Hello friends and family of the Haiti Team,
From all of us I want to say Happy Mothers Day to all of our wonderful moms who have raised, loved, prayed, put up with us and made us the God fearing men and women we are today. We love you Mom.
Well we have had our first of two weeks in Saint Marc, and it has flown by. They really do not mess around in Haiti, they always put you straight to work. Monday morning Katey and I took half of the team to YWAM’s clinic/ tent city ministry just down the street from their base. This clinic was once used as the main place to come for an abortion as well as a euthanasia clinic. It was later deserted and people began to squat in it, literally! Terry Snow the leader of YWAM Haiti came in and said if no one is going to use this facility then I will open a clinic. So they sanitized it, re plumbed it, brought in a tank to filter the water, prayed over it, and started using the clinic to offer health care to the Haitian people. It is not fully running yet, they need an administrator. So if you know anyone have them give YWAM Saint Marc a call. Right now there is also a tent city on the property of the clinic made up of a little over 100 people. During our week of working with them we were able to help them complete digging the trench that will be the foundation for a security wall. The trench was 3ft deep, 1.5ft wide and almost 100 yards long. The other great thing about this project is that YWAM Haiti is able to pay some of the refugees living in the tents on the property to work along side of us in digging the trench. Every afternoon we would also do kids programs, including a bible story, puppet show and some arts and crafts time afterward to apply the lesson. In the evenings we held bible studies out in front of the clinic. This time was incredibly fruitful, we would have worship, a devotional and then afterwards a time to pray with the people as well as just talk to them. Every night God showed up giving us words of encouragement, and incredible conversations with the people who attended the services.
One story: There is a kid named Guiness that has Tuberculosis and it has almost completely consumed his body, he is confined to a wheel chair and lives a life of constant pain. Yet he brings joy and encouragement to everyone brave enough to sit down with him for a minute. I was talking to his father one night through an interpreter, he said this, ”I feel like I don’t have any future sometimes. When this guy got sick we started selling our possessions to help him, soon there was nothing left, but I still prayed. God brought along these white people to help us and we moved into a room in the clinic, that is the only reason he is still alive. Without prayer there is no life.” These words coming from a man living in a tiny room with his family of five and one son with TB said those words. A man in a sea of men who father children that they will never know exist much less meet has given everything and continues to give everything for his son, that he might live to play soccer again. This man knows without a doubt that without prayer there is no life. That without God there is no life. That is just one story of one man in one tent city, there are so many more. Your prayers are changing things and affecting hearts in Haiti. Believe that!
The rest of the team is there this week and they have already had an incredible time of kids ministry acting out the story of Jonah and the whale. They will be there until Wednesday afternoon. The crew of us that were at the clinic last week will be working at the YWAM base doing work duties and helping with logistics while all of the other teams are out in tent cities. We are excited for this chance to serve. Thursday and Friday we will debrief and then very early Saturday morning we will begin our day long journey back to beautiful Denver, CO! This will be our last email from the road, and for those of you parents who have not heard your kids do still love you they are just not allowed to use the Internet while here in Saint Marc because there are way to many people on the base.
Please pray for a safe trip home, for the second round of extreme traveler’s sickness to go away, and for all of our guys that swim in what the Haitians call caca lake to listen to reason and just use the pool!
Much love
Foster and the Haiti Team
For more info about the clinic check the YWAM Haiti page: http://www.ywamhaiti.org/ywam-clinic-established-in-st-marc/
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