Chris in Haiti

Christopher went to Haiti earlier this year with Stephanie (his now wife) and a local church group. He was invited to return by the missionary.  He has accepted their invitation and is now on his way to meet up with them 2 hours from Santo Domingo.  He was delayed getting there, as usual, the one who doesn't want our efforts to be successful, tried to get him all upset but he didn't allow that to happen.  Chris took it all in stride and now is on his way to meet the missionaries.  He had to catch a bus from the airport to meet them.  He will be working in Dominican Republic as well as in Haiti.

We had plans to get with Chris and go over some evangelism training but his trip got moved up and wasn't able to accomplish that.  He surprised us with a sudden trip.  However, I did send with him a Children's Ministry Resource Bible for him to use while there.  It has all the teaching materials in it.  A great resource. I asked him to leave it with the missionaries and I will give him another one when he gets home.  Hope he was able to get it into his luggage.

He just updated his status on face book-   "Well I finally made it. It took a strange cab ride and a sketchy bus trip and then asking somebody to borrow their phone to call Sam and Delores to meet me at the bus stop but I'm here lol. I can't thank and praise the Lord enough for keeping me safe and performing the first miracle I've seen coming here... the trip itself ;)"


I think he is pretty relieved to get there.

History & News from Haiti

Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Updated: Oct. 26, 2011
Overview
One of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, Haiti in recent years has struggled with problems ranging from near-constant political upheaval, health crises, an annual barrage of hurricanes and the worst earthquake in the region in more than 200 years.
The quake that struck on Jan. 10, 2010, reduced much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to rubble.  A study by the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that the total cost of the disaster was between $8 billion to $14 billion, based on a death toll from 200,000 to 250,000. That number was revised in 2011 by Haiti’s government to 316,000; the government has never explained how it arrived at its death toll figures.
An estimated 634,000 people live in displacement camps, according to the International Organization for Migration. International donors promised Haiti $5.3 billion at a March 2010 donor’s conference. But reconstruction involving better buildings and roads has barely begun. Officials’ sole point of pride six months after the earthquake — that disease and violence had been averted — vanished with the outbreak of cholera.
More than a year after the disaster, there were signs of impatience with the limping recovery and the waning international sympathy for Haiti’s enduring troubles as the neighboring Dominican Republic began deporting refugees. Haiti and its international donors were far behind in helping the hundreds of thousands still living in makeshift camps and the millions without formal jobs.
In March 2011, two conservative rivals faced off in a runoff election for the presidency. In April, it was announced that Michel Martelly, a performer with the stage name Sweet Micky, had defeated Mirlande H. Manigat, a former first lady and college administrator.

The Duvalier Legacy

Haiti occupies an area roughly the size of Maryland on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Nearly all of the 8.7 million residents are of African descent and speak Creole and French. The capital is Port-au-Prince.
The country is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, with four out of five people living in poverty and more than half in abject poverty. Deforestation and over-farming have left much of Haiti eroded and barren, undermining subsistence farming efforts, driving up food prices and leaving the country even more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its long history of political instability and corruption has added to the turmoil.
In 1791, Haiti became the world’s first black republic and the first independent nation in the region after it won independence in 1804 in a slave revolt against Napoleonic France. Its history has been shaped by profound political disarray, chaotic rule marked by corruption and brutal repression and, beginning in 1915, a two-decade occupation by the United States. Haiti’s most infamous leader was François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, who was elected president in 1957, beginning a long rule known for venality and human rights abuses. His son Jean-Claude Duvalier ruled from 1971 until he fled in 1986 but not before looting the treasury in another Haitian tradition. What followed was another period of alternating civilian and military regimes.
Regime Change and Free Elections
In 1991, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became president after winning 67 percent of the vote, but he was overthrown shortly after taking office in a violent coup leading to a three-year period of military rule that ended only after the intervention of a United Nations force led by the United States. While the 1995 election of René Préval, a prominent political ally of Mr. Aristide, was widely praised, subsequent elections were plagued with allegations of fraud, including the 2000 restoration of Mr. Aristide to his old post.
Over the following years, violence spread throughout the country as the government cracked down on opposition party leaders, holding power in part with the aid of extra-legal gangs. In February 2004, after groups opposed to the Aristide government seized control of cities and towns throughout Haiti and closed in on the capital, Mr. Aristide resigned and fled to South Africa. United States-led armed forces under the authority of the United Nations Security Council were sent to Port-au-Prince to bring order and oversee the installation of an interim government. The United Nations has spent some $5 billion on peacekeeping operations since 2004.
In 2006, Mr. Préval was re-elected president amidst allegations of impropriety.
Despite bouts of optimism brought on by the implementation of a new constitution and the first peaceful transfer of power between two elected presidents in the nation’s history, Haiti’s politics in the post-earthquake era remain as tumultuous as ever.
Political Instability and Natural Disasters
Since 2008, Haiti’s situation has worsened dramatically. It has staggered under the a combination of food riots, government instability and a series of hurricanes that killed hundreds and battered the economy — all of this before the deadliest earthquake in the country’s history.
The January 2010 earthquake left the country and its densely populated Port-au-Prince flattened, its poorly constructed buildings and shanties destroyed or seriously compromised and the government broken. Upwards of 250,000 lives were lost.
By May 2010, the hope that a more efficient, more just Haiti might rise from the rubble was giving way to stalemate and bitterness. Haitians complained that the politically connected were benefiting most from the scant reconstruction work and that crime was returning. Meanwhile, unproductive politicians and aid groups struggled with temporary refugee camps that looked more permanent every day.
Parliament was essentially disbanded; power rested with Mr. Préval, his cabinet and a reconstruction commission led by the Haitian prime minister and former President Bill Clinton. Haiti’s first election since the January earthquake took place in late November 2010, characterized by disorganization, voter intimidation, the ransacking of polling stations and fraud.
Presidential Election
In March 2011, two conservative rivals faced off in a runoff election for the presidency. In April, it was announced that Michel Martelly, a performer with the stage name Sweet Micky, had defeated Mirlande H. Manigat, a former first lady and college administrator who was the top vote getter in the initial round of voting in November 2010. 
In the campaign, Mr. Martelly eschewed the skirts, underwear and other outlandish outfits of his musical career in favor of tailored suits and serious talk of reforming agriculture, streamlining the delivery of humanitarian aid and restoring law and order by bringing back the military, which was disbanded more than a decade ago after a history of human rights and political abuses.
Mr. Martelly faced immediate challenges and hobbled authority. Haiti is heavily reliant on foreign humanitarian aid, dispersed among hundreds of nongovernmental organizations that operate in effect as a shadow government. It also relies on United Nations peacekeepers for security.
When a plan to cut the number of United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti was announced in September 2011, Mr. Martelly sharply opposed it. He said in an interview that he “would not even think of reducing” the force because the country remained unstable and the national police were not ready to take over.
Mr. Martelly’s Military Proposal
At around the same time, in an effort to create jobs and supplement the weak national police force, Mr. Martelly began pressing forward with his plan to reconstitute the Haitian military. The military was disbanded over human rights abuses in 1995 by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide after years of political turmoil, making Haiti one of a handful of countries without an army.
Mr. Martelly submitted a $95 million proposal calling for an initial force of 3,500 personnel to patrol the border, help put down civil unrest and provide badly needed employment. However, even members of Parliament who were supportive of the idea doubted there was support to finance the proposal.
Also, a draft of Mr. Martelly’s proposal circulated to diplomats from donor nations was promptly leaked, a sign of disquiet among many who recalled the military’s involvement in coups and questioned its priority in a country still reeling from the January 2010 earthquake. 

Christopher is Going to Haiti

Our grandson is going to Haiti as a missionary.  I don't know all the details but he will be leaving early Christmas morning and be gone for 3 months.  I am so impressed by this young man's desire to do what he feels God leading him to do.  He is giving up his very impressive job  and time away from his family and friends.  His employer has told him that his job will be waiting for him when he gets back.  I don't know exactly what he'll be doing while there but it doesn't matter.  He will be working with missionaries that are already established in the area. 


Haiti is like what I'd call Ninevah to me.  If the Lord asked me to go, I might be tempted to flea in the opposite direction.  God knows what we can handle and that's why he has NOT sent me to Haiti.  I know some of our local volunteers have been on short tours.  Christopher went with Longview Baptist Church a few weeks ago for a week tour and is now returning for a longer tour.  Wow, I am just floored at how things happen.  Hopefully we will get pictures and info on his mission work there, but I don't think Chris is the picture taking kind of guy. 
I don't expect to get anything to blog about but we know that God knows and has his hand on Chris. I will try to post reports as I get them-if I get any.
Please keep him in your prayers

Jonah and the Ninevehites

My pastor presented this rendition of the Jonah story with the help of one of the youth, Matthew.  I found this on my computer today.  It was recorded on October 15, 2008.