Haiti, December 2018

This past week Becky and I were at the Joy House in Gressier, 12 miles from Port au Prince, with a wonderful team of people among a wonderful group of people.

There were 11 of us in the group.

In the front row are Candace and Andy Riner, Samuel Wisinger, Logan McCourtney, Barry Godwin and Shelby Godwin.  In the second row are Brad Ault, John Wisinger, Elizabeth Wisinger, myself and Becky Austin.  That’s Roland Mathe standing in the background.  He’s the Haitian leader of the JoyHouse.

We had a great team, working and laughing together.  Even when things were discombobulated on Tuesday morning, everyone showed great flexibility and faithfulness.

For example, Becky was supposed to teach the pastor’s wives on Thursday, because on Tuesday morning she was supposed to teach Beauty Boot Camp.  Well, the ladies showed up Tuesday morning, instead of Thursday.  She did a great job and taught two sessions of Beauty Boot Camp (on Ruth) in the afternoon.

Logan had the opportunity to teach the pastors all this week.  He had a blast.

So what did we do in Haiti this time?  After arriving on Friday, we spent Saturday unpacking and repacking items for different events.

In the early afternoon we accompanied the ladies of the Dorcas Ministry to visit people who had not been to church in awhile, either because of medical or financial or other problems.

After returning bagged food to distribute rice, flour, beans and oil to people from the Great Commission Church.

On Sunday morning I preached a message for the men of the Great Commission Church, “Act Like Men,” from 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.  I felt great freedom and several men indicated how helpful it was to them.

After church we distributed the food.  They would allow 8-12 people into the Joy House compound at a time to receive their food.

That evening we began a series of “prayer meetings,” which involved each of us pastors preaching.  Logan preached Sunday night from Matthew 24, Barry on Monday night from 1 Thessalonians 4, John on Tuesday night from 1 Thessalonians 5 and Brad wrapped it up with an evangelistic message on Wednesday from Luke 7.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 55 young ladies were taught manners, formal place settings, posture and lessons from the book of Ruth.  This is called the Beauty Boot Camp.  They do this with girls in Mena as well.

This year we got the guys involved in a Boys Boot Camp.  We taught them how to be a gentleman from Boaz’ example, how to remain sexually pure from Genesis 2, Joseph’s example, and the tragedy of Amnon and Tamar.  Not a man stood up to protect her!

Barry even taught the guys how to shave and take a bath out of a helmet.

Brad knew going down that he would take a look at the water system there at the Joy House, but God opened up several opportunities for him to use his past training in hydrology and water systems.  Andy’s brother has been pestered Andy for years to bring a microscope to Haiti, even though Andy didn’t know how to use it.  Brad did.  He showed the Haitians what was in the water and helped them see the necessity of clean water.

Our last day we took Christmas presents to the orphans at Forieur de enfants du Jesus.  Here is a picture with some of them opening their gifts.

Then we took them to the beach, where we swam, had cupcakes, games and a pinata.

We had a great trip.  Thanks to everyone who prayed for us, and supported our fund raising.  If you would like to give a gift that will go to food distribution, the water system, or resources for the pastors, just send a check to Barnabas Partnership, 2805 Midland Drive, Mena, Arkansas, 71953.