A Full House

The youth team enjoyed Sunday services at a church in Port-au-Prince where Zach has preached at from time to time.

The team treks down a mountainside to see a spring capping in Badyo, a community located in the mountains above Port-au-Prince.

A few days after we arrived on the field from our nine-month visit to Michigan, we received a team of 34 from Thornapple Community Church and Cascade Christian Reformed Church.  Both churches, located east of Grand Rapids, sent a combined team made up entirely of high-schoolers and a few chaperones/youth leaders.  The team enjoyed trips to Jacmel to visit CRC of Haiti churches, the mountains above Port-au-Prince (see above) to see community development projects, and trips to several other churches and ministries in Port-au-Prince where members sang and did crafts with children.  We spent considerable time informally discussing the ministry and the Christian faith with this large group of young people.  There were some difficult logistic moments as the team, with the addition of five Haitian interpreters, tried to get from point A to point B in busy Port-au-Prince.  Also, an intestinal bug that "manifested itself" first on the flights to Haiti worked its magic on the team throughout its entire ten-day visit.  Some of the team's testimonies were very encouraging.  One young woman talked about her desire to begin a career in ministry.  Another young woman wanted to be baptized and reaffirm her faith commitment to Christ.  As a group, the young people were so touched by their experience that they wanted to send some of the left-over funds raised for the visit to World Missions and World Renew instead using them to buy new material and furniture for their own youth-group meeting  rooms at their home churches.  A high-point for us was the evening where we had all 39 of the group to our home for supper.  Hospitality is an important part of the life of a missionary in Haiti!  We give thanks for the team and we hope that you will join us in praying that this experience will solidify the faith of these young people who are the future of the church!

Back in Haiti

As we were moving out of the apartment we occupied during our nine months in Michigan, some wildlife native to Grand Rapids visited our bird-feeder.

Dear Friends and Family:

Greetings from Haiti!  After nine months in the United States, we are finally back on Haitian soil.  The traveling itself was uneventful, but our arrival was bittersweet.  Our good friends and neighbors, a missionary family which has worked in aviation for many years, planned to leave Haiti permanently the day after our arrival.  The plan was for us to spend a little time with this family on the night of our arrival since one of the family's children is Hannah's best friend.  However, upon arrival we learned that the family had been held-up at gunpoint in their home earlier in the morning.  We were shocked and saddened by this event, not only because of our attachment to the family, but because of the fact that our home is mere feet from theirs.  After the incident, the family went to a hotel to stay until their outbound flight the following morning.  Sharon and Hannah managed to catch the family at the airport to say their goodbyes.  Although this incident is disturbing, we trust that God will continue to keep us, our staff, and our visitors, safe in our homes and in our travels.  We would appreciate your prayers for our peace of mind and for our daughter, Hannah, who will miss her best friend.