Flying through July

The last few weeks here in Haiti have been nothing short of thrilling!

July 4^th we took the DTS students to a beautiful beach and had a Brazilian BBQ to celebrate the day! That night we were invited to one our students, Rodberry’s, church in St Marc.. The church fed us a delicious dinner and welcomed us to run the service that night for them. It was so inspiring to see specifically our Haitian staff guys running this church service – dancing like nobody’s watching, preaching, and truly leading the congregation to worship our heavenly Father. The rest of the week we spent joined with the St Marc YWAM base – a beautiful base with green grass, soccer field, volleyball and basketball courts, swimming pool, and running water! Coming from living in our Belville house where 90 of us live without running water or the room to play anything but a , it was quite the treat!  As beautiful as it was, within 24 hours of being at the base I had one of our students, “Big Z,” come to me saying “I’m ready to go home – to Belville. There I felt like I had family, here I feel alone all the time.” In 48hours almost all the students were ready to go “home” – so surprising for the staff who were Loving having space to get alone and rest.

By the end of last week several people were beginning to get ill, I included and by Friday night I had a fever and burning sinuses. Thinking it was a sinus infection, not uncommon to get here after a month without rain and dirt roads, we started me on some heavy medicine hoping to knock it out quick. Turns out I’m likely allergic to the medication and acquired some odd reactions, but for 3 days I fought with that infection which eventually fell into my chest, causing me to have a nasty cough all week. By Wednesday the school leader suggested I go to the other house YWAM Port-Au-Prince has to rest and recover. It was a wonderful 24 hours of near silence and so welcomed! Returning the next day I still wasn’t well and had my Haitian brother, Philipson, ready to take me to the hospital if I wasn’t improving by the next day. Praise the Lord I’m on the upward rise of this sickness and have not needed anything but a handy roll of toilet paper and bottle of water! Many others are getting sick which is the first time we’ve had a problem with it in the house, but it has also caused some extreme exhaustion and a dampening of spirits.

Even all that aside, this week was great as a team from the States- many of whom were in my DTS last year- with Water4Life, a water technology organization based out of Kona. The team has been teaching us how to build Water catchment tanks, filtration systems, and teaching the importance of clean water for communities.  Applying hands on learning we have been building a tank up the road by the public well  - and it has been met with such enthusiasm and participation that even the local community has been participating up at the well! The students and staff alike are really enjoying this teaching of practical mercy ministries and look forward to building a few tanks come this weekend!

Along with water we have 5 medical professionals ranging from anesthesiologists, pediatricians, and nurses, coming in to work along side us in conducting many clinics in and near Port-Au-Prince. Beginning with health care courses this week, taught by Connie Kline, we’ll have lessons on primary health care and have been blessed with boxes of medical equipment and supplies for the trip!

Teddy, one of our student's children praying with Derose.

This past weekend a few of the students organized a weekend "burn" of 24/7 prayer and worship in our prayer room (a gravel carport with makeshift benches and chairs pulled from the classroom). The time I spent with them over the weekend is probably one of my favorite moments here in Haiti with the DTS students. There have been other times, but seeing them take initiative to seek after the heart of God and beginning to walk into true intimacy with the Lord!

Each day has been packed with challenge, revelation, hardship, and GLORY! With God’s Spirit moving visibly through the house and those living in it. Praise the Lord for continued grace in living quarters as there are now about 100 people living in this one house. His grace is enough and no severe drama, fighting, problems have really come up in the month (plus) of our living together in such extreme circumstances. I could go on, but here is just so much going on here in the Port-Au-Prince, Haiti DTS it is hard to keep up to date on the going-ons during the school. My Jamaica team is doing well and finally growing into a family as we learn more about each other. 2 of our Haitians still have yet to get their passports but we're hoping to get visa applications sent by Sunday. The applications have to be sent to Miami because there is no Jamaican Embassy here in Haiti after the earthquake, and then they'll be mailed to our next speaker who lives in the states and can carry it here for us (the mail system is that bad). So we're just praying for favor, finances to cover the visa application, and timing to  work out for us to get the visas quickly! Please continue to pray for us all! We have been blessed, but need more of HIM in our lives!!!

Love Always

Worship in the classroom - side view without most of the class in the frame ;) 

When God Multiplies...

Water. Food. Space.

When we arrived to no water well for the house and were to be purchasing water to fill our cistern there was no way we could imagine supplying a house of 80. In the first week of DTS we cracked down creating a bucket system to manage. 

Bucket showers are ways of getting clean with between 1-2 gallons used for one bathing time. "showering" can only be once a day as we have 90 people using 5 bathrooms. Because it is so expensive to fill the cistern we decided to make use of the green pool in our yard and use that water to flush the toilets, following the expression "if it's brown, flush it down; if it's yellow, let it mellow." (I'm sure you're getting the picture.) We buy filtered water for drinking only with is about $1.20 per 5 gallons - this is no trouble a'toll and we're really blessed to have only run out of drinking water 3 times in the last month!
Laundry is done by hand in a bucket system that I have yet to master apparently - every time I work on it the Haitians alway laugh, though many have complimented me that I'm "almost Haitian" - I thank my time in Thailand each time.  Many of our Haitians have taken it upon themselves to serve us foreigners in doing our laundry (we joke that it's because they're tired of smelling our clothes haha) but have really blessed us in this.

2 weeks into the school some neighbors opened up their cistern to us to pul water from as they needed to drain it to clean. So we have been so privileged to be able to walk just across the street to get buckets of water for showering, laundry and kitchen needs rather than the walk down the road a whiles to collect it from a hand pump open to the public. Living in this situation truly gives you a respect and compassion for the millions of people around the world who live like this every day of their lives... we are so privileged.

When we began the school many of us were full of doubt with how this water situation was going to work. We spent hours and days trying to find an organization or well digger who would come and bless us with a new well - only to be denied and find that they were months booked. Yet I can say now that since the school began 4 weeks ago, we have only had to fill our cistern twice!!! We honestly have no idea how this is possible but can only praise the Lord for multiplying our water! There were staff meetings where we have laughed together, none of us willing to look into the cistern to see how much is left because we're afraid we'll rob the Lord of His blessing by saying it needs to be refilled! What a funny position to be in!

Not only in the water situation, but in physical space in this house - we have seen the rooms expand as what was comfortable for the 25 of us living in staff training multiplied into 90 people!!! Again, we though this was going to be near impossible and could only pray for a miracle as we prepared for the students to arrive. And sure enough we have easily managed to have all of us living in this house together! Eating, sleeping, dancing, working, and conducting a full lecture phase out of an eight room house, 5 bathrooms, and one kitchen! The kitchen was at first a major problem with sanitary concerns coming in all the time to now servicing 100 people per meal and hardly anyone getting sick.

We have seen water, food, beds, space, and time multiplied to fill the needs of this Discipleship Training School as we train up a generation of youth to chase after intimacy with the Lord! And now we are fully trusting and believing for the provision of finances for ALL of our staff and students as we prepare for outreach! For example, the team of 9 I am leading to Jamaica in total needs $18,000 - and we are fully confident that the Lord will provide that for us! Check out Team Jamaica! to learn more!

Praise the Lord for His Miraculous Provision!!!

Love Always

Brazil's "Muwaji Law" Approved!

After years of fighting for the Muwaji Bill to pass in Brazil - it is finally a reality! Here's a breakdown of the history behind the bill, the journey and the affects of this legislation as it moves into action!

article below from Grassroots News 

BRAZIL – “MUWAJI LAW”, FOR THE RIGHT TO LIFE

Today in Brazil, the bill 1057 known as “Muwaji Law”, was approved at the Human Rights Committee at the National Congress, which seeks to protect indigenous children at risk for being born with physical or mental disability, being twins, daughters of single mother or for other reasons determined by the tradition of each indigenous people. In some ethnic groups such children are still at risk of being rejected, abandoned in the woods or killed by members of the family, due to internal pressure. In some of these communities there are reports of more than 200 children killed in these conditions.

The bill was named after Muwaji, the first indigenous mother from a remote tribe called

Muwaji and her daughter Iganani

suruwahá, in the Amazon, who fought for her daughter’s life who was born with cerebral palsy, going against the traditions of her tribe of burying the baby alive. After her, many other indigenous families were inspired to fight for their children’s rights to live.

The practice of infanticide in some indigenous tribes in Brazil got international attention in 2008, after a controversial movie “Hakani” by the  international filmmaker, David L. Cunningham, telling the true story of a a survivor of infanticide.

Indigenous leaders with Congresswoman - Brasília, Brazil

In spite of some opposition worldwide, the movie helped to launch a national movement for the approval of the “Muwaji Law”.

The bill was first proposed in 2007, finally approved by the Committee of Human Rights, with the assent of the Congresswoman Janete Pietá.

With this bill approved, the brazilian government has to offer to the indigenous tribes the access to be informed and to public policies of health and education, so that they will not fell pressured to kill their babies.

Congresswoman Janete Pietá - Brasilia, Brazil

According to the proposal, governmental programs aiming at stopping infanticide will be done after intense dialogue with the community leaders. This will avoid imposition in the indigenous cultures.

I spoke to brazilian Attorney Damares Alves, main activist in defense of the children’s rights at the Congress. She was celebrating today with a group of the indigenous leaders believing that this bill will benefit a lot of indigenous children in the country, and guarantee that the fundamental right to life will be respected.

Damares also believes that this can model how other countries will deal with the same issue of indigenous infanticide, for the right to life.

Photos by Bruno Mancinelle

Text by Nadia Otake

Haiti. Port-Au-Prince.

Most things happen that can simply be described as, "only in Haiti."

We finally have electricity after 6 days without.

Wednesday our dinner's steak got stolen out of the truck.

There are flies and mosquitoes everywhere. Landing on me even as I type this.

This city is chaos defined.

Every trip out is exhausting and filled with the unexpected.

Tap taps, moto’s, moving trucks with windows cut into it.

UN everywhere sporting guns, fingers on triggers.

It's rainy season and hasn't rained in a month.

We don't have running water - it's all buckets from the neighbor's cistern Somehow we haven't had to fill our cistern but once.

Dare we say it's a miracle? Yes.

Greed, anger, rejection.

Fear, lying, cheating.

Generosity, peace, hospitality.

Joy, truthfulness, caring.

People wait in their driveways for students to come pray for them.

20 people accept Christ as their Lord and Savior on community outreach days.

Generosity is abounding as the Lord moves in their hearts to bless us.

Children run to you in passing begging, naked, needing love.

Often I wonder what I'm doing here - the Lord is moving so much.

I can't understand why he would allow me to be part of this.

He is doing everything, I just feel along for the ride.

What can I do be honor Him in worship and in obedience?

He doesn’t need me. I know this so well.

Time and time again the Lord has displayed His miracles.

Who am I that He would CHOOSE to use me,

rather than just do it Himself?

Make eye contact with everyone directly in your path.

Don’t fear anyone or anything, they won’t kill you.

Most people genuinely just want to arise.

Circumstances have forced them otherwise.

What is and is to come.

What am I doing here?

What God is this I serve?

What I do in obedience echoes into eternity.

Hallelujah, I rest secure.

God is so good to me, I am overwhelmed by His love for me.

When I fail, He rescues me with peace, encouragement, and joy.

He loves these people more than I could ever imagine.

Psalm 100

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Serve the Lord with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

Love Always