital medication that we give her twice a day (through a bottle nipple we attach to the end of a syringe) has apparently caused all seizure activity to cease. We are watching for anything out of the ordinary, and when and if we see something, we video tape it and email it to her neurologists in Dallas. We’ve not sent anything since the Friday we left the hospital on June 25th.
So… What Now?
For Bethany, we have a followup appointment with the Neuro team from Children’s Dallas at 3 months. In the meantime, its simply our task to observe. And to continue with her meds. Pretty straight forward unless something unforeseeable were to happen. All in all, she seems to be doing well and even giggles on occasion like you would expect a happy four month old to do…
For Share5, and for the rest of the family, the situation is a little more complex. That’s why this is only part 1.
This post is the fifth in a series of entries on our journeys through California during April and May of 2010…
Back in January of 2009, we were looking for somewhere to do a little work in exchange for somewhere to park the RV for a few weeks while we began work on a book. Today, almost a year and a half later, that book proof was shipped to the same place it began, and we are back where we started – geographically speaking.
Those of you who have been following for a while may remember the Chicken Coup project from 2009 in Lake Elsinore. The location is called Rancho De La Paz, or “the ranch of peace”. It is a re-entry point for YWAM missionaries and a retreat for pastors and full time ministers that need a little “down time.” Run by the Caruso family, the ranch has a few llamas, a dog, a cat, a bunch of chickens, and some ducks. The farm animals give people from the city something to look at that calms them, while giving rural missionaries something “familiar” as they handle re-entry into American society.
Last year we built the foundation for a new chicken coup. This year, we dug some holes for some trees, but we also got to paint the trim on the chicken coup. I finished with a full day driving a John Deere 210 Loader moving over 30 loads of horse manure… (view the full Lake Elsinore photo set on Flickr)
But back to my thought…
While we were painting, I thought about the fact that even though we weren’t there, the progress on the ranch continued. Multiple other volunteers had helped with construction projects, repainted fences, patched holes and did countless other things. Then we got to return and play a part again.
It makes me remember how I came back to my relationship with Jesus 10 years ago. Several people along the way, each doing their small or large part. Some laid a foundation. Some built on it. Others have helped dress up the project along the way. Every one of them played a critical part.
Thank you for everyone who has done a little work on ME. My life today is the fruit of YOUR labor.
Blessings from California, and now… On to Arizona!
This is the fourth entry in California Wrap Up, a series of blogs highlighting our travel through California in April and May of 2010.
Following our time in Simi Valley with New Heart Church, we headed south of Los Angeles and through the fun of LA traffic to one of the kids favorite overnight camping spots: Oceanside, CA. Specifically, they love Oceanside Harbor. It is a parking lot with no RV hookups and the spaces are super tight together, but it excels in the areas that are critical to the kids: playgrounds and wildlife! They have a great little play area right on the sandy beach, its only about 100 yds to the waves, and there are almost always a few sealions swimming around in the harbor to watch. We’ve been there about 4 or 5 times and every time there is a sea lion on the docks.
Just down the road from Oceanside is the city of Vista, CA. One of the last times we were in Oceanside, our local friends mentioned a recovery ministry named Green Oak Ranch in Vista, so we decided this time to contact them. They agreed to let us visit and just hang out as guest to see what they were doing, so we headed to Green Oak for 3 days before attending a weekend service at Vista Assembly, where we had visited during Easter of 2009. (Remember the Tim LaHaye assignment?)
Green Oak was amazing. They have on site facilities for their resident recovery program including a full cafeteria, dorms, a chapel, and classrooms. They also have a over 100 acres of land that they also use for a retreat center, inclusive of a nature center, animal reserve with Llamas, goats, ducks, emu, a couple horses, a pair of donkeys, a bobcat, a longhorn, and a few owls. They have a full reptile center, a pool, and retreat cabins. Its quite a place. Most importantly, you can sense the presence of God in those who spend their days there. It is a place where lives are transforming and hope is being found. It is awesome, and we are blessed to have experienced it.
Back in December of 2008 we made a visit to our friend Marc Greene from Outreach Media in Oceanside, CA. During a lunch where we shared with him the 5 character traits behind Share5, he commented that we should share the concept more broadly by writing a book on it. I guess you could say he more than commented. He persuaded. He bribed. (He may have even DARED us a little bit…)
Bottom line was, when he made the comment at lunch that day, it just sat right with me. It registered in my spirit as a “Yes”. That week, we set out to figure out the process of writing a book.
God was, as always, faithful. We looked for a place to park for a little while to write while serving, and unbeknown to us, the woman whose home we were parked at also did writing clinics. She is a published author and was able to help me put some of the first concepts into the first words until they became the first chapters. God continued to provide both the insight for the writing and the resources for the tour, and just over a year later, we completed a manuscript and a series of accompanying case studies for what we would soon call “Share Well With Others – Creating a Life that Reflects the Character of Christ.”
This week, full circle and back in the very same parking spot that the book began in, we received the proof copy from our printer. As the ink dries on the first print run, we look forward to sharing it with you in the next weeks, and thank God for His amazing faithfulness!
See our first book as we open the package containing the very first printed copy. Public copies will be available June 1, 2010, so visit our site at http://share5.org/sharewell to order your copy today!
This is part 3 in our California Wrap-up series, highlighting our April and May travels in the state of California…
Mother’s Day weekend brought us an opportunity to share with the folks from New Heart Foursquare Church in Simi Valley (the sermon was Episode 1 of the new Share Well Podcast if you missed it!), but the preceding two weeks allowed us a little time to both relax, regroup, adjust to being a family of five in the RV, and possibly the most fun you can have with a sledgehammer, DO SOME DEMOLITION!!!
New Heart is in the middle of a sanctuary remodel, and they still had some wrap up demolition to do, so we all put on the work gloves and did everything from tearing out a wall to pulling staples from the stage where carpet had been removed. We were also allowed to throw out a few ideas for how the interior could possibly look and talk with those doing the design work to give them some new concepts to play with.
Pastor Paul Kuzma has been a great support and friend since we met a little over a year ago, and both he and his congregation continue to blow us away with their generosity. He even ran a 100′ cable over his fence from his house for us to have cable TV! Their staff and members are a blessing, and we’ll look forward to returning and seeing the finished project in the future!
It had been a little over a year since we last visited Southern California, so the months of April and May have felt a little like a reunion. In the next few posts, we’ll be bringing you a few of the highlights!
Our first time to stop at Moorepark, Grace Harvest was hosting Pastor Emmanuel Sackey, our partner and Pastor from Somanya, Ghana, Africa. We haven’t seen Pastor Sackey in over a year, so it was great to reconnect and have time to refresh vision with him! Watch for some exciting things coming soon connected to Pastor Sackey, Share5, and Revival Harvest Ministries.
Catalyst West Coast II – Irvine, CA
Back for it’s second year at Mariner’s Church in Irvine, CA, the crew of Catalyst West put on another great conference. Amy spent a good portion of her time with the Land Of a Thousand Hills Coffee crew, and I volunteered with the Catalyst team in the resource store. The kids? Well, they were doing one of their favorite things… encouraging people to Drink Coffee Do Good.
This blog post was intended to be posted yesterday, Wednesday, but due to internet connections, could not be posted until now. Sorry, but here is part one! 
Prompted originally by our daughter Emily’s interest in Haiti following the earthquake, and because of her desire to either drill a well or otherwise help provide a water solution for those who she saw struggling on the news, we began to investigate serving in Haiti about a year ago. Through that process, we found out that our friends at 
Mother’s Day weekend brought us an opportunity to share with the folks from 
Share Well Podcast at iTunes
