Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22: 35-39

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Matthew 7:24-28

Late into Friday night, we’ve inventoried all the remaining supplies from the blue medical bins on our trip. We’ve reorganized the contents of a pharmacy storage room in the home of our hosts, Andre & Sylvie, and restocked the shelves with vitamins and medications for the next teams who arrive Port au Prince in the weeks to come, and developed a list of items such as infant liquid vitamins and antifungals which we are in great need. We’ve counted our last pill, and stored the blood pressure cuffs and stethoscopes.

We rise this morning, thanking the Lord Christ Jesus.

One of our team members who took a big step of faith traveling internationally for the very first time in his life shares that this trip has opened his eyes…

This week as we held children in our arms, and held hands and prayed with the men and women, we better understood what King David wrote in Psalm 27

…I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

We have seen the Lord’s tenderness and love towards the people of Haiti, as we saw the love of God pour out into the lives of the 1,155 men, women and children living in such hard ship. From the youngest child of just six days old, to the eldest patient of 80 years old that He led to us each day this week.

This morning before breakfast, a woman come to the house, seeking help for a head lesion that the Doctor and Nurse carefully clean and dress.

Later in the morning we head down a rocky road back towards one of the camps we visited the first day. However this visit before we head to the airport is not for a medical clinic.

Around the corner from Andre & Sylvie’s home, guided by Dave and Timonthy, the two men from Texas who have continued building homes over the last two weeks for families in Port au Prince, we look up a hill where children were playing soccer, and where a few goats are roaming – where there are two brand new homes shining in the morning sun.

The families are smiling and sharing with us the tour of what they can now call home, instead of tents with torn plastic that fill with mud each time it rains.

Home.

The word home stirs such longing in the heart – especially for those who have been far from home for so long, or who have lost their homes and beloved family members.

John wrote about home too in the book of Revelation 21, about the coming of the future tabernacle, or mishkan, the “residence” or “dwelling place” of God. Home is where the heart is, and here we see the heart of God:

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying,
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men
and He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people.
God Himself will be with them and be their God.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes;
there shall be no more death,
nor sorrow,
nor crying.
There shall be no more pain,
for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts….

Given insight into the pattern and blue print of a home, built not by the hands of men, but by the love of God, for you, and me, and all who hunger and thirst for Home – with a Father in Heaven who never fails in His love and tenderness towards us, His children.

Who would draw a team of seven strangers (and now friends) out of the millions of people in New York city, to travel to Haiti, as a living reminder to each man, woman and child we met that God hears their cries and loves them with a never-ending love.

We pack our bags, and pile into the back of the blue truck, heading home, thirsty to see that pattern and blueprint of God’s heart continue to unfold in our communities here and now. At a time when it seems the whole world is restless, angry and groaning under the weight of itself and all the rubble – to see that most ancient truth and pattern and blueprint unfold in supernatural power for everything that is crumbling – those things in our hearts, our homes, and our nations, that when they are truly founded upon the love of God, and for one another, bring cleansing, restore health and peace, bring faith and hope, one step and one day at a time.

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For Yours
is the kingdom and
the power and
the glory forever.
Amen.
Matthew 6: 9 – 13

If we begin to replace
my will be done
with
Thy will be done
amazing things occur

• 75 orphans find refuge in a safe home, with education and food on a steep hillside in Delmas under the loving care of beloved Haitian teachers

• Bags of rice grown in Haiti are delivered to an orphanage by a man who once lived in Brooklyn 35 years ago but now calls Hinche home, among orphaned children in Northern Haiti.

• A family from Montreal moves from Canada to Port au Prince and opens their home in Delmas to three children whose parents either died from illness or are too sick from HIV+ to care for them, and supply rice, beans and other items to over 100 families twice a week, as well as host medical and building teams from around the world who come to Haiti

• Thousands of men, women and youth from every country in the world are led to the epicenter of devastation from a catastrophic earthquake – to bring food, to grow food, partner with local women and men to support businesses, set up emergency medical services, partner with hospitals, drill wells, build homes, dig cisterns, provide engineering services, and to pour out love and encouragement, leaving their families, jobs and their communities for weeks and months at a time.

• Living on less than $2 a day, and often still calling the tent camps home, many men, women and children across Haiti rise up daily amidst incredible hardship to love and bless their neighbors – with prayers, a word of encouragement, rice and beans, clothing, and their helping hands and energy to projects of every kind under the sun to rebuild the city and heal lives

In Mega 4, a tent camp in Port au Prince that 6,000 people still call home, there is a woman named Malita. In less than 40 seconds when the earthquake struck Haiti, her home collapsed, and left her with injuries that included paralysis below the waist.

She has children, all under the age of 10.

She is in a wheelchair.

A stage 3 to 4 bedsore is an open wound on her backside.

She, and her children, are living in a tent, under the hot sun, with no running water, electricity or bathroom.

The Doctor and one Nurse depart from the medical clinic we are holding again at Mega 4, where we see 273 men, women and children, to visit Malita. They bring along supplies for a new catheter and bandages to change the dressings for her bed sore, along with tote bag full of vitamins, medicine, soap, bandages washcloths, toothbrushes.

On her bed, Malita is tenderly praising the Lord Christ Jesus, thanking Him for leading yet another team to visit her home in the middle of this huge tent camp surrounded by hills. She recognizes the face of the Doctor when she is turned on to her side facing him, as he has been led back to Haiti for his fifth time. She smiles, and shares with them that another prayer has been answered, her elderly mother has been able to come to see her. The Doctor and Nurse from our team do not have to change Malita’s dressing for her wound, or the catheter, as yet another prayer has been answered. Both have been changed by another Nurse sent by an organization who had been there earlier, and is also now training a local Haitian woman to do intermittent catheterization, which will allow Malita’s bladder to develop tone and facilitates complete voiding of the bladder. And they have now arranged for weekly visits to assist with the care of her bed sore and catheter.

Once a long time ago, we read a French philosopher in our studies in college, who wrote that God is dead, even to go as far as to say that He never existed. Some of my professors, and even colleagues I have worked with over the years have insisted that this is the case.

I would suggest a visit to Haiti. Haiti may be the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with many troubles and incredible heart break.

Yet keep your eyes open. Look carefully, and you will find the evidence is that God is alive and well. And answering prayer daily, even in hardest and most heartbreaking conditions of the tent cities of Port au Prince.

Look carefully, and you may find a pearl of great price right there in the tent camps and rubble.

This blog is our eyewitness account of what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have heard, what our hands have handled during the time we have been in Haiti and seen the heart of God in action – healing, speaking words of comfort, restoring, renewing, rebuilding, and creating new life.

And should you visit Haiti, ask the thousands of beloved men and women and children directly, who will testify to you, as they did with us each day, that right in the midst of this catastrophe and heart break He has given them freedom and

Peace for fear.
Hope for despair.
Strength for today.
Faith for tomorrow.
Comfort that does not come from human hands.
Beauty for ashes.

If you listen closely, you may even hear a song being sung day and night by paralyzed Malita, Mesi anpil Senye Dieu – Thank you so much Lord God.

Praising the One who gives to all in Haiti who desire it, faith and vision – to rebuild brick upon brick, life upon life, on the only foundation in the world that cannot be shaken – a nation, and a life built upon the The Cornerstone of the Lord Christ Jesus.

There comes that point in every trip the Lord may lead you on that you discover that what you have brought with you will fail.

Your doctorate in medicine, and years of residency and public and private practice. Your 36 years of nursing experience. Your physical strength as a mighty man in the Lord and as a physical trainer. Your knowledge of carpentry honed through decades of experience. Although we had over 10 huge bins stuffed full of every type of medication you might imagine – 51,000+ total pills and vitamins and creams and liquids to start with and which we replenished at the local pharmacies in Port au Prince, there will come that moment that whatever you have in that huge plastic bin – no matter how big it is, and how many pills are in it – will not be enough for the situation you face.

Today was one of those days.

We had heard earlier in the week of a young mother who had been sick. She recently learned that she is HIV+. She lost hope, and she has is choosing not to take the medications that are available to help keep the HIV+ under control and boost her immune system. She is very ill now, and not able to care for her two year old son, who was placed into an orphanage.

Today a woman came into the medical clinic we opened at Mega 4, where there are over 6,000 people still living in tents. She met with the Nurses. Her eyes were jaundiced – dark yellow, and she had been feeling exhausted, with belly pain, and came to the medical clinic for help. The woman had Hepatitis, which is a disease caused by a virus that infects the liver. In time, it can lead to permanent liver damage as well as cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure – and finally, death, if left untreated.

As a team, we can provide medicine, and we can provide instruction to the 137 men, women and children we met this morning, including even a beautiful set of four month old twins carried in the arms of their mother and her friend.

But there is only One who can provide what is missing to those who are in a valley of decision here in Port au Prince, surrounded by giants daily who threaten their very destruction. Lack of food, little to no access to clean water, lack of jobs, tents that leak, mosquitoes carrying malaria and fire ants that bite, rain that causes flooding and mud to fill your tent, sewage that spreads disease, hot sun that heats the tents to unbearable temperatures. When women and men look around at these giants in their present circumstances, fear floods the mind, and may cause them to consider giving up.

The Nurse and our translator Joanne, joined hands in prayer with the woman who is battling Hepatitis, to ask the Lord Christ Jesus to provide her what our medical bins do not contain.

The promise of freedom.

Freedom – it is an incredibly beautiful word. We toured the devastation of downtown Port au Prince this afternoon. Near by the shaken and broken Presidential Palace, and the huge tent camp of 50,000 people across from the Palace ruins, there is a famous statue that is much beloved, Neg Mawon – the Freed Man.

Freedom. Freedom from every fear. Because perfect love casts out fear. Fears of today, an uncertain tomorrow, and the things that haunt you at night from many yesterdays.

Freedom from the things we do in our lives that over time would destroy us (sin). Freedom from emptiness and hopelessness, searching endlessly for the meaning of our lives, and not finding it whether we are rich or poor, searching and never finding it from Wall Street to the rocky unpaved roads of Port au Prince.

Until the truth is revealed that we are loved by the very Creator of heaven and earth, our Father. Who sent His Son Christ Jesus to the earth to demonstrate this love in the physical as the Word became flesh, – and He walked the dirt roads of a society thousands of years ago that was also hurting, facing tribulations and disease.

Jesus Christ laid down His life on the cross, so that we could be given the gift of His love. That leads to freedom. We are untangled from the cords of fear, confusion, hopelessness, anger, greed, lust, pride, bitterness, unforgiveness and so much more. Forgiven for every failure. Freed Freed from the fear of death itself, as that perfect love also provides us with the roadmap home to eternal life with our Father, the Creator of heaven and earth.

We are given the most powerful cure in the universe for every condition of the mind, body, and soul – the love of God in the person of Christ Jesus who chose to lay down His life for us.

It is a priceless gift – all the money in billion dollar hedge fund and bank accounts amassed over a lifetime, or all the gold and diamonds socked away in the deepest vaults in the world are not sufficient to purchase it.

The only way to receive it is to open the door of your heart, and accept the love of Christ Jesus that He offers. The way the medicines offered in the clinics each day, this priceless gift is given freely to all who choose to receive it….or not.

It’s a gift that brings freedom – within His perfect love, there is no fear. And freedom from fear restores hope.

Hope!

It allows a woman with Hepatitis living in the tent camps to live for another day, in freedom, not fearing those giants that surround her any longer.

As the next OnCall team prepares to leave for Port-Au-Prince on December 3rd, there are a few items that are needed on the ground but hard to find in Haiti! We are looking for the following:

Antipyretics (medicine for fever and cold) for infants and children
Vitamins for infants and children
Skin creams, antifungal and antibiotic
Ziploc bags

If you would like to help us out by purchasing any of the items from the list above, please send to the address below before November 25, 2011.

Attn: Kate Hughes – Haiti December supplies
1657 Broadway
NY, NY 10019

Thank you for your help!

When driving around Port au Prince there are moments when you are startled by what you see. Collapsed homes and buildings are still in piles in many areas, next to homes and buildings that did not fall in the earthquake. Paved streets and rocky dirt roads with huge holes alike are jammed to overflowing with traffic, and very few traffic lights or stop signs. Instead of trains, people pile into “Tap Taps”, trucks that have been outfitted with benches that are an explosion of all the colors of the rainbow. Beautifully painted graphics adorn every square inch of the trucks and often include statements of faith in Creole such as God is My Protection, of Thank you God. Taxis are replaced by men on motorcycles who gather on corners waiting for their next fare. Goats are here, there and everywhere, walking on top of broken walls, graze on the piles of debris, and line the roads and streets. Today a large brown cow walked slowly down the middle of the road we drove on, not the least disturbed by motorcycles, honking trucks or the huge yellow school bus bouncing along the dirt road coming straight towards it as it saunters down the road. The driver has to put on the breaks. Women balance huge loads that appear to be half their body weight atop their heads with such grace. Men with machettes and carving tools build furniture right along the margins of the dirt and paved roads.

Some of what flashes by us as we drive along the roads of Port au Prince seems so different from our lives in New York city, and the things we may take for granted. Like clean running water. Or bathrooms. Or paved roads. Or the certainty that we have a home to return to at the end of the day that does not leak, and does not fill with mud every time it rains.

We notice groups of children of all ages on the streets in many areas of the city. They share with us about how they no longer have parents who are alive now, and need a little money for food or for water.

We arrive early this morning at an orphanage in Delmas 48, where 75 children without any parents to care for them live full time. They also attend a school the teachers built on a steep hillside, and children from the surrounding community also attend, with a total of 200 boys and girls.

Orderly lines of children stream into the school rooms that have been converted into the medical clinic. Although it’s early in the morning it’s very hot, and there is no breeze blowing. Yet the children wait patiently, some shy, and some smiling and laughing as we greet them with stickers and all the love we can pour out within a consultation with the Doctor and the Nurses, and a visit to the Pharmacy team. Hugs, greetings of Bonjour and prayers are intermingled.

We saw many children with rashes, fever, colds, worms, open sores on legs, and one young very skinny child with worms and a very large lesion on the side of her head from a fungal infection surrounded by scar tissue nearly the size of a child’s closed fist from constant scratching. Many vitamins, anti-worming medicines, anti-fungals and anti-bacterial creams are provided. We constantly pray, lifting up the needs of the children, and the teachers, as much of what is needed can not be touched by the medicines we bring with us.

In NYC, the majority of children have at least one parent or family member to take care of them. Here at Delmas 48, seventy-five children have only their teachers. As the stream of 144 children and teachers came to the medical clinic, a teacher sat in the pharmacy for hours. She had a notebook to write down each orphaned child’s name, and one by one, carefully notes their medications, and the instructions.

A big basket next to her began to fill to overflowing with each child’s medications. This big basket + the notebook + her careful notes = a symbol of the tender love of the teachers with these little children. Out of their own poverty, the teachers have trusted God to provide what they do not have, and the three buildings we tour are a bold testimony of God’s open hand of provision. They are praying for more beds, bedding, mosquito nets, as they only have five beds in one large room and the rest of the 70 children sleep on the floor.

A grey bearded man pokes his head into the pharmacy this morning, shouting out greetings with a Brooklyn twang. He has come from the northern part of Haiti, where he and a team of people over 35 years ago were led out of NY by the Lord Christ Jesus to open an orphanage, and more recently a farm.

Another prayer is answered! He has brought bags of rice the Lord led them to grow at their orphanage up North, and has driven four hours south to bring the Delmas 48 orphanage much needed food. Rice they grow in Haiti is very special, as apparently most rice in Haiti is imported from other countries, and much more expensive. We are laughing and smiling to meet a fellow New Yorker, and to see God’s heart in action. His face is shining with the love of God for the children and people of Haiti.

In the afternoon, we visit a tent city that is located right around the corner from our hosts Andre and Sylvie’s home. A church built with plywall sides and a tin roof within the tent city is our location for the medical clinic. The atmosphere inside and outside the medical clinic felt so calm. We felt the favour of the Lord all around us. Light streamed in through the open window. Each day the heat and humidity cause your scrubs to be completely soaked with sweat, and as those drops of water roll from your forehead a simple breeze through an open window is an answered prayer.

Some days when we set up the medical clinics in the tent cities, people who have lined up hours before we arrive may grow very anxious. Yelling and pushing have occurred in the larger camps as the crowd surges forward seeking help.

In the midst of this tiny church that is now a mobile medical unit complete with a table top pharmacy, we thank the Lord for His peace that has brought a calm to the large assembly of people overflowing the lines of people and to the team throughout a hot afternoon.

We see our oldest patient at the end of a long day. At 72, with grey hair neatly braided under a scarf, she came in with dizziness, fever and a lack of appetite, looking weary. The Nurse finished her consultation with prayer and gave her the prescription, where she headed to the Pharmacy team. After gathering her medications and vitamins, and after we had a chance to pray and encourage her, she was transformed. She smiled wide. That beautiful smile was a blessing, with only one tooth left in her mouth. She did not stop there. She came around the pharmacy table to give each of us kisses as she repeated over and over “Mesi anpil, mesi anpil” (thank you so much) and was so happy to “fait yon photo” (take a photograph) with Morales, one of the blessings God provided to us as our translator.

A final prayer answered, to bring beauty for ashes – as we wondered in awe of the God we serve, who is unlike any other! Who delights to restore hope to even the oldest bones of a woman living in a literal camp of ash and dust in a community ravaged by the earthquake…

His love never fails.