Personally Speaking

I wrote a long post today about my Haiti experience. Because it's more personal in nature, and speaking only for myself and not at all on behalf of the team, I put it up on my personal blog.

My time in Haiti has been marked by roller-coaster emotions. There have been tears of sorrow, tears of joy, moments of laughter, and vents of frustration – all squashed together into a big melting pot covered by prayer.

I hope you’ll indulge me as I share some of those experiences…

Click to continue reading.

Counting Down

Twenty-three sleeps. Three short weeks. Suddenly, it's very real. We're going to Haiti!

Here are some commonly asked questions…

When are you going? January 29 to February 9

What will you do there? To be honest, we don’t have a lot of specific details yet. (If you’ve ever been to Haiti or another “warm culture” climate, you’ll understand! Things move more slowly and can change at any moment.) What we know for sure is that we’re going to build relationships, to pray for the people and the country, and to serve Haiti Arise in whatever way they need. Chances are good there will be a building project, and we’ll likely work with children, too. (After all, we’ve got a team chalk full of construction/trades people and teachers!)

How can we help? There are three very important things you – our friends, family, and church family – can do:

#1 – Pray for us. We appreciate your prayers as we prepare, while we’re in Haiti, and even afterward. Please pray for team unity, for the faith and strength to persevere when things seem hard, for the work that we do in Haiti, and for the work that we expect God to do in each of our hearts. If you want to be kept up-to-date with our team, please subscribe to our team blog. (You can subscribe on the right, through email, a feedreader, or as a follower.)

#2 – Fill our bins. You’ll notice some Rubbermaid tubs in a couple locations throughout the church, just waiting to be filled. We will be taking items for the people of Grand Goave. Some ideas are: skipping ropes, deflated soccer balls, air pumps, first aid supplies, small containers for medicines and creams (i.e., old 35 mm camera film containers), school supplies (back packs, pencil cases, small water bottles, rulers, geometry sets, scientific calculators, crayons, small notepads/notebooks, coloured pencil crayons, pencils, blue and black pens, glue sticks), French/English dictionaries, Bibles in French and/or Haitian Creole, hygiene items (tooth brushes, hair brushes, etc.)…

#3 – Financial support. We are a large team, with a number of couples going together. It costs approximately $2,000 per team member to make this trip. If you feel called to support the team financially, there is still time! Please get your donations (marked “Haiti Outreach”) to the church office no later than Sunday, January 15^th. If you’d like your support to go toward a specific team member, please include a separate note indicating who (please do not write names on the cheque); otherwise, your support will be divided amongst the team members.

When are you being commissioned? Our team will be commissioned (sent out and prayed over by our church family) in all three services on January 8, 2012.

Will you tell us about your trip? Yes, we will! We don’t have a date, time, or location yet. But we have definite plans for a coffee/dessert time where we’ll share some of our experiences.

Our thanks go out to our friends, family, and church family, for supporting and encouraging short-term missions trips. We move forward fully expecting our lives and hearts to be changed!