Return to Gonaives

On November 6th, I had the privilege of returning to Haiti as part of a five person mission team from Palmetto Shores Church. We joined my brother, Jim, and his wife Debbie in Miami and then flew into Port au Prince where we spent the night at The Providence Guest House. While in Port au Prince, we toured Sherry Fausey's school and new building before visiting an orphanage where Dorothy cares for 29 seriously ill children. It was such a blessing to see Levinsky gaining weight and smiling. He was the starving baby we rescued from Jubilee during my August visit who is HIV positive and blind in one eye from Gonorrhea. Love and proper care have created a miracle and given him back his life.

We then started the long trek into Gonaives by KIA truck. The main roads have been washed out and the back roads are covered from the mudslides. It was like a full day of "off roading". Mary and Emory Wilson opened their home to our group and we settled in for a week of renewal and rebuilding. Emory and Mary shared their story of survival from Hurricanes Hanna and Ike, and we were all amazed at God's faithfulness as we relived their incredible drama. The fact that we were now sleeping in the very home that was filled with several feet of mud just last month was pretty amazing in itself. Mary and Emory were sleeping on mattresses atop bags of rice and we slept on air mattresses. Our men set to work fixing generators, building benches for Jubilee feedings, stringing clotheslines, repairing bathroom fixtures and appliances, rehanging doors, and pulling up razor wire from the dried mud all over the property. We took Mary a new keyboard and were delighted to see it used on Sunday morning at Pastor Genada's church service. There was so much to be done and so little time to help, but we did manage to get Emory and Mary a new refrigerator and water cooler, new queen size bedframe and mattresses, and set up enough beds and mattresses to sleep 9 visitors in the future. We took lots of medicine and supplies in and spent a morning sorting and inventorying them so that the medical team coming in the next week would know what they had to work with.

The highlight of our week was the feedings of the children in Jubilee and Roboto. It is impossible to leave this experience in the same condition you arrive. Your heart is forever changed. We fed almost 350 children between the two sites each day, yet had to turn away so many more. On this trip, only those children under 10 years of age and showing marked signs of malnutrition (orange hair, skeletal bodies, and swollen bellies) could be prioritized. Greater than each small body's hunger for food was the soul's thirst for some sign of love....a smile, a touch, a hand to hold. As we walked the village with the children, each of us was overwhelmed with children clinging to our hands and clothes. The power of love was evident to all as we became the hands and feet of Jesus.

We took a medicine bag filled with supplies to the local self appointed medic, Dr J, and had the privilege of worshiping at Pastor Genada's church on Sunday. Pastor Genada and his wife, Rose, were the missionaries stranded on the rooftop for several days with 29 orphans during the storm. They lost everything in the storms and have worked tirelessly cleaning and rebuilding since then to be able to resume their ministries. As I sat with these four courageous, faithful disciples, I felt that I was truly in the presence of living saints. Watching their love. dedication and commitment to God's work is one of the most inspiring experiences I have ever known. We spent each day looking for ways to make life a little better for those suffering around us. There was no tv, newspapers, radio, cellphones, daytimers, makeup or meetings. Only God's work to be done. The days were filled with projects, hard work, sweating, food prepared with love, lots of tears and laughter, sharing and encouragement. The nights were filled with beautiful devotions and songs, emotional sharing and more tears, laughter and encouragement. There was even a rat hunt or two that will be forever remembered in picture and prose! We learned to sing the song "I have decided to follow Jesus" in Creole and vowed to return with a better knowledge of the Creole vocabulary.

We ministered medical treatment to several burn victims and one in particular touched my life deeply. A boiling pot of food had dumped over on her leg and scalded it severely. The open flesh was covered in dirt and we asked them to bring her to our house where we could wash the wound and treat it. This young girl lived in a hut with no floor, no furniture, and no personal possessions. She was brought to us via a long dusty ride on the back of a moped. She was dressed in a beautiful "Sunday best" dress with her hair freshly braided. I was brought to tears as I saw her sit so bravely as Debbie cleaned her leg with peroxide and removed the dirt and clinging burned skin. Any adult I know would have screamed out in pain, but this young girl never cried - it was as though she was numb to life and had given up her right to complain. I cried for her....and all of us who have lost our ability to feel the pain around us. I asked God to refresh my senses that I might see, touch, feel, smell, and taste life fully. The good and the bad.....my own joys and sorrows as well as all those around me. I don't want to be numb to the pain I see here in Gonaives. I want my tears to drive me to take action and do something to make a difference. I know I can not change it all, but I can make a difference one life at a time.

Even though I am home from my trip to Gonaives, my heart is still there. I want to return. I am alive and on purpose while there. I feel God's presence and walk in faith one step at a time. I believe God is reclaiming Haiti, one child at a time. With education and God, there is hope for tomorrow. I want to be part of bringing that hope to them. Mary and Emory have a dream of building a mission center right in the heart of Jubilee. A place that will house the daily feedings, a medical clinic, classes, vacation bible schools, and women's ministries. A place with a well for clean drinking water and bathrooms for all. I am committed to helping that dream come true. I want to thank each of you for your prayers and support. You have allowed me to take resources into Haiti and begin making a difference. I ask for your continued support.

Mary and Emory will be coming to Palmetto Shores Church on Wednesday, December 17, 2009, to share their story at our Heart for Haiti night. We will be having a buffet dinner and a time of testimony, praise and worship. This event is open to the public and I would love for you to join us. I am so excited about my friends and family getting to meet these wonderful people and hear their story first hand. We really want to "spoil" them while they are here. I am personally trying to gather enough funds to secure an outside projector and blowup screen for them to show Christian films as part of their ministry.

If you are interested in helping us make a difference in Haiti, please send a check made out to Palmetto Shores Church, Haiti Missions to me. Earmark the bottom of the check "Donna". Thank you for opening your heart. May God bless you richly as we answer His call to serve those He loves here on earth.

Mwen renmen nou. (I love you)
Donna

November 2008 Return Trip

Hello my friends,

I can't believe the date for my first return trip to Haiti is here. My wonderful church, Palmetto Shores Church (PSC), has committed to six mission trips to Haiti in 2009. Thank you God!
I will be joining a team of 5 for our first trip into Gonaives from November 6 - 12, 2008. My brother, Jim, will be leading our efforts to assess the best way we can provide future assistance in the rebuilding efforts there. On this trip, we are taking in cash, medicine, air mattresses, baby formula, shoes, pillows and supplies to our missionary friends. We are also taking beads and acrylic paints so that some of the Haitians there can create jewelry and art for us to bring back for fundraising efforts. I ask for your prayers for our team. As we are one of the first teams to go into Gonaives since the devastating hurricanes of last month, this is going to be a very tough trip physically and emotionally. As for me personally, I continue to ask God to show me how he wants me to serve in Gonaives. I know that He has placed a heavy burden on my heart for these precious people and I am blessed to be able to be a mouthpiece now for their needs. I so appreciate the amazing support you have provided this month. Following our Haiti church program last month where Pastor Ronny Byrd and I spoke, PSC members donated $15,000 to the immediate relief needs in Haiti! We joined with two other organizations and dedicated $5000 of those funds toward the purchase of a new vehicle for Emory and Mary Wilson. They are using that vehicle to pick up visiting mission teams (including us!) and are now able to continue the feeding programs they had initiated before the storms. Praise God! Mary and Emory will be visiting the states during the holidays and we are delighted to be sponsoring a Heart for Haiti night at PSC on Wednesday evening, December 17. We will be having a pot luck dinner and then gathering for a time of testimony and worship with Mary and Emory. What a great way to celebrate the Christmas season! The event is open to the public and I would love to see you there!

Many people have expressed an interest in joining me on one of my trips to Gonaives in 2009. If you are interested, please let me know. Make sure you have a current passport and all of the required shots. More specific directions can be found on the PSC website, www.palmettoshoreschurch.com. Begin to spiritually prepare with prayer. I plan to return often in 2009 and am excited about the work that God has in store for us. I know God is putting together a mighty team of disciples ready to spread His light and love in this dark land. Thank you again for your prayers, love, and support. I will write again when I return. In His Love, Donna

My First Trip

“Forever Changed.” I can find no other words to express the overwhelming flood of emotions that swirl within me upon my return from my first, but not my last, mission trip to Haiti. Even as I try to capture the experience on paper to share with you, I begin to weep at the thought of those precious souls I have left suffering behind. I pray that this sense of guilt will transform itself into a powerful action plan that will enable me to return with better resources to make a difference. For now, I am still processing the week. My brother has been a missionary in Venezuela for the past 11 years and I have never once felt the urge to join him on his quest. I politely declined every invitation and pledged my participation through prayer and donations. When he spoke of his current work in Haiti, I was shocked by his graphic description of the danger, filth, and poverty. I thought “Why would you risk your life and health for such an overwhelming need in a Fifth World country?” This Spring Jim spent three long months fighting a life threatening case of meningitis after returning from a trip building a school in Haiti. It was thru my daily phonecalls to him as he healed that we grew much closer as adults. Perhaps that was why I was more receptive when he called in early August saying “This is the one, Donna.
This is the trip that I really need you to go on with me. It is a small group and we will be visiting all my mission projects in Haiti to assess their progress and needs. You could even do some training for the school staff there. Please pray about it, Sis.” So I did and I said “Yes”. That gave me just three weeks to raise the funding, get all my shots and prepare for the experience of a lifetime. I must tell you that not everyone was happy with my decision. Several friends and family members were quite upset that I would go on this trip with no health insurance and the high risk involved. “What do you think you can accomplish in seven days that will make a difference? If you want to hold an orphan, then you can do that here in the United States. It will cost a lot less and you will be safe.” I listened to their arguments, but in my heart, I knew I had to go. My heart had called me to Haiti. I stood in awe when my entire trip was funded through unsolicited funds given in love by my church family and I saw God at work as caring friends and strangers filled my home with supplies to be taken to the missionaries. I never felt the first moment of fear, only a growing sense of excitement at what God had in store for me. Little did I know that my greatest imaginings could not come close to the reality that awaited me. Last week, I came as close as I ever want to be to “hell on earth”. I held dying babies and walked in the stench of an open sewer ravine where hundreds of ill, starving families camped out. I worked with a medical team giving medicine and treatment to those most in need, but there was never enough. I stood in a makeshift village called “Jubilee” in Gonaives with thousands of homeless survivors of a destructive tropical storm and mudslides.
Skeletal corpses were mingled in with the high piles of debris and filth. We fed hundreds of young children a small bowl of rice and grew sick to our stomachs as we had to close the gate on hundreds more that were starving and begging for food. There was no more to give. How could we decide who lived and died by receiving food that day? The sheer numbers of those in need was overwhelming and I could not fathom “playing God” in this manner every day. But somehow in the middle of all the darkness and suffering, a powerful sense of God’s presence and hope prevailed. I met living saints who have dedicated their entire lives and all that they have to making a difference in Haiti. I listened to young children in the orphanage sing songs of praise in both English and Creole as they gave thanks for their daily food, shelter and clothes. I stood on a rooftop and joined new believers worshipping God at dusk. Everywhere we visited we found groups of loving people who had accepted the call to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this dark land that was officially dedicated to Satan hundreds of years ago. Our evening devotions were always a time of praise and gratitude and I have never felt so alive, so humbled, and so on purpose. Now that I am home I find myself constantly thinking of how to bring training and resources back to my new friends in Haiti. At the urging of a friend, I picked up the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder and I am inspired by the true account of Dr. Paul Farmer, a brilliant physician who is living proof that one person can make a big difference in Haiti.
Over the past few years, I have shared with you my desire to simplify my life and spend time growing in the Lord. I know God has been preparing me for something….and although I still do not know exactly what it is, I do know that my recent trip to Haiti is an important part of it. The world just got a lot smaller and a lot more real to me. My heart calls me back to Haiti and I will return. I ask for your prayers and your support. If you would be interested in joining me, please let me know. "If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed...The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs" (Isa 58:10-11 NIV)