HaPpY BiRtHdAy aLySsA

Happy Birthday Alyssa!

So Alyssa wanted to post her journal entries for you all on her birthday.  I am so proud of her heart!  What a wonderful daughter and person she is growing into.  I can’t believe she is 15 today!

Today is February 3, 2015, my 15^th birthday.  But, that is absolutely the last thing on my mind!  This is the third birthday I’ve spent in Haiti, and I wouldn’t want to spend it anywhere else!  I am so thankful that I was able to travel to Haiti this year! (especially with my brother Luke)

I didn’t  have time to write something for the blog the first couple of days, so I would like to share a few notes and thoughts that I have written in my journal so far for this trip. 

After going on multiple mission trips to the same places, it is easy to forget what your first reaction and impact was from seeing the poverty.  Yet, it hits me hard EVERY time I go down to Haiti.  I pray that God humbles me every time I step foot in Haiti and sure enough, I was heartbroken when we arrived.

These were my thoughts on the 2 hour bus ride when we first arrived and the first day here.  When you first enter the country you can hardly speak because the poverty smacks you in the face.  Trash completely lines the streets, roads are cracked and bumpy, houses are shacks, sewage flows along the side of the roads, and people flood the area all looking at the “blancs” on the big yellow bus.  And there is the famous “Haiti smell”-a mixture of sewage, gas, trash, rotten eggs, plants, and burning garbage.  Yet through all of this, it reminds me to not look at the outside.  For as soon as I walk through the streets of Haiti, beautiful Haitians come running to you as if you are royalty.  They hold your hand, smile, and beg to play with you.  Looking into their sweet eyes is worth more than a million dollars.  You come here to bless them, but you are the one being blessed!  They show me an amazing example of what it means to be on fire for God.  They have so little, yet praise God in so many more ways than we do.

Friday Overview:

I am SO thankful that we got the chance to go up to our sponsor kids home!  We played many games with the twins, and they were so cuddly!  Their older sister kept saying “I love you” to me.  The twins gave us many hugs and high fives.  I can’t believe that at one point, they were scared of us!

Saturday Overview:

House building was INSANE.  We got a lot accomplished in one day.  And let me tell you, I am more sore from lifting buckets of cement, shoveling, and sifting than I ever have been in my APC weights class at school hahahahaha!  Another lady and I started power cleaning the buckets.  Everyone worked hard and I am excited to finish our family’s home!

Sunday overview:

Church on Sunday was amazing!  I love the way they worship!  They dance, shout, and lift their arms up while singing to our Savior.  The kids from the children’s home gave an adorable play that portrayed that no matter who you are, you can make a difference.  We also heard a few songs from a gospel teen choir.  I wish church was this exciting and enthusiastic at home!

Monday Overview:

We had another hard work day house building.  We are almost finished with the house, and I can’t wait for the house dedication with my family!  I also watched a bunch of surgeries that were so fascinating.  You can’t stop watching.  One of the neatest was a huge cyst on a man’s back.  Dr. Bill removed it and cut it open to see what was inside!

Tuesday Overview:

Today will be my first day working in the clinic this trip! J  I will be directing people to clinic rooms, praying for people at the infant nutrition clinic, and working in the lab!  We also will go to the church service at Jeanty, which is always one of my favorite parts of the tripJ  There will be dancing, singing, and holding little Haitians.  I’m telling you, our churches better step it up!

Overall Summary:

Seeing the streets of Haiti leaves me speechless and heartbroken.  There is so much that can be done.  So many ways that we can help!  And who wouldn’t want to help these people?!  It makes me disappointed in the United States and the selfish people that we live with.  I wish everyone had the chance to experience this trip to Haiti.  It truly is life changing, and has given me a new perspective on life.  Even the smallest complaints and worries that I think of make me cringe, for we have no idea how blessed we are in the US!  God has definitely been working through this medical team, and I am super excited to be a part of it!  I hope that I can continue to make many more trips down to Haiti, and I pray that more steps will be taken so that we can become more like the hands and feet of Christ!

LOL, that was not “a few” thoughts, but oh well!  Thanks for reading!

Alyssa

Devo Day

We all take turns doing devotions all week.  There is one in the morning and one at night, so there is a lot of Bible reflection.  If you know me at all, then you know that I am a fly by the seat of my pants, last minute, God will bring me revelation sort of guy.  Luke is just like his dad.  Unfortunately, Alyssa is not so laid back!  That is actually good for me though, because we had a pretty good devo tonight, at least from my perspective.  Besides me getting choked up and crying like a baby thanking everyone for parenting my kids this week and making them feel so at home and saying how proud I was of them for paying part of their way to come here and caring so much about the poor and being mission minded, we talked about the word Insane.  That is one of Alyssa’s favorites if you didn’t know that!  Luke talked about how insane it is that God created the world, and then He sent Jesus to die for our sins.  We say words like unbelievable and incredible when God can do anything, anytime, anywhere.  Then Alyssa talked about poverty and how insane it is how most of the world lives.  Americans waste so much and don’t help the poor like the Bible says to do.  It’s insane that we are adopting a child from another country-Haiti-and adding to our family after so many years(well Jaime is insane since she will have to take care of him).  God is so awesome, and we sometimes get caught up in the little things of life and forget how great he is.

We got to spend time with our sponsor kids today!  They have gotten so big.  Momma Patricia is pregnant again!  She asked us to pray that her boyfriend will marry her!  She is the one we are building the house for this year.  The kids and Charlotte helped build the house this morning.  Block wall day, which means they carried and hoisted a lot of blocks.  We will do the dedication on Friday.

Our other family came to church yesterday!  What a blessing to see them with their new outfits on.  Federline sat on my lap the whole church service.  Only three of the kids came though.  I asked momma Claire where the others were, and she told us they didn’t have nice shoes to come to church.  I was heartbroken that we didn’t give them the bag of shoes yet that we brought.  Simple little things that we never think of.  They feel like they are not honoring God if they don’t dress up for church in their very best.  I pray we can always give God our very best at whatever we do!

Luke is digging surgery!  Not like surgery back home, mostly taking out lipomas(fatty tumors) and cysts, not too major.  But he likes it nevertheless.  They told me today he was in there watching Dr. Bill take out a lipoma.  Afterward, they were going to pray for the lady and Luke said I’ll do it!  He whipped out a heartfelt prayer for her like it was no big deal and he does it all the time.  I almost cried when I heard about it.  They were impressed by his genuine prayer and courage to pray in front of all those adults!  Me too!  This easily beats anything they could be learning in school!

Insane for Jesus,

J

Doctor Luke

Today started with house building.  We had a fun team that worked really hard for 3 hours this morning.  We shoveled dirt, gravel, rocks, and sand into 5 gallon buckets and wheelbarrows and carried them about 100 yards to the job site.  Much easier than last year!  The location is further away from the Lifeline campus, but right off the main road behind some trees and family.  We went from dirt ground to a 12x24 framed pad!  They will pour the floor today, then Monday we will go back to help with block.  The worst job of the day was sifting sand to get the big rocks out.  It consisted of holding a 10 pound grated rectangle, pouring in a load of sand, shaking it violently until the small particles fell to the ground, and then throwing the larger rocks onto a different pile.  Luke and I spent the most time working out our biceps and backs!  He was awesome.  Alyssa was a beast power cleaning buckets up onto her shoulders.  Her APC class has really done a lot for her strength.  There is no way she could have done that last year!  It was great to see our sponsor mom and grandma there.  The kids are with family in Port Au Prince.  They will come next week.

So then we came back for lunch and found out our afternoon church service was canceled due to rain.  It is the dry season here, but it has rained every day so far.  It hasn’t been bad though.  Bill, the longtime veteran and “surgeon”/ER doc of the group, came over from the clinic at lunch and asked if I was up for some circumcisions.  Of course I was all in for some surgery time, especially since we couldn’t go to church.  So I took Luke over with me to catch the last couple lipoma removals and watch me do the circumcisions.  There ended up being three!  A five year old, 3 year old, and 2 year old.  Quite a bit different than the newborns I’m used to at home!  We can’t just strap them to the table and do the procedure.  So we had to use some versed and ketamine to sedate them, and everything went smoothly.  We had to tell the father who was with the first two that it wasn’t a good idea for them to ride home on a motorcycle!  Just imagine that guys after a circumcision.  Luke was a rock star.  He absolutely loved watching all of it.  He asked tons of questions, and with his dad’s sense of humor, was cracking us up.  He is just taking it all in and enjoying every minute of it.  I can’t tell you how proud I am of him and Alyssa!  They are such awesome kids!  Quote of the day, “I am definitely going to be a doctor and do this stuff dad!”

We ended the night playing Dutch Blitz with 8 of us.  It’s a combination of speed, skip-bo, and solitaire all combined into one.  Apparently it is one of the most played games by missionaries.  We can see why.  It was a blast, but very stressful!  Church and the beach tomorrow, and then the real work starts!

Au revoir,

J

No Santa?

So we were supposed to meet our sponsored kids this afternoon.  The anticipation is like Christmas morning.  We haven’t seen them in a year.  We have tons of clothes and gifts for them (thanks Jaime and Clown Peds girls).  Apparently there was a miscommunication between the staff, and our families didn’t get called!  We waited for 45 minutes while everyone else met their kids.  What a disappointment when they didn’t show!  It’s like Santa didn’t show up.

Luckily Gretchen saved the day!  She and her husband are the founders of Lifeline.  I’m sure she had better things to do, but she felt bad.  So, she loaded us in a truck and drove us to the house we built last year to visit the Faustin family.  Alyssa and I remembered where it was at and directed her where to go.  Some neighbors helped us find our way back to their house since there were at least 3 partially built homes in the way since last year!  Halfway there, Claire (the mom), had heard there were Blancs coming and came out to meet us.  She immediately recognized Alyssa and I and gave us huge hugs.  She sent for the kids, who were playing with the neighbors, and they all came running.  Federline, who was petrified of us the past two years, came and jumped into my arms!  The house looked great!  They made a tarp fence around the edges, had a covered “kitchen”, and even had chickens.  We gave them a ton of clothes, food, and a soccer ball.  Alyssa taught them how to play Uno, which they picked up really fast!  Then I set up the Jenga game we brought and proceeded to whoop the youngest 2 kids.  The highlight of the visit though was setting up the water filter that my father-in-law got us for Christmas!  Now they can have clean drinking water!  No more upset stomachs and diarrhea.

What a blessing.  They couldn’t be happier in a 2 room house with no running water or bathroom, 2 beds for 7 of them, and no vehicle.  Claire just kept asking us when my wife was coming back!  I told her soon I hope.  We will see them again next Friday, but hopefully they will come to church on Sunday as well.  They have been going to a different church, which is awesome because last year they weren’t going anywhere!  Hopefully they will come to our church this Sunday.  Keep praying that God will provide for this family-food, work, beds, and a close walk with the Lord!

In and For Him,

Jeremy, Alyssa, and Luke

Nicaragua Christmas

Nicaragua Team

This week has been awesome! We spent the week at the Partners In Christ Mission house with a group from our church. It was a family trip that we decided to lead over fall break and everyone has been awesome! The kids have been amazing and have loved every minute of the trip! I know that God has touched many lives this week and can't wait to see how He uses everyone once we return to the states!

CGI kids

Today was awesome!  We got to see and participate in Ken Sviay kids activities.  These are 15 kids that CGI kids sponsors to get them in school, tutor, help their families, get water filters, and teach them about Jesus!  It's mine and Jaime's passion and why we are involved with CGI.  There is a teacher that spends every thursday afternoon teaching these 15 kids and about 15 others that want to come too.  They learn a bible story, English, Khmer(their native language), get a snack, and have fun!  Then she spends the rest of her week visiting their houses making sure they are studying and checking on their home life, siblings, parents, job situations, food, and health.  These kids have gone from the bottom of their class at school to the upper half now since she has been working with them!  She does an amazing job!
So today I got to teach the English lesson.  They were learning the phrase, What is this?  This is ______.  So we went around the room pointing to pictures practicing.  It was most fun to hear them say zebra.  Then they all drew us pictures, pretty good ones too.  They had a snack, and we supplied some smarties!  Then I broke out the noisemakers!  I told the teacher to apologize to their parents!  It was hilarious to hear them all running around blowing their horns to be annoying.  Then Sreyleak said Mr. Jeremy we want to play a game with you!  Jaime had prepped them in January when she came, so they knew that we liked to play games.  We went out to the play area and then she said, Ok you make up the game!  All we had was a beach ball, so I quickly made up some bases, and we had the very first game of Cambodian Kickball ever in Ken Sviay- kids against adults!  They laughed and squealed the whole time.  What a great experience!

So let me tell you why this was even more impressive.  Today is a holiday in Cambodia, Labor Day.  There is no work or school.  And 30 kids showed up at school on a 100 degree day to learn about Jesus and English and see some Americans!  God is Good, all the time!

In Him,
Jeremy