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!