Tag: Haiti Mission

Haiti Mission – Day 3

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Our morning started with a Methodist worship service – 2 beautiful hours of singing, praying and listening in French and Creole. Our sermon was on the body of Christ – what a beautiful setting to be reminded that ALL of God’s children are valued in the Body of Christ.

About 200 people filled the pews today. A surprise before worship was the chirping of of a baby chick inside the church:

After a lunch of Mamba peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we headed out in a “tap tap” (a Haitian style taxi) to see a little more of Haiti:

I’ll post videos of Haitians driving when I get to a space with more internet capabilities.

It’s evening now – time for bucket showers and nighttime devotional time. Tomorrow we begin our water filter program with VBS-type time in the afternoon.

God is alive and at work – so evident in the deeply moving worship, infectious laughter and community of hospitality. We thank you for your continued prayers and support!

If you are reading this and want to support the ministry of bringing clean water to Haiti, please consider donating to through this link.

Haiti Mission – Getting settled in Mellier

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My family has a couple of traditions during mealtime. We always say grace (at home it’s usually a silly one) and then we each share our highs, lows and something we are looking forward to. We brought that tradition to dinner here in Haiti tonight, so I thought I’d share a few highlights from our day:

Today, my high was getting reunited with some special Haitian friends, Rodny and Nadege:

I also spent about an hour with children sitting on and around me watching videos on my cellphone (they especially loved videos of baby Lucas singing). It was a gift to be present with these children…even if it was for a lot longer than I expected. Sometimes we need to be reminded God calls us into times of “being” instead of “doing” all the time.

My only low for the day was that it took a while to get our water set up, but it did lead to some cool moments of drawing water from a cistern – new skill for my resume:

I am looking forward to going to church in the morning, especially after hearing the choir rehearsal tonight:

We have been able to go on a few walks around the village, here are some of the sights and people we have met along the way:

Tomorrow is our church and Sabbath day, Monday we begin water filter work.

Stay tuned for more!

(Photo credits to Anna Lee and Linda Connor too – if some of the photos don’t post due to spotty internet, I’ll edit the post later…)

Haiti Mission: Day One – Travel Day

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Our adventure has begun, and already we started practicing our abilities to have humor and flexibility! Our 5:30am flight was delayed an hour, requiring us to change connecting flights to Port-au-Prince. This adds a few more hours in Miami as we travel to tonight’s destination, the Methodist Guest House in Pétion-Ville.

Allow me to introduce you to our team (going left to right in the photo above):

Linda is a retired schoolteacher and avid traveler. A member of New World UMC, she is known for her calm presence, sweet energy, and for being a yoga teacher. This is her first trip to Haiti.

Barbara is a member of Central UMC in Waco. While serving at the United Methodist UMCOR mission Sager Brown Depot, she learned about our trip from retired NWUMC deacon, Gordon Johnson. Barbara’s love for Haiti runs deep – she’s lived there for months as a missionary and she jumped at an opportunity to return. We joke that we’ll have to watch her closely to make sure she doesn’t “accidentally” get left behind when we return.

Keith represents Water to Life, our partner organization, and is a member of Keller UMC. Keith led my trip to Haiti in October 2017. Water to Life works to build long-term, sustainable relationships with the communities it serves. When we enter the village of Mellier tomorrow, the fruit of this will be evident when people warmly welcome their “Mr. Keith.”

I’m the fourth one in the picture, Erin, associate pastor at New World UMC. (Photo credit goes to my dear husband Dennis who woke up to drive me to DFW airport at 4am.) This is my second trip to Haiti. I am excited about giving hugs to the sweet people in Mellier. It is my hope that this mission trip marks just the beginning of a long-term connection between our congregation and Haiti.

Anna is also a member of New World. She has been to Haiti twice on medical mission trips. A great story about Anna’s connection on our team: when Anna met Barbara at our pretrip meeting, they both sensed the other looked familiar. The ladies went through all the possible ways they could have met. It turns out that Anna met Barbara many years ago while volunteering at Sager-Brown Depot. It was Barbara’s love for Haiti that inspired Anna to follow God’s call on her heart to serve in Haiti, too.

And here we go!

-written from seat 27B on AA flight 1042-