Cholera Deaths in Petite Riviere

by Kandy

I have just this afternoon found out that four adults at the Holy Bible Church (where we stayed and taught hygiene classes in Haiti), and three children at the school in Souvenance (where we built the new church/school) have died as a result of the cholera outbreak. This is heartbreaking to me, as I know that this outbreak has the potential to continue to get worse in the coming weeks. Please keep these communities in your prayers, especially the families of those who have passed away. Pastor Elise is here in town and will be speaking at my church this evening. I will have more details after talking with him tonight.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

Out of Darkness

By Kandy Sanders

I have been unable to finish my account of our trip to Haiti, in part due to the busyness of home schooling, soccer games, dance class and all the other activities that seem to fill my days, but primarily because of my sheer inability to get something down on paper that conveys my experiences in a manner which makes sense. I have decided that there will be no more waiting and I will just write down what comes out and hope that you can understand in some small way the impact that this trip had on my life. Rather than writing a separate post about each day like I planned (which might take the better part of a year), I will do my best to summarize our entire week in this one post. We’ll see how it goes :)

On Monday morning the men left very early to begin work on the church in Souvenance. Souvenance is a village a few miles from where we were staying, and most of the people there practice voodoo regularly. It is a desolate place and I cannot even begin to describe the area except to say that it is extremely dark spiritually. About six years ago, the Holy Bible Church planted a church there, and the building they used was made of sticks and scrap pieces of tin. It was very small and definitely not sturdy enough to withstand tropical storm force winds. Not only were they holding church services in this “building”, about fifty children were going to school there as well. The few believers in the area have been faithfully preaching and living the gospel, all while the voodoo witch doctor lives perhaps a hundred yards from the church building. This witch doctor even visited the job site a few times during the week, which was very interesting, but that is not my story to tell. Perhaps one of the guys can write it down so that you can see how God was at work in this seemingly godless place. So, it was at this building in Souvenance that the men spent a majority of the week.

One of the men that came with us is an expert at water filtration, and he and Sam spent most of their time working on a water filter for the village. This filter will provide 3000 gallons per day of clean water to the people of the village of Petite Rivierre and the children who attend the Holy Bible School. Most of these people have never in their lives had clean water, and suffer from constant sickness due to their continued drinking of water from the river and irrigation ditch. Yes, you read that right. They drink water from irrigation ditches and mud puddles. I saw this with my own eyes. They do not even boil the water since it is so difficult to obtain wood for their cooking fires and they do not want to waste the precious wood to boil water. Can we even imagine having to make the decision whether to cook our food or boil our water? If you add to this the fact that severe hunger is a constant reality to them, it becomes easier to see what decision we would make. Is it possible for us to fathom the fact that there are whole villages full of people all over the world who must make this decision every day? I walk into my kitchen and turn on the tap and there is wonderfully clear, life sustaining water, any time I want it. How would I feel if I had to give my children water that I knew was making them sick, shriveling their little bodies, bloating their bellies, and turning their hair that awful rusty orange color? My heart hurts and I feel physically ill at the thought of the reality that these people face daily. The water filtration system will potentially change the lives of everyone in the area. The plan is to set up a bottle filling station at the school where the villagers can bring their own bottles and pay a very small fee to fill them with clean water. We pray that this will be a way to not only dramatically improve the health of the community, but also jump start the local economy.

There were two other ladies from our church who worked with me for most of the week. We spent some of our time teaching bible stories and hygiene classes to the local children who ventured to the area. We taught them the difference between clean water and dirty water, how to keep their water buckets clean and how and when to wash their hands. We also used the Jesus Storybook Bible to tell them about Christ. We had brought some copies of the book translated into French, and we left some of them with the school teachers. Jeremy also purchased some Creole bibles, which we left with the pastor. One highlight of my time with the children was when they sang “Change La Vim” for us. Jeremy had recorded them singing it on his first trip to Petite Rivierre and I had listened to it again and again over the last few months, but now I was able to finally hear it in person. The children sang so beautifully about God’s love for them and how they desired for Him to change their lives, that my eyes were suddenly filled with tears. This seemed to be the way my emotions operated while in Haiti, with sudden dramatic bursts of uncontrollable weeping. If you do not know me, let me tell you that this is very uncharacteristic of me.
After our bible stories, songs, and hygiene training, the children would go into the school yard and play games. Sam was able to join them some of the time and he enjoyed it thoroughly. He had never been around children who played soccer on a rocky field while wearing no shoes, and was quite surprised at how athletically talented they were.

One interesting occurrence during the week was the slaughter and butcher of a goat, which I was able to witness- a first for me. The pastor’s wife then cooked it and served it to us for dinner. It was very tasty and I did not hear many complaints from the other team members. We also at some small, whole fried fish one night, which tasted very good. Beans and rice were incorporated into pretty much every meal, but we ate significantly more meat than is typical of the Haitian diet. I know the guys had lots of Spam and peanut butter at the job site, so I am sure they were happy to see some hot food in the evenings, even if it was a little different from what they are accustomed to eating at home.

The afternoons were spent doing health surveys in the village surrounding the school. This was the most eye opening part of the trip for me. I had known that we were going to see hungry, sick people. I had not known the extent of the poverty that I would witness. The people there have nothing. Many of them eat one meal per day or nothing at all. Those who are well-fed eat twice a day when they can find enough food. Most of the people have gardens, but they are small and provide primarily corn, beans and sorghum. They all drink dirty water. Most of them are sick quite often. Many looked as if their bones would break if they were hugged too tightly. All of the children showed signs of malnutrition. Not many of the villagers have jobs, as there are no jobs to have. Many spoke of losing loved ones in the devastating hurricane and subsequent flood that swept through the area a few years ago. I was completely unprepared for the magnitude of desperation and sadness that I would witness in Haiti.

On Tuesday, Jeremy and I took a very long, arduous trip to Thommonde, which is located in the central plateau of Haiti. Providentially, on the flight from Miami to Port-au-Prince, Jeremy had been sitting beside a man from the CDC who is doing work in Thommonde, and Jeremy was able to find out about a project that the CDC is involved with there. This man has been working in Haiti for ten years with people from many different agencies, and they are training local health workers to help the people in the area, as well as teaching them how to grow and process food. They have done some fantastic work so far and we wanted to see how they are doing it. The man from the CDC invited us to come and talk to the workers in Thommonde, and fortunately we were able to find time to go, despite the fact that we were several hours away from their headquarters. However, we were able to glean some great information from the staff there and we hope that some of the ideas can eventually be transferred to Petite Rivierre. A clinic building has been sitting right next to the Holy Bible School for ten years, but due to lack of money, construction was never completed. If some of the locals can be trained in basic healthcare, perhaps this clinic could be operational some day. If this occurs, many of the health issues in Petite Rivierre will be nearly nonexistent.

On Thursday some of us went into Gonaives, the closest city to Petite Rivierre, to buy supplies, order textbooks for the school (provided by donations from you guys!), and take the Judy dolls to an orphanage. The first orphanage we tried would not even let us in, but we kept looking. After asking around, we finally found one that would let us come in and distribute the dolls. The orphanage housed twenty-nine children, and they seemed well cared for. The boys and girls had separate rooms with rows of bunk beds and lots of space. All of the children were wearing clothes and there were only a few signs of nutritional deficiencies. We were able to tell them about the dolls and explain to them why we were there. They were, of course, very happy to see us since we came bearing gifts. What child doesn’t love to receive a gift? The children were sweet and beautiful, and loved to pose for pictures. After leaving the orphanage, we went back to Souvenance to get the construction crew and were surprised to find that they were only ten minutes from completing the roof. I was able to watch the final few minutes of construction, then found myself teary eyed again as Richard climbed the ladder and hung a wooden cross on the front of the building. After lots of pictures, we gathered everyone together inside the building for a dedication service. One of the highlights of the service was Brother Mark preaching while using the bible on Jeremy’s iPhone, a sight I am sure will never be seen again. After speeches and prayers from some of the men involved in the construction and church planting, we all sang “Amazing Grace”, a song that people in many cultures seem to know. I have been a part of many worship services with people in other cultures, but hearing those precious believers sing in Creole while we sang in English made me want to shout with joy. In my experience, I can think of nothing closer to the scene in Revelation where John recounts his vision of seeing people from every tribe and tongue praising God around the throne.

After leaving the new church building, most of the crew headed back to where we were staying, in order to get cleaned up and ready for dinner. A few of us, however, walked the half mile down the road to the voodoo temple. When I said earlier that voodoo is practiced regularly by most of the people in Souvenance, I was not exaggerating. Souvenance is home to one of the largest voodoo temples in the country and is considered the center of voodoo activity in the northwestern portion of Haiti. Many voodoo rituals and healing ceremonies take place in the area where we were working, and one of our interpreters showed me the signs of a voodoo house. There were several of those houses, recognizable by the strange items in the yards or charms hanging from trees. Around one tree was tied an infant sized casket which was painted red. I could write pages about how the people of Haiti are in bondage to voodoo and how they are so desperately looking for help that they call out to evil spirits daily. However, I will leave you to research that on your own if you wish. Just know that voodoo is dark and evil, and according to our interpreters, 90% of Haitians practice it in some form. We arrived at the front gate of the voodoo compound, were given permission to enter as sightseers, and began to look around. We could see many people sitting around, eating rice and talking with one another. They looked no different than the other Haitians we had seen. I think I was expecting to be able to discern the voodoo people from everyone else, but soon realized I was wrong. We saw many small huts which housed some of the people in the voodoo community, children running around playing, and several large, strangely shaped trees. One of these trees was in the middle of a large pit in the ground that is used for bathing during rituals. The voodoo worshipers believe the strange trees are magic. At night (according to voodoo beliefs), some of the people are able to go inside the trees, converse with the spirits, and be healed from all their ailments. Other trees are used for curses. The people believe that by wrapping an individual’s clothing around the tree, wrongdoing can be avenged. We began to talk to some of the children, found out if they could read, and gave them some Christian literature if they could. Since there were a couple dozen adults gathered together in the center of the compound, we headed that direction in order to strike up some conversations. We were able to talk to a few of them one on one before Jeremy asked if he could share a message with the whole group. They seemed eager to listen, and more people began to appear. Jeremy began to preach the sermon that Paul preached at the temple of the unknown god in Athens, slightly adjusted to fit the voodoo context. The people were excited about the message and seemed to agree with everything he said. I was more than slightly confused, as I had expected to be kicked out of the place as soon as he mentioned the bible. When Jeremy told them that they must throw down their voodoo charms and worship only the true God, pandemonium broke out. There suddenly seemed to be dozens of people there who weren’t there only moments before. They became extremely angry, and one of the men (who we later found out was a witch doctor) came up to Jeremy and began to argue and quote bible verses at him. I was even more confused at this point, wondering why he knew anything about the bible, but learned later that it was a ploy to confuse everyone so that they would not listen to the message. The amazing part was that he seemed to know more scripture than many Christians. This was the first time I had come face to face with what I recognized to be syncretism. As I looked around, I realized that many of the people were wearing shirts or necklaces with saints on them. They knew the bible, and agreed with everything Jeremy said. They talked about the miracles of Jesus, and told stories of Moses. They honestly believe that they are worshipping God, yet their voodoo practices contradict the idea of one Sovereign God. I have never felt more spiritually discerning than I suddenly did at that moment. I am not the type of person to talk much about spirits of good and evil, and I am not charismatic, but at the time I could almost see the forces of good and evil at work. It was an extremely strange experience for me, one which I have never had before. To be honest, if it happens again, I hope to be much better prepared than I was. All I could do was stand there, pray silently, and watch my husband attempt to share the gospel with these people. Another man began to talk to Jeremy and said that if we would give them food they would accept our God. Jeremy explained to them that we could not bribe them to believe in God. Besides, we had no food to give them. After a few more minutes of conversation and people yelling things in our direction, we decided it was time to go. We left the voodoo compound, but we pray that a gospel seed was planted in someone’s heart.

On Friday morning we were able to meet with the teachers of the Holy Bible School and have a hygiene and sanitation class with them. They learned many things, asked many questions, and were very receptive to what we taught them. We are praying that they will understand the importance of the information and teach it to their students. We left plenty of sanitation literature with them, in their native language, so they can study and learn even more.

After we finished that class, we all loaded up onto the bus and went to an orphanage, this one just a few miles up the road from the school. What I saw there was, at the very least, heart wrenching. We walked down a dirt path to a crooked gate made of sticks and tin, and as we walked through the gates, the children quickly gathered together and began to sing to us. It was so sweet to hear them sing, “We are glad to see you, glad to see you, glad, glad, we are glad to see you!” They sang it first in English, then French, then Creole. After the song, Jeremy told them why we were there and we began to hand out the dolls. I handed out a few, and then began to walk around and look at the orphanage conditions. The things I saw made me feel like crying and running and screaming all at once. The children were malnourished. Many had no clothes. Some were obviously sick. They all smiled at us, however. I felt silly handing dolls to starving children. To my right was a small mud hut that the orphanage worker said was where the children slept. I ducked through the small door and almost instantly had to turn my back to the children and face the wall, because my body was suddenly being racked with sobs. I had no control over it. These precious babies and children were sleeping on top of one another on a dirt floor in a tiny mud hut with nothing under them to cushion their emaciated bodies and nothing over them to keep away the disease carrying mosquitoes. When I could finally control myself, I turned around and began to try to talk to the children. None of them could speak English and I had no interpreter with me, so I had to resort to smiling and hugging them. It seems funny to me now that I was frustrated by that, as if somehow loving on them was inferior to talking. I spent a lot of time in that room and could not seem to bring myself to leave. I snapped a few pictures, but could not muster the strength to take more. When I finally walked out of the dark little hut and into the midday sunshine, my team was gone. I looked around and finally realized they were all on the bus, which was up the road waiting for me. As I trudged up the dirt path to the rocky dirt road, I almost felt numb from the experience. I was leaving those children to starve and die from some preventable disease. How do you process that? I still haven’t figured it out, but I nearly had a shouting fit when I learned last week that the members of the Holy Bible Church had taken some of their small water filters to the orphanage and are going to try to get them some food.

We drove back to Port-au-Prince that afternoon and flew home the next day. While I have had a difficult time processing some of the things I saw in Haiti, I know that God is sovereign and His plan is being worked out, even when I do not understand it. While it breaks my heart when I think about those sweet babies with no food to eat, I see that God is now mobilizing some of my brothers and sisters at the Holy Bible Church to help as much as they can, and He will be glorified. While I have no comprehension of what compels Haitians to practice voodoo, I see the small church in Souvenance faithfully plowing the fields with the gospel every day, and I know that God will be glorified. When I see natural disaster after natural disaster shake the small country of Haiti and do not understand why, I know that God will be glorified.

Please pray for the country of Haiti. Pray that those in bondage to voodoo will be set free because “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36) Pray that those who go to bed with hungry bellies tonight will look to the Word to be filled. Pray that those with no bed in which to sleep will look to God for their comfort, even amidst their suffering.

I hope that from this post you are able to get a small glimpse of our trip to Haiti in September. I could fill pages and pages with the stories we brought back with us. If you ever have an opportunity to go on a trip like this, I pray that you will seriously consider going and experiencing God’s work in a different culture than your own. It can be life changing.

"I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." Acts 26:17-18

The Journey North

by Kandy Sanders

The journey across Haiti to the small town of Petite Riviere was long and filled with sights which were new to me. When driving through the country side of Alabama it is very common to see pastures full of cows, horses or goats. Occasionally a hen house can be seen in rural areas of the state, or perhaps a few chickens pecking around in someone’s yard. I had never been in a place where cows, horses, goats, donkeys, chickens and pigs roam completely free right in the middle of a city. There was an almost disturbing clash of cultures which could be seen in every direction. People were riding donkeys loaded down with goods, children carefully balanced buckets of water on their heads, while trucks and motorcycles seemed intent on running everyone else off the road. On one street corner an elderly woman was selling freshly made fried plantains and pork on a stick, while on the next a man was trying to sell old stereo parts and computer equipment. One of the strangest sights was of a lady walking down the road with a large basket of laundry on her head while talking on a cell phone. Occasionally a UN truck filled with soldiers carrying large weapons would come into view and I was unsure at the time if I should feel protected or frightened. While the bus weaved its way among the streets littered with debris and people, the cacophony of sounds was unlike anything I had previously heard. The constant noise of large trucks rumbling slowly through the city, the buzz of motorcycles darting in and out of alley ways, and people hawking their goods on the streets verged on auditory overload. The air was filled with dust and a horrid smell which could have been one of any number of things, but the near nausea that it induced prevented me from attempting to identify its origin. The constant jostle caused by the conditions of what the Haitians called “roads” was more than slightly annoying and I almost felt as if I was in Jeremy’s old Tacoma mud riding through Mt. Olive again. The only difference was that this ride was incredibly long and punctuated by nearly constant horn blasts from our bus and every other vehicle around us.

The larger cities through which we traveled resembled Port-au-Prince in that they looked like garbage dumps with people and animals wandering around in them. While in Port-au-Prince I had been astounded by the amount of earthquake damage still visible but as we made our way north, I eventually began to see evidence of hurricane damage. Haiti has been ravaged by many hurricanes, tropical storms and floods over the past few years, but I had assumed that the country had largely recovered from these earlier assaults. Surely the earthquake was the only natural disaster still causing problems, I thought. Unfortunately, as I soon learned, the country is in such mayhem that the people just cannot seem to get out from under the devastation of so many catastrophic events. For too many reasons to explain here, damaged buildings sit untouched, lingering rubble is piled high in the streets, people remain hungry, and children are still sold as slaves.

The bus stopped in St. Marc, which is the main port of Haiti, so that we could eat a late lunch and load up on groceries before getting out into the countryside where supplies would be fewer and harder to find. For me, it was an exercise in faith just to walk across the street since vehicles had no regard for the safety of pedestrians and they almost seemed to veer toward those on foot in most instances, so I was sure I was stepping off the curb and into certain death. Let me say here that I have spent time in many large U.S. cities, including New York, San Francisco and others, as well as the cities of Lima and Iquitos in Peru. I also experienced what I thought were crazy cab rides while on my honeymoon in St. Thomas, and on a trip to Hawaii, but I had never seen anything like this. There seemed to be no traffic laws whatsoever, most of the roads would not even be considered roads in America, and our driver had nerves of steel. That is not an exaggeration. At one point during the week I remarked that driving must be considered an extreme sport in Haiti and I know that you could ask any member of our team and they would concur. Once safely inside the store, we grabbed a bite to eat, purchased groceries and journeyed back to the bus. Despite exhaustion caused by being on buses and planes for many, many hours, I found that sleep was elusive. I reasoned with myself that sleep would come once we were settled somewhere for the night and I certainly did not want to miss the sights, so I stayed awake through the long ride.

The countryside of Haiti was absolutely gorgeous and I was pleased that I had stayed awake to enjoy it. The green hills, which rolled right up into the not too distant mountains reminded me of the breathtaking scenery in Hawaii. Palm trees could be seen swaying against the backdrop of a Caribbean sunset, the ocean became visible for a short while, and I began to feel peaceful for the first time in several hours. For a little while I almost forgot that I was in the most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere. Occasionally we would go through a town and see pigs rooting around in piles of trash, or women making charcoal by the side of the road, but after a few hours I began to feel as if I was becoming desensitized to these sights. When we finally arrived in Petite Riviere, I was relieved to be finished with the day’s travel, but more than slightly intimidated by what was to come. For some reason, I felt for a moment that whatever happened over the next few days couldn’t be as difficult as the previous twenty-four hours. However, I remembered having this same thought upon arriving in Iquitos, Peru last July after more than a day of travel, and I was overwhelmingly wrong in both cases. The days to come would prove to be filled with exhaustion of both the physical and emotional kind.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Psalm 23:1-3

Overwhelmed

By Kandy Sanders

Some of what I've written here is straight from my journal because I want you to get a sense of the raw, unedited emotion I felt at the time. You may be surprised at some of it, but I'm striving here for honesty and not the toned down happy mission trip story that so many of us have told or heard at one time or another.

Walking out of the airport into the overcast day brought unusual sights, smells and sounds which overwhelmed my senses and brought to mind the vague feeling of a being on a movie set. Scanning my surroundings, I quickly became aware that I was certainly not in Alabama anymore. After fighting my way through a sea of people, being herded through the fiasco known as baggage claim, then being attacked by pseudo airport employees, somehow I had expected relief upon exiting the building. What I saw made me wish I had stayed inside. Children dressed in not much more than rags held their little hands through the holes in the chain link fence, hoping to be given something, anything to feed their hungry bellies. The cinder block wall across the street was a canvas for all manner of graffiti, and men leaned heavily on it as if one, the men or the wall, would be unable to stand otherwise. The porters who fancied themselves airport employees were arguing with one another over my bags in a language I did not understand, and I began to feel absolutely helpless and out of control. Once again expecting respite from what seemed like a strange dream, I boarded the bus which would take us to Petite Riviere, our final destination. I was wrong again. The drive through Port-au-Prince was surreal at best, a nightmare at worst. There were people everywhere in the streets, an occasional naked child running this way and that, buildings in shambles, trash piled high on what may have been sidewalks, goats and chickens roaming free, and vehicles everywhere competing for space on the road. When the bus finally reached the outskirts of the city and I thought that surely the worst was behind us, the tent cities came into view. Some were seemingly built on heaps of trash, some on hillsides, others in ditches alongside the road. They stretched as far as I could see and suddenly I was devastated. The emotion of the day began to have its way with me and I was ashamed of the name of that emotion. It was disgust. Absolute, total, outright disgust. I could not fathom why someone would want to come to this God-forsaken place to do anything. How was I going to spend an entire week here?


I did spend a week there and lived to tell about it. There is more to come. God is good!

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."
Proverbs 19:21

Our Trip to Haiti

By Sam Miller, age 13


We got to Haiti Saturday evening and the airport was crazy everyone trying to “help”. The ride over to Gonaives was extremely bumpy but I actually got some sleep. When we finally got to the house we went to bed. Sunday we went to church. I thought the church service was neat; I had never been in a church service that there was a translator. The church was definitely different than the churches here. It was a building with no windows and one room inside. After church I helped Raymond sort out pieces for the water filter. Monday we started sanding the pieces to the water filter and putting them together without gluing them. Tuesday we started to glue the pipes and pieces together. We started to put the system up on the wall, after that I went outside and played soccer with the kids. They were so much better than me that they were just going around me with the ball. Afterward I went out and helped do surveys around the school. The houses looked like mud huts but the people looked happy.
Wednesday we finished putting the trusses on the church in Souvenance. I was glad I got to help out as much as I could, carrying and lifting. Thursday we started and finished putting tin on the roof of the church, and put a small wooden cross on the church. We sang “Amazing Grace” with all the people who were there. On Friday we went to an orphanage that had 95 kids and gave out dolls to all of them. They had one meal a day sometimes none at all. They lived in dirt floor huts and they all looked happy. Afterward we went to Port au Prince and stayed in a house that was really nice especially for Haiti. On Saturday we went to the airport and flew to Miami and we ate the best food I had tasted all week, Chile’s. When we finally got to Atlanta we started driving home. When we got home I went to bed and slept like a rock.
I think Haiti is a terrible place with so much poverty and death. I would also like to go back because I enjoyed helping the people there. That was what I did in Haiti and what I thought.

Report from PAP Airport from Jeremy - Saturday, Oct 2

Wow, crazy week.

We're sitting in the PAP airport and I finally have a few minutes to collect my thoughts. Here's a quick update on our various projects for the week:

• church - the roof is finished thanks to a lot of help from the community. The dedication service was great. Mark preached a quick sermon(he had to use the bible on my iPhone, ha!) and then we prayed for the church leadership. As we prayed for them I was overwhelmed by the dedication to the gospel displayed by these men. For the last 6 years they have faithfully been plowing this land planting the seeds of the gospel in the hearts of the people of this community. I am not worthy to tie their shoes. Hopefully God will allow these men to continue to spread the gospel for many years to come.

• water system - we were not able to get the system fully operational due to some electrical problems with the generator. Elise is going to get a breaker box put in and then a local plumber is going to help him test it for leaks once it is pressurized. Elise said he would call me when it is working.

• hygiene/sanitation training - the ladies were able to share with the children Monday and Tuesday. They read the Jesus bible storybook and taught some personal hygiene lessons to them. In the afternoons they visited houses and were able to collect information for our health surveys. We still have to compile all of the information but the results confirm a lot of what we expected to find. Most people eat 1 time a day if they have food. Everyone has stomach problems and headaches which are common symptoms of water born diseases. Friday we had a class with all of the teachers at the school. It was very interactive and full of questions. After the class they were real careful about their drinks. It really made them confront things that the sort of knew but didn't apply them to real life. Some of them drink from the river. Some of them don't have latrines. These are things that are within their power to change. They think that they don't have the resources to do this themselves and is the attitude we are trying to change. We told them to start where they are, use what they have, and do what they can. Hopefully they will become passionate enough about their community's health to do something about it.

Voodoo temple - the main voodoo temple in Haiti is less than 1 mile from the church we were working on. As we passed by it each day I couldn't help but think about the people in bondage to this dark religion. I also thought about Paul when he went to the temple to the unknown god in Athens and presented the gospel to them. Thursday morning I paraphrased Paul's message so that I would be ready if we could get into the compound. After the dedication service we got Michelle(our truck driver) to drop us off at the temple. Kandy, Mallory, Jenny, Odny, and myself went up to the gate and the lady told us we could walk around and take pictures if we wanted to. There were children playing and 20 or so adults scattered around the compound. We walked around passing out copies of Finding Your Joy in Creole. Everyone wanted a copy and several people immediately started reading it. One teenage guy spoke English and asked me what religion we were apart of. Instead of answering I asked him what religion he was. He said he was Christian so I asked him why he was hanging out in front of a Voodoo temple. His replied that he was there because his mother was there. I asked him if he also worshiped Voodoo spirits. He said that he did. Then I asked him how he could be Christian and Voodoo at the same time. He had a puzzled look on his face and said, "I don't know". Before I could respond he said, "You mean you have to choose?" This was not something he had ever considered before today. I told him that yes he had to choose. He could not serve God and Voodoo at the same time. Then I told him that I had a message for them if they wanted to hear it. Everyone gathered up and Odny translated for me. What I said is below:

Men of Souvenance, I see that you are very religious. I see this great temple that you have built to honor all of the many spirits of Voodoo. Therefore you worship many spirits that you do not know. I am here to tell you of the God who made the world and everything in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He does not live in a temple made by man. He is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives life and breath and everything to all mankind. From one man He made all the peoples of the earth, and He determines the years of their lives and where they will live that all men should seek after God in the hope that they might blindly find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for "In Him we live and move and have our being." The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent because He has planned a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. This man is Jesus Christ, the one and only son of God. He lived a perfect life and died to pay the sin debt for every man who believes in Him. Therefore you must repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Throw down your Voodoo charms and call upon the name of the one true God. Cry out to God and leave this way of life behind.

They were fine with everything I said until the part about throwing down their voodoo charms came out. They erupted with anger screaming, "we will never do that!" A witch doctor argued with me for a few minutes and knew a lot of scripture, but never did have a point. We eventually made our way back out to the road and walked towards Elise's church. I don't know if there will be any fruit from that experience, but hopefully some of the people will reconsider their syncretism and turn to Christ.

I also want to write something about the orphanage, but that will have to come later. See you guys tomorrow.

Friday, Oct 1 - Final day of ministry in Haiti

From Jeremy and Kandy's FB postings from yesterday and today:

Yesterday: Jeremy - Just preached paul's sermon from the temple in Athens at the voodoo temple in souvenance.

Yesterday: Kandy - Today's excitement: a visit at an orphanage and a debate in a voodoo temple.

Today: Kandy - Just visited another orphanage. Atrocious conditions, much worse than the other orphanage. Very emotional.

Today: Jeremy - Orphanage had 95 kids, mud huts, one meal per day. Kids slept in dirt or on a foam mat

Today: Jeremy - Sanitation class this morning, dist Judy dolls at orphanage. Headed back to PAP now.

I believe the team is now headed back to Port-Au-Prince to prepare for their departure early tomorrow am.