Bonsoir!

Rod, John, and I arrived here in Grand Goave after a short helicopter ride yesterday afternoon. We spent the remainder of yesterday assessing construction of latrine installations near our camp and working on a site plan for the potential shelter near the Samaritan’s Purse Port-au-Prince base. The Grand Goave base is quite a bit smaller and has more of a family atmosphere, so I am getting to know the people I will be living with and interacting with over the next 2 weeks.

Praise God for a great day today! Rod and I worked most of the day preparing and installing a water filtration and purification system for a ministry and school called Mission of Hope. We will finish the installation on Monday after resting and worshiping tomorrow. I enjoyed spending some time with the people who came to help us level the ground for the system, build a temporary platform for a water storage bladder, and assemble the pieces of the system. I was amazed at their willingness and follow-through in helping us with the setup! God gave us the ability to communicate instructions fairly well, and I attempted to speak a little French. Pray that God would continue to increase my desire and ability to learn and to have more confidence in using it to humbly learn more from people while I am here in Haiti. May God be glorified through my words, actions, and attitudes as He gives the strength to serve!

Please pray for Keefe and Paola Daly and their family and friends in Concepcion, Chile. I regularly support and pray for Keefe and Paola, who are involved with campus ministry in Chile. Please ask God to use the earthquake in their area to show His power and draw people to Himself.

The LORD reigns; let the peoples tremble!

He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!

The LORD is great in Zion;

he is exalted over all the peoples.

Let them praise your great and awesome name!

Holy is he!

The King in his might loves justice.

You have established equity;

you have executed justice

and righteousness in Jacob.

Exalt the LORD our God;

worship at his footstool!

Holy is he!

Psalm 99:1-5

My teammate Rod and I arrived safely in Haiti this afternoon. Thank you for your prayers as we traveled here! After passing through the new immigration and customs area at the airport, we were met by our Samaritan’s Purse (SP) driver and proceeded to push our way through a huge crowd outside the airport gate. Then we drove through the gridlocked streets with minimal traffic direction from UN and US soldiers to the main SP camp, where we are spending the night tonight. It’s been great to meet many of the SP staff here, and also some other Christian NGO workers who are sharing the Global Outreach ministry site north of Port au Prince. Continue to pray that we can be an encouragement to the responders who have already been here for weeks.

We heard encouraging testimony tonight from the SP medical team who praised God for saving the life of a man close to death. They shared how he had praised Jesus for saving his life, both physically and spiritually, and how God prompted him to pray for them, asking the Lord for more knowledge and understanding for the medical team as He uses them to save lives in Haiti. God is truly at work here in the midst of the pain and brokenness. Would you continue praying for these people who have so little identity and hope? Pray that God would strengthen them and give them identity in Him, and that their hope would rest in Christ alone.

Tomorrow I will be helping survey a potential camp/shelter site and sketching out a site plan with Rod and John Dallmann. Then in the afternoon the three of us will fly southeast by helicopter to Grand Goave, where we will be based out of the Haiti Arise Mission for most of the duration of our time here. This hard-hit area was the epicenter of the quake, and we will focus much of our attention on proper sanitation and hygiene with latrine installations/training before the rains intensify potential for the spread of disease. Most camps still do not have proper toilets, so please lift up this effort in prayer.

Thanks so much for your prayer support and covering! I believe God will do great and mighty things as we call out to Him. Nothing is too difficult for Him! May Haiti see signs and wonders pointing them to God, having an abundance of peace and truth, being cleansed from their iniquity so that the good and merciful Lord of hosts would receive all praise and honor! (Jer. 32-33)

Thank you all so much for your prayers! God has led me to accept the opportunity to get involved on the ground in Haiti for the next few weeks.

This morning I learned that Rod Beadle (another EMI volunteer from Illinois) and I will depart for Haiti on Wednesday afternoon, spend the night in Miami, and arrive in Haiti on Thursday. We will meet up with John Dallmann (who returned last night) and the rest of the Samaritan’s Purse WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Health) team, who we will be serving with throughout our time in Haiti. While we do not know exactly what to expect, our main role will likely be in setting up water systems, water filters, and latrines.

Please pray that God would provide strength, understanding, health, and energy through what will likely be very long days for the 2.5 weeks we will be in Haiti. Pray that we would work well as a team, accomplishing the relief goals that have been set, and ministering to all we encounter along the way, even though we need to be task-oriented and the two of us do not know much French. May God provide many opportunities for us to give Him glory as we minister in some of the most devastated places on the western side of Hispaniola. Let many “sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them…Let them give glory to the LORD and proclaim his praise in the islands.” (Is. 42:10,12) I trust that Creator God, who spread out the earth and gives life to those who walk on it, will be faithful to turn darkness into light and to smooth out rough places in lives so that He will receive the glory. Ask for His glory and presence to be revealed through the pain in Haiti, and that voodoo practices would be replaced with trust in and worship of Jesus in this shaken nation.

I am amazed at how God is growing my heart for the people of Haiti, many of whom descended from peoples of West Africa. May His love flow through all that He gives me strength to do!

HIS ambassador,

John

I am still working on preparing my first newsletter, and while I was planning to include this request there, things have been expedited. So I wanted to share this request with all of you now.

God has provided an opportunity through EMI to serve Samaritan’s Purse with water and sanitation engineering in Haiti next week. As such, I need to make a decision of whether or not I am going to answer that need. I would be working closely with John Dallmann, who I visited in Cameroon in 2005, and the rest of the Samaritan’s Purse WASH team working in Haiti. Please pray for wisdom and discernment as God directs my decision for this trip. I would likely depart with another EMI volunteer sometime early next week, and our stay would last 2-3 weeks. Ask God to provide another engineer through EMI’s disaster response network, and pray that I would have clarity in sensing and obedience in following God’s leading. I would also greatly appreciate prayer for my role with the Perspectives class that I am coordinating this semester and the support-raising process I am working through as I prepare to join EMI’s staff this summer. May God be glorified as I trust Him!

Thanks so much for your prayers on my behalf!