Foursquare Haiti Building Dedication

We had a wonderful service on Sunday, as it was the official dedication of our new Foursquare Haiti Church building. Flowers and balloons decorated every doorway and each seat was filled with a smiling church member as stories were shared, founding members & Missionaries were honored, and choir after choir sang about the goodness of the Lord. It was a beautiful service in the lovely new building.

Church Ladies Preparing the Beautiful Flowers

Preparing the Lovely Pots

“The Worshipers” Choir Practicing

Cleaning the Church in Preparation for the Dedication Service

Foursquare Haiti Leaders

Pastor Guy and Pastor Rosinel

Pastor Poppe Praying Over the Church

Guest Choir

Honoring the Poppes

Honoring Pastors John and Debbie Booker

Honoring Pastor Rosinel and His Wife

Foursquare Pastors from around Haiti

Guest Choir

Well Projects are Underway

Great news! We now have two well projects in progress! The first, at an all-girls orphanage that Foursquare is involved with. The second, at Miguel’s school, a local school located near the church. The well housing is currently being built on both properties and within the next two weeks, we plan to have fresh and clean drinking water available at each of these sites. What a blessing!

Jeremie

Three of our staff members, along with a team from the Washington D.C. area, were recently able to spend a week ministering to and working with our Foursquare church out in Jeremie.  Much time was spent on the church property between the building of a chicken coop, the working toward completion of the bathroom facilities, the building of some additional benches and chalkboards for the church/school, as well as the painting of the church building- all while a number of volunteers from the Jeremie Foursquare Church did their part in building a wall around the property.  This group was also able to spend time with the kids from Pastor Cassamajour’s Orphanage, who will soon be able to move into their new facilities on the church property! The week was a much a gift to the team as it was to the locals, as they were able to work and interact with many of the neighbors and church members during this trip. What a joy to be able to serve the Lord’s people all over Haiti!

Painting the Church

The Kids “Helping Out”

The Sweet Neighbor Kids

Working on the Bathroom Facilities

Working with the Kids

Jeremie Foursquare Church, Freshly Painted

Building the Wall

Building a Chalkboard

The Chicken Coop

 

Torcelle Update

The new canal, built to divert a small river running through the center of our Torcelle property, is now finished! This will serve well in a number of ways to aid in the prevention of flooding on the property as well as free up precious land space for Pastor Bellande’s church. Now one step closer to having a fully functional property, we are very excited to have this project finished!  It is the first of many that will be completed at this site.

Update from City on a Hill Church (Vancouver, Canada)

Bonjou!

Where to start on two weeks of witnessing Gods bigness in Haiti? I want to begin with saying that God is so good. He is an incomparable God. There is no one like Him. Yesterday, today and forever He is so good and compassionate.

We come from City on a Hill Church from Vancouver, Canada and this is our second return partnering with Foursquare Haiti. We’ve been here for about two weeks and this is our last full day here. Safe to say we’re going to miss this beautiful place and people so much.

It’s been absolutely amazing to see how God has moved Foursquare Haiti since our visit last year. Again, God is good!

In the mornings for the past week our team went to Pastor Bellande’s church in Torcelle, to run a Vacation Bible School. We didn’t know what to expect because they’ve never had VBS for the children there. Would there be thirty kids? Or would there be fifty? We decided to prepare for seventy just to be on then safe side. The first day comes along and we didn’t have enough food. Nearly one hundred kids! Praise God!

So the next day we decided to prepare for one hundred kids, but again we were under for food because a hundred and ten kids showed up! We decided the next day that we’d prepare for one hundred and fifty kids. Surely that would be enough food right? Wrong! For the final couple days we had a hundred sixty to a hundred seventy kids! I will say that things were a little cramped at the church.

VBS was such a joy. We sang and danced with our whole hearts worshipping God. It was great to see the kids being goofy and having fun while praising Him. I know our Father was overjoyed to see the children being children as they sang and danced. We also taught the Word, sharing about our great savior Jesus! Pretended to be sheep, ate lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and colored and glued. Considering the difficulty of sharing eight glues for one hundred seventy kids, we all felt a little bit like Jesus breaking bread for thousands. Yet still children and team members had such an amazing time.

In the afternoons our team partnered with another team from Canada, busy with constructing Pastor Bellande’s new church. We helped where we could and it was great to assist with construction. We also did some construction and painting for the base camp. We also went to the tent city and put up some tarps.

Everywhere we go there would be children smiling and laughing. Such beautiful smiles in Haiti. We are so touched by the relationships created with staff, other teams and especially our Haitian friends. I am always amazed and blessed by meeting other brothers and sisters in Christ. We really are one family!

When I think about our couple weeks here I think about this passage Matthew 9: 37-38. “Then He said to His disciples,’The harvest truly is plentiful, but laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’” If you are reading this blog I encourage you to think and pray for the harvest. To be co-laborers in Christ is a beautiful thing. Truly there is no end.

We have been so blessed in our time here and there is no doubt that our hearts are here, and that God is working in such a huge way.

God loves Haiti. He is the God of this nation.
Everything for the Kingdom of God!

 

Vacation Bible School and Pastor Bellande’s Church!

 

Pastor Teddy teaching the kids about the Holy Spirit

Learning how to play "Simon Says"

Arts and Crafts

 

Lunch Time!

 

 

 

 

 

Torcelle Update

As many of you know, we have been working on the recently purchased “Torcelle” property, which is the future home of Pastor Bellande’s church and orphanage. One of our teams from Canada, who have been here for the last week, have been working very hard on building a structure for Pastor Bellande’s church services to be held in. This group of volunteers is made up of hard-working men with much construction knowledge and a drive to complete this project during their stay. Their diligence and determination have paid off and we could not be more grateful! In less than four days, they were able to build an excellent structure which will be used, in the short-term, as a church sanctuary. While there is still much work to be done on the Torcelle property, this is one project that we can thank the Lord, and these men, for the resources and abilities to complete!

 

Gathering Supplies

 

 

 

 

The Work Begins!

 

The Finishing Touches

 

 

Les Cayes Update

Hello everyone,

I recently got back from our trip out to Les Cayes with the medical team. That was an amazing and somewhat stressful week. We managed to get 5 flat tires on our 2 vehicles as well as a broken oil line in the last 100 yards of our 5 hour drive out there.

The base camp had not had anyone go out there for almost a month so it required some work to set it up. When we got there, of course, it started to pour rain, it was late in the afternoon, just starting to get dark, and there was no electricity. But we were able to set up the base camp, and medical clinic, before bedtime. By the next morning, there were already 150 people waiting for the medical clinic by 7a.m. The medical team went right to work, and by 8a.m., were seeing patients. After all was set up, I caught a ride into town on a dump truck with my translator; on the way into town the dump truck broke down.

Despite all the problems that week, and believe me there were even more than what I’ve shared, Me and my translator/friend Frantz managed to help get all the vehicles fixed in time before we had to get back, overseeing the  26 people of the team, fixing the road so we could drive out of there, all were so worth it, because of the impact this team had on the community. They saw between 200-300 patients everyday with only 2 doctors, 2 nurses and 9 others that helped in the pharmacy, prayer and doctor assistant. They prayed for every patient that was in the clinic and they shared the gospel with them. They led 75 people to Christ and many re-dedications. A lot of the people that came to know the Lord come from families that are deeply involved in voodoo, so please pray for them. It was an amazing week that I will never forget.

There’s a bunch of new projects beginning back here at our base camp in Port-au-Prince. We poured the slab for the new chicken coup last week. We have also started to build our hydroponics garden. This has been my project for the last week with my new team. We finished forming up, grading for the concrete slab. We poured the slab in 2 ½ days and it is a 20X50 ft. concrete slab and we mixed it all by hand. This team busted their butt. I was very impressed by how hard they worked. I will hopefully post pics of this soon. My camera was stolen recently, so Ill figure out a way to get them on there. The new orphanage is coming along great… well, except for a few problems with the mayor’s office… but we did get the permits so… were back in action.

Praise report : Our main Foursquare church in port-au-prince sent a missionary team of 40 haitian out to Jeremie to go share the gospel with people. In one week they lead 260 people to the Lord!

Praise the Lord, God is moving in this country.

Thanks for all your support and prayers!

God Bless,

Mike

Haiti Fun with the Washing D.C. Team!

What an exciting week we had last week! We had a team here with us from Washington D.C. who put about as many projects into each day as one could fit! Between a soccer clinic with the local Haitian community, twice each day, the dedication of Pastor Bellande’s new property (which they raised and generously donated the funds for), and the Vacation Bible School they held at our church during the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of their week here, each day was filled to the very last minute. They left their hearts and abilities not only on the field, but at each place they worked and prayed over. We are so grateful for each team that comes to serve in Haiti, and this team is no exception! Their generous hearts and spirits left a mark on this precious country and we know the Lord will use their efforts and generous donations to further His Kingdom in this place.

 

The Dedication of Pastor Bellande’s Property

 

Dedication of the property

Pastor Bellande and Pastor Amos officially "breaking ground"

Praying over the property with many members of Pastor Bellande's church

 

Vacation Bible School at Haiti Foursquare Church

 

Sharing Bible stories

 

Getting ready for a game!

Doing a great job!

Snack Time!

 

Yummy peanut butter sandwiches!

Time for an art project!

Lots of coloring!

 

The story of David and Goliath

The great sling!

Hooray! David wins with God's power

 

Singing "Father Abraham"

 

Pastor Debbie and Emmanuel sharing the Gospel with with wordless-book

 

 

 

Tilapia Update

As you know, we’ve been working on growing our Tilapia farm- and boy has it taken off! Our original 8 adult Tilapia have now become nearly 900 baby and adolescent fish. How exciting! With 4 of our 5 tanks currently filled, we’re off to a great start! But as with each victory, there’s always a trial involved in it’s accomplishment. Our trial? Birds. These pesky (but, actually, quite pretty) birds, which look a bit like a small pelican, seem to believe they’ve found their food source in our Tilapia farm. And while one of our goals in advancing the Lord’s Kingdom in Haiti is to help meet the basic needs of the locals (i.e. food, clean water, shelter), we weren’t anticipating these birds including themselves in that project- turning our new development into their own regular smorgasbord.  It was time to find a way to “shoo” them off.

With our first attempt of throwing rocks at the birds having a bit less long-term effectiveness than we had perhaps hoped, a barrier was soon built to cover the “baby tank”.  It was cleverly put together with scrap wood and mosquito netting and served it’s purpose quite well.  But it soon became apparent that with each of our tanks filling (as the number of fish were growing weekly), we would need to rethink our “Tilapia Protection Program”.  So with that, a plan was made and a hard-working team of high school seniors from Camas, Washington got to work.  They did an excellent job building a new netting system, complete with a walk-way that spans the length of the farm, giving easy tank access to our fish-caretakers. We are so grateful to the Camas team for lending their time and their skills to this project!

Before

Working hard!

Almost finished!

Thank you, Camas team!

Our Tilapia care-takers, Jakob and Johnny

Foursquare Haiti English Service has Begun!

The English service, following our usual Creole service, at Foursquare Haiti has officially begun! We are so excited about adding this service, as it has been a dream of Pastor Guy’s for over a year.  Our first service was held on Sunday, July 10th. It was excellent! Pastor John brought the Word and our own Sem St. Martin lead worship with a team of Haitians and Americans.  Our prayer for this service is that it would be filled not only with Haitians learning to speak English, but that it may also be a place for English-speakers working in Haiti to come and be spiritually fed in their own language.  May a change in Haiti begin in our church, as each member comes seeking the Father’s heart, in Jesus Name!

First English service worship rehearsal.

Prayer for offering during our first English service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pastor John bringing us the Word.

Special music from a guest worship team who joined us for our first service.