WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS

RAIN, RAIN AND MORE RAIN

We have all heard the old saying "WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS" in more ways than one that is true with Haiti. If you don' live in or have visited the Tropics, S.E Asia, India, Bangladesh, the Rain Forests or our own N.W. United States you probably don't have a comprehension of the amounts of rain that can fall during each day of the "rainy season". I'm from Indiana where it can rain heavy in the Spring before and during the planting season, then as often as not be too dry during the Summer growing season, then be rainy during the Fall harvest. Even so I'm totally amazed at the amount of rain Haiti receives from May through Nov. and you can double that if the Hurricanes are hitting Haiti.

It has been raining pretty regular since my return to Haiti ten days ago but the last several days the rains have flooded the streets of Liancourt and yesterday St. Marc. Yesterdays rain was intense with near gale force winds and rains making it very difficult to see if not drive. The good thing is such intense weather conditions are about the only thing that make Haitians drive somewhat cautiously and slow down. I met many a vehicle yesterday with flashing caution lights on.

St. Marc streets were running with chocolate colored water yesterday often 12 inches deep. Where the steep side streets run down from the surrounding hills they look like mountain streams rushing to get to the ocean but once they hit the perpendicular main street it becomes a river of water.

The thing that gets me is the difference in cultural attitudes about rain. Yes kids will be kids anywhere and love to play in the rain and run through water puddles. Though of course in our culture we yell at our children " get in this house you better not be getting your clothes all wet", in Haiti it is not that way at all. People walk nonchalantly about as if they don't even notice it or for sure that they accept and enjoy it. Flooded soccer field serve as a new form of water soccer. Young men and women go out jogging on the streets a form of shower while you exercise or maybe visa versa. Possibly they may even take along a bar of soap, but not sure about that. Adults and children get underneath water spouts where the water comes off roofs and bathe. Young people, usually teens and twenty year old's dance in the streets or along the highways. This is all contrary to my way of thinking in that when it rains you get inside or protect yourself with rain gear or an umbrella. The other day as as I drove up to DeChapelle in the rain a lady was walking down the road with an unopened umbrella balanced on top of her head!! Now that may sound like an oxymoron to us from another culture but more often than not I see umbrellas used more to keep the sun off women and babies than to deflect rain. Contrary to what some people may think Haitians know when it's way too hot thus they may desire to thwart the heat from the suns rays rather than the coolness of the falling rain. "God's rainbows come in many colors and so do the people He created and loves". SJM

NEW WEBSITE

THANKS TO THE HIGHVIEW COG TEAM WHO REPAIRED THIS MOUNTAIN CHURCH
Our new website should be launched today and hopefully be another tool for us to educate and communicate to all those who have an interest in Haiti and our work there. We have added some new features and kept some of the old but our intention is that all of the different ways we communicate are at one location.

I started doing updates about a year ago and sending them out to many of my friends and readers. They in turn would often share with their friends who would request to be added to my update list.The PH-H updates, blogs and newsletters are now available to anyone who has a computer and our website address. We have also added the blogs of several other organizations working in Haiti with PH-H and those of some of our other Church of God General Conference (CGGC) fellow missionaries who work in other countries. Since I write the PH-H blog and update my intention is that the blog be more of a personal account of my life not only in Haiti as the PH-H director but back in the states. I hope to post to it every week to 10 days. The updates will be more what is actually going on with the PH-H ministries, projects, our teams, staff, missionaries and my PH-H work in Haiti and the U.S. on it's behalf. I hope to do as many as 3 updates a week especially during my stays in Haiti which typically are about 8 months every year. When I'm back stateside attending to mission business and some R&R there is still plenty to write about. Another form of communications we use is Facebook where you can often get several short snippets and pictures of what is going on each day in Haiti and also follow some of what our other missionaries in Haiti are doing.

We also have added plenty of contact info and how others can join with our Project Help Team to impact the Haitian communities where we work and live. If you want to learn even more you can go to our CGGC website to learn about all the other countries that Cross Cultural Ministries has missionaries working in. Check out our earthquake video and we have a another brand new video we will be adding soon. I leave for Haiti on Friday morning so stay tuned to our new website to follow what is going on. In God's Love, SJM

THE BEAUTY OF HAITI

My Highview Church of God team
from Lancaster, Pa. was scheduled to depart at 2:25 pm yesterday. Normally if teams are at the Borel campus and they have an afternoon flight we drive directly from here for the 2.5 hour trip. If their flight is in the morning we take them to Pierre Payen the night before. Our plan was to have a leisure breakfast then hit the road at about 9:00 am so we could arrive at the airport at around noon.

Up here in the Valley people like to protest about whatever is their latest problem. Yesterday it was the lack of electricity. We have a hydro electric plant about 6 miles down the road on one of the canals . So the locals put rocks across the road to make a blockade , not just one row but about 20 rows in a one mile stretch, to prevent employees getting to the power plant. After determining that it would be impossible to get through I decided to take the longer route I had always wanted to try up and over the mountains.

Route Verettes the road that passes through Borel climbs up through the Le Artibonite valley following the meandering river into Mirebalais. This is a very scenic route with the road curving and climbing the grade to a higher elevation. Clear mountain streams rush down from the surrounding mountains to join up with the muddy river water headed for the coast.

Once the road gets to Mirebalais you get on route 3 that crosses the Central Plateau going from port up to Mirebalais, Hinche and on to Cap Haitien. We headed East on 3 which is a several thousand foot climb by switchbacks up over the mountain range ringing the Plateau area. As we curved around the last switchback and crested the summit we could gaze down on the Plaine de Cul , the flat lands surrounding Port au Prince.

The traffic as always was bumper to bumper as we took route 1 through the suburbs of Bon Repon and Cazale to the airport. Having a patient attitude and air conditioning helps , I had the first but not the second. Anyway we pulled into the airport at 12:00 on schedule and met up with one of our drivers who brought in the rest of the team luggage from our other compound at Pierre Payen. I think most of the team were awe struck by the beauty of this route through the mountains and captured it on camera to share with others back home. I know I will be passing this way again maybe not to take teams to the airport but just to enjoy the beauty of Haiti. SJM

INTO THE MOUNTAINS

Last year's earthquake damaged several of our mountain churches as well as completely destroyed our church in Port au Prince. The churches in the mountains pose several problems
1. getting the materials and equipment up to the churches and 2. finding teams willing to rough it by staying in the mountains and get the job done. I got a call late last year from Lancaster, Pa. from a young man wanting to lead a team from his church the Highview Church of God. Saturday I picked up his seven member team at the airport in Port au Prince. This afternoon after church and lunch at our guesthouse at Pierre Payen we took them up to the trail head and dropped them off . Several adults and children from the village of Bourne came down to help carry their supplies up. Watson Joseph one of our employees who works with our visiting teams here at the Borel campus has taken on the additional task of leading these teams that come to work in the mountains. The teams packed in their sleeping gear , water purification bottles, supplemental food, hygiene, extra clothes and tools. We sent up food supplies and contracted locals to cook two meals a day for them. The biggest obstacle is the weather it has been raining everyday now for 6 days. This could slow them down but excitement was high as I pointed out the distant village on the side of the mountain. In my years here in Haiti possibly one the biggest advancements besides internet is cell phones. This gives me the advantage we didn't have years ago to be in contact with our teams and keep them supplied with materials, food, health care and bring them out when they finish. It seems a trend in many of our teams has been to take on these type of more difficult projects we are grateful some our called to a HIGHER adventure than others, God bless them. SJM

LIFE IN HAITI

FLIP FLOPS AND OCTOPUS APPETIZERS

Last Friday as I was in my home at Borel, Haiti preparing to get ready to fly home on Sunday morning for a few weeks of rest, meetings and speaking engagements I had a visitor knock at my door. This is a typical everyday occurrence that goes with my director's job and it always intensifies as my departure date approaches. Loveline our Haitian daughter came to notify me I had someone who wanted to talk to me, this usually means one thing someone is there to ask me for help with something. Much to my surprise though this person had come to bring me a gift or actually gifts.

My Haitian visitor who was a rather short, thirty something diver was from a beach area on the N.E. side of St. Marc. This is where we sometimes take our teams to swim on Sunday afternoons. Haitians are innovative and resourceful and he made his living by diving off shore for live conch
( lambi), lobster and occasionally octopus. The conch our doubly valuable because he can sell the shells as well as the meat that is inside to those who come to swim at the beach area. He called himself a diver and a chef. He wanted to inform me that he had traveled from St. Marc to prepare us Project Help missionaries a meal out of lambi and octopus.

It is not unusual for Haitians to bring or give you edible gifts, even live ones. I was once given a live goat for something I had done to help out a relative of an employee. Immediately after the goat was butchered I was informed my cook was preparing me a goat brain sandwich. I often order lambi at Haitian restaurants where it is part of a delicious Creole sauce. Once in a while I buy it raw from street vendors who preserve it in a spicy pickling sauce and put it in an old rum bottle from which they dispense it. I had never eaten octopus put I'm not squeamish about food nor how it is prepared and seeing how I was on my own for lunch that day it was a much welcomed gift. The other missionaries were in St. Marc buying groceries and were going to eat at a restaurant above the Deli Mart.

As I watched him prepare my ocean treat I learned the details that had brought him 30 miles inland to cook me a meal. The Sunday before our team and some of the missionaries had gone to the beach where he makes his living. Now normally we can drive to the beach but that day a truck had broken down on a very steep section of the beach road making it difficult to get pass that vehicle. So the transport truck was parked and the group walked to the beach as we had often done before the road was improved. One of the team members was wearing flip flops
(not good for hiking in Haiti) and as often happens the flip flop fell apart. It seems our visiting diver happened along and offered his foot ware to the barefoot team member and out of gratitude some money was exchanged. The diver wanted to give a little extra in return for the money he had received and as I said earlier Haitians are very resourceful people. So he also didn't miss the chance to give me a short sales pitch of how he could do this as a service for our teams. I wouldn't be surprised if you come and spend a week with us you might be eating some conch and octopus appetizers. SJM

MISSIONS 101

SO YOU WANT TO BE A MISSIONARY ?

I really do like blogging but sometimes, I suffer from writers block. OK maybe I'm just plain wore out after supper to do anything but close the bedroom door and drop into bed. Anyway lately I have been having some good ideas popping into my tired little mind that give me the urge to pick up my mini HP and peck at the keyboard.

It seems like so many people who visit our Project Help-Haiti campus at Borel tell me they would like to possibly be a missionary sometime soon or in the future. Now I have been on the mission field eleven years and don't claim to know it all , seen it all nor heard it all but I do think I can give some interesting insights about what it takes to be a missionary. So my brilliant idea is to every now and then blog some key points about what it takes to succeed at mission work.

Key point #1. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED. I don't know why I decided to start with this one, probably because you will encounter situations everyday where you find yourself saying or thinking " I didn't expect that".

Now don't get me wrong not everything that happens that is unexpected is something negative. Because we are working for God and he is the "Supreme Employer" your going to be right in the middle of some awesome things happening and He is using you to make it happen. Never think small when your employer is God, one of our missionaries working here at PH-H has a passion for doing street evangelism so often after he is done working he will go out to evangelize. Because he had been witnessing out on the street some people invited him over to their house to talk with their friends . Randy was expecting maybe a small handful of young people not 50 or more but out of his zeal to reach others with the gospel of Jesus Christ in the span of a few days 150 accepted Christ. This is why we are here it is why we come to the mission field we should be expecting good things to happen.

What about those things that happen that can't be labeled positive or negative, in fact they are often embarrassing, at times humorous and often leave us speechless. One that we most often encounter here in that category is nudity. As missionaries we understand the culture that when bathing and going to the bathroom the Haitians have no modesty about doing it in public. I remember my first year here I was out on a hike with my mentor Dr. Binkley as we rounded a curve on a canal path I could see three women, up ahead bathing as we approached they continued bathing but also giggling. After we passed Vic made the comment "well I guess we made their day", in the American culture it would have been the other way around.

Another time that sticks in my mind though it was years ago, it was humorous and unexpected. I was in St. Marc on business with a Haitian friend whose name I no longer remember. After coming out of the government building I got into my truck and took off, after driving a short distance I looked in my rear view mirror and to my surprise there was a naked man standing in the back of my truck as I sped through town. His front side was facing my rear window and his backside was mooning everyone who was following us. I pulled over and we tried to convince him to get out which he eventually did , we got back in the truck but before we could take off he had jumped back in. We tried to convince him to get out again and tried to pull him out which tended to agitate him, being relatively new to the country I wasn't sure what to do next.

My Haitian friend on the other hand said " lets get back in the truck, he is a fou moun (a crazy person) we can take him to the police. So we drove clear across town with a naked crazy man standing in the back of my truck. To this day every time I see a big old farm dog riding in the back of a pickup with his head sticking around the cab of the truck and his tongue hanging out catching some air I think of that guy in the back of my truck.

Later on we are going to talk about the another key point that relates to Key Point #1 and to many others and that is always have a plan and a back up plan, be prepared.
Remember : "Planning is what gets you to the mission field , preparation is what keeps you there". In God's love, SJM

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ?

Shirley and Ifwa who is ready to be baptized



The Mt. Carroll COG Team from Illinois

GOD WORKING THROUGH YOU AND ME

Haiti 2010 most will agree goes down as possibly the worst time in Haiti's history since the revolution for independence and certainly the worst ever for disasters and medically related events. It caught our organization and myself as director off guard. My first thoughts were for the missions teams I had in country at the time. Some of them I had picked up just 20 minutes before the quake struck so my top priority was for their safety, after that it was reassuring others back home that we would all be fine. Within thirty hours we were able to get a plan in place for assisting in helping quake victims that would continue for the next 11 weeks. We flew in surgeons and supplies, we started and sustained a refugee camp for 6 months , we helped meet the needs of others who sought help. Just when things seemed they would get back to normal the Cholera epidemic struck, we set up a cholera ward for about 5 weeks. Then hurricane Tomas hit Haiti thankfully our area was spared . The election turmoil closed out the year and though for awhile it seemed no one would get home, we finally got out for the Holidays.

Two months into 2011 and things have been going pretty smoothly by Haiti standards. We have seen 8 teams arrive already this year totaling nearly 60 people. We have finished many projects left over from the end of last year and are quickly moving into other new areas and projects. Some of the new missionaries that were recruited last year are now here doing their jobs others are slated to arrive by Fall. Many new ministries are in the planning and fund raising stage, these are the bigger outreaches like agriculture and community development. Some low budget outreaches are getting started like sports camps and evangelism. It is an exciting time here at Project Help-Haiti.

Friday night we went out with our medical team to Club Indigo for supper , they were flying out the next morning. A Haitian friend came over to me as I was sitting with some of the surgeons and whispered that he had just heard that a volcano had erupted at the outskirts of Port au Prince. It was unbelievable but because I was in the middle of the earthquake just 13 months ago I didn't dismiss it too quickly. The thing is I felt the very same adrenaline rush that I experienced during and for a long period after the earthquake. We later learned that someone at the bar had started the rumor and there was nothing to it. Yet it reinforced something I learned about myself during the earthquake, that I find it easier to lead and plan during life threatening events such as a disaster, than the day to day normal events. Don't take this wrong I still love my work here in Haiti but if one isn't careful you can become complacent and not be on top of what is going on.

Lucky for us we have plenty of things going on as we move into this new year and strive to attain some of the agenda that I had laid out 14 months earlier. We are seeing many of these projects get finished and we are gearing up for new outreaches. Prospects and opportunities are coming our way that God may have planned for us all along but I just had never noticed because I was sure my agenda was the way to go.

One of these areas is in evangelism and God is moving in mighty ways through some of our new missionaries to reach our communities. Thad McKee a 23 year old is having great success with the basketball camps he has put on here at Borel at reaching young people to accept Christ. Randy Broaddus our Service Tech person is reaching young and old through street ministries and holding salvation services in homes , over 150 have been reached through these outreaches. If your here you can feel that something is different, things are happening and it is God ordained that people are reaching out and searching to hear and know about Him. In God's love, SJM