Jo'burg Video and Botswana...

I have shared some previous blogs and videos from my friend Liz Froba who is leading a team of missionaries in the World Race 2009, these two videos come from her team in Africa. In God's love , steve

Jo'burg Video and Botswana...

THE BRIDGE

SEPT. FLOODING 2008

CONSTRUCTION AUG. 2009

NEARING COMPLETION

Finally after almost eleven months the National Route #1 Bridge in Montrouis is nearing completion. The local gossip says it will be ready for traffic sometime in Sept. If you read the GAP newsletters you know that last Summer's hurricanes and flooding took out the center support of the old bridge making it unsafe for vehicles to use. At that time Montrouis only had one bridge crossing the river. This required that all transportation of people and cargo had to stop on the East and West sides cross by foot and all cargo unloaded carried across by porters and reloaded.

Eventually a bridge was established out near the the ocean where the old railroad crossed the river though this was a tortuous detour it once again allowed vehicles to cross the river. Sometime early this year the old bridge was removed and in April construction started on the new replacement bridge which is now nearing completion. The blessing from all of this is that now Montrouis will have two routes across the the river which is is a rarity in the Haiti transportation network.

Another transportation blessing is that the new highway though not completely finished from Port au Prince to Montrouis is much improved. Paving across the worst areas now allows quick, smooth and dust free travel for our vehicles that go back and forth every week. This is the best the road has been in my ten years of work in Haiti. In God's love , steve

IT'S DONE

THE SMALL BOYS DORM

Well after nine months and countless work teams the new dorm is finished for the smaller boys who live at Canaan. It all started last Thanksgiving when a large work team of 31 people arrived from Pasco ,Washington. There church donated the money to get this project restarted, after several years of waiting we were finally ready to pour a concrete roof for the building. Many GAP teams came in January, Feb, March and April to do plumbing, electrical and other finish work. Over the summer other teams came and painted and did the murals that brighten up the interior and add a personal touch.

Sometimes that is all it takes to get a project going , someone in this case a church to give some funds. Once we get started others help out with more funding and eventually we get another much needed project done.

WHAT'S AHEAD ?

MONTROUIS BEACH

It's Sat. morning and I'm sitting in the dining room at New Life Childrens Home in PAUP writing this blog and drinking good Haitian coffee. In about four hours I will be somewhere over the Caribbean heading back home. Once home I have a tight schedule of completing a new addition onto a house and getting it finished in time to get back to Haiti in early November. I'm not sure what's ahead I just try to follow God's leading, that's not to be taken as I'm planning on leaving missions anytime soon. It's just that I operate under the assumption that God puts people and situations in your in your lives for a reason. Every since coming to Haiti to work as a missionary that has proven so true. I can sense something is in the works from what I've seen this trip , the conversations I've had, the things that have happened and the people I've met lead me to believe God is at work with some sort of new action plan in my life.

When I started GAP go and produce Ministries my thought was one of creating workable partnerships that didn't duplicate the wasteful spending of valuable mission resources. When you have different mission organizations working and living in the same communities they should work together instead of each recreating over and over the same things. The coordinated efforts of bringing organizations together is always on my mind when I meet new missionaries and visit new organizations in Haiti. I actually maintain a vast network of missions organizations and people dating back to my first days in Haiti. When I see the possiblity of putting something together either for my organization or someone else's I make a suggestion and wait to see what happens. I have met some very wonderful people and great organizations this year and now I'm beginning to see some possibilities of " fruit being produced". In God's love , steve

ANOTHER TRIP

Ti Artibonnite

Tomorrow evening will see be back at the New Life Childrens Home in Paup, where I stayed the evening I arrived in Haiti three weeks ago. After so many years of getting up early to catch a plane back to the states ,I recently started going in the night before and having a good nights rest, a leisure several cups of coffee in the morning and a wonderful breakfast before taking the 12 minute ride over to the airport. I'm not going to say that I even came close to accomplishing what I thought I would this trip but I did take care of some long overdue situations that had caused some problems this past year and I got to spend some much enjoyed time with the Binkley's who are going through a difficult medical situation. I also was able to take care of getting Jasmine (Diesmey) relocated back in Montrouis after his recent completion of college . He is now the new G.A.P. Field Director for the Feet Across the Mountains ministry. His responsibilities are assisting the villages we work in and overseeing the varied ministry projects in the mountains. He also may be assisting Bobbi Bender in implementing the infant nutrition program (Medika Mamba) into some of the rural villages we work in. We also had two teams during my three weeks here so all in all considering the intense heat and humidity it was a good trip. In God's love, steve

A WONDERFUL LADY OF GOD

GLADYS' MOM (on left)
We woke up Saturday to the sad news that Gladys mother had passed away unexpectedly Friday evening in California. She had just had a routine surgery that morning to remove a tube from a gall stone surgery and everything seemed fine but she later had a heart attack. She was a remarkable lady who had an intense love for serving her Lord Jesus where ever He placed her. Even though she was 83 she loved making trips back to Haiti to visit the churches she and her late husband started in Port and south Haiti. Her funeral will take place Sat. in California and then her body will be brought to Haiti for 2 funeral services here on Aug. 29th before burial at Petite Goave in south Haiti. She will be missed by those of us who were lucky enough to know her. In God's love , steve

ONE MORE TRIP

THE BINKLEY'S EXITING THE AIRPORT

I picked my friends Vic and Donna Binkley at the airport in Port au Prince yesterday afternoon as they returned to Haiti two months after Vic was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. He is undergoing chemeo and had a short pause between treatments to work in a 10 day return to Haiti. The hope is that the chemo will shrink the tumor enough that they can go in with a cyberknife and eradicate the tumor. Vic is scheduled to do one surgery a day while here which is ironic for that is what he hopes for himself. One chance for the surgery that could remove his tumor, his only hope at this point beyond a miracle from God. Vic has been the only person here in our area of Haiti who has given so many Haitians hope from injuries, cancers and other medical issues with his skilled surgeon's hands. On our ride out to Pierre Payen we reminisced about the changes in Haiti and our hopes for a country we both love. Vic and Donna have been coming here since the mid seventies to do surgeries at the Pierre Payen clinic and later the new hospital across the street. Vic is the guy who recruited me and convinced me that I should come here and work with my construction talents and I spent 5 months finishing the hospital at his urging. He became my mentor as I went on again at his urging after God's leading to start G.A.P. go and produce ministry in 2002. I honestly can't imagine Haiti without Donna and him just down the road at Pierre Payen. So my hope is though some of you may not know him lift him and his wife up in your prayers. In God's love , steve

THIS AND THAT

It's been a busy week in Haiti, a team of six University of Illinois fraternity brothers arrived last Sat. and a medical team of 17 from S. Carolina, Mo., Kansas and Texas came on Monday. The last of them departed for home this morning which leaves me in Port au Prince to pick up Vic and Donna Binkley later to take out to Pierre Payen this evening.

The college team was led by Jason Marquis who came to visit his cousin Marcus Throneburg who is working at the Canaan School this next year. They worked on pouring some sidewalks and a patio at the staff houses and also with construction onto the girls dorm.

The medical team was led by Dr. Tony Hlavacek and Dr. Ric Bonnell. Tony comes twice a year and brings along lots of medical help, this time he brought mom and dad along too. Ric comes four times a year and brings his wife Wendy who is also a doctor and their three kids ages 7-12 on two of those trips each year. The pictures show the medical team on the night they arrived unpacking medical supplies and making a Medika Mamba type nutrition supplement to give to malnourished babies. They had the the refreshing and also unpleasant experience of riding in the back of an open truck most of the way to Canaan in a serious Haitian downpour.

I think after that they were ready for anything the week might bring. Along with the sweltering August heat we got some relief with having Haitian electric power Wednsday through this morning which meant fans all night long. Some of them were up early for a hike on Friday and a picnic and great afternoon at the beach afterward. I spent most of Sat. in Port au Prince looking for and buying truck parts, maybe I can write about that later. This next week sees Canaan hosting several Haitian schools as they come to an ACE seminar to help them learn how to start similar schools across Haiti. Anyway as you can see life in Haiti can be a little of this and that always challenging but more often than not rewarding. In God's love , steve

SURPRISE

DAVID AND ELONJ

Ok one more wedding blog. I know I said I wasn't going to be able to attend the Sat. morning wedding but plans change quickly here and we always tell our teams stay flexible. I really wasn't planning on duplicating my trip of the previous day for back to back weddings but I got a pleasant surprise late Friday night. Someone knocked on my door about 9:00 pm , it's not unusual to have someone knocking on my door but not often at that time of evening. I yelled out to find out who was there, it was Edgard, so I put on some shorts, I was in my underwear because it is so darn hot here right now and went to the door. I saw 2 guys standing there and at first it didn't register who the second guy was but to my surprise it was Erve. He had just arrived at Canaan specifically to go to the wedding the next morning. So being one of the few people who drives and more importantly owns a vehicle they wanted to see if I would take them up to Liancourt . Those who may not know Erve is a former student and resident from Canaan who is living with my cousin and his family in the states while attending college.

It was a nice small wedding that went very close to on schedule. We were even able to stay for the reception over at the pastor's house. I have know Pastor Gerrard since 2001 so when he saw me at the wedding he asked me to give the closing prayer and blessing on the newlyweds who like Erve had also grown up at Caanaan. We made it back to Montrouis and then it was off to Port au Prince to pick up my team. In God's love , steve

ANOTHER WEDDING

This morning I drove up to a small village called Borel for a wedding, this is a place I worked and lived at for three months when I was working with the Project Help Mission in Haiti. When I moved up there from the Project Help Compound at Pierre Payen in Jan. of 2002 I took a young Haitian man in his early 20's with me, his name was Djony. I left in April and went down to Montrouis to found G.A.P. go and produce Ministries. Johnny stayed on at Borel and is now the overseer of mission teams there for P-H as well as maintenance for the facilites. He eventually met a young Haitian lady living in the community, her name was Suze which sound like (seas) when pronounced, today was their wedding day.

This was my fifth Haitian wedding in the last 10 years I have been to 3 this year alone and have an invitation to another one tomorrow morning that I won't be able to attend because of the arrival of a work team. If you haven't already read my previous blog titled
CELEBRATIONS you might want too . In that blog I talk about the biggest events in the lives of Haitians, wedding of course are one those events.

I always marvel at the amount of money spent at Haitian weddings and wonder how long they have to save to afford these celebrations. Yet look at American weddings in comparison, $10,000 on up seems to be the norm in the states anymore. Through out other cultures weddings are big events if not the biggest one. Even Jesus' first miracle occurred at a wedding where the family didn't want to be embarrassed because they ran out of wine.

The wedding was suppose to start at 8:00 am but as is typical in Haiti was an hour late it concluded at 12:30. When the wedding concluded at the church the reception moved across the street to the huge dining hall at the P-H compound where Johnny lives. It was great to able to participate in this wonderful event in my friends life. In God's love , steve

DOING A NEW THING

SMALL SCALE AGRICULTURE

Well I made it out to Canaan Monday afternoon no one knew I was arriving so it was a surprise. We had a small team arrive led by Chris Hlaveck, they shot a video about the Medika Mamba program that is run out of the Canaan Clinic. Saturday we have a group of college students arriving from Illinois and on Monday our medical team of 17 people arrives. I spent all of today

in St. Marc getting the AC working on my small truck but it was worth the 5 hours it took to repair it.

The pictures of the portable chicken coop and the rabbit hutch was taken at World Harvest Mission in Port au Prince where I stayed Sunday night. These are some of the many changes my friend Sam has instituted and experimented with since he went to live there. I hope to try similar new ideas in our Feet Across the Mountains Ministry. One of the 9 objectives of this new ministry is in agriculture. We hope to introduce new agriculture techniques that will be good for the environment. We also will be setting up community tool banks and seed banks. People can come and borrow tools for projects or farming and seed where after our initial investment it will be sustained by the farmers paying us back in a little extra seed than they borrowed. We will also be setting up community operated plant and tree nurseries for the farmers to help reforest the stripped mountain sides of Haiti. Hopefully I can fill you in the other objectives in some of my future blogs . In God's love , steve

OASIS IN THE CITY

WORLD HARVEST MISSION

Well last evening I finally made it back to Haiti around 9:oo pm . Things were going pretty smoothly and right on time till we boarded the plane in Miami but finally after sitting on two different planes for 3.5 hours and one 1.5 hours between planes we took off for Haiti at 7:15 pm.

Before I arrived I had contacted Sam Streau a long time missionary friend here in Haiti to arrange to be picked up and stay in the guesthouse at the orphanage where he works in Port au Prince. That was a good choice seeing how I arrived five hours past our 3:45 scheduled arrival. Anyway arriving here after a long day of travel feels like that oasis in the desert you read about so often for weary travelers.

Later on today I will head up the coast to the town of Montrouis where I live at Canaan Christian Community. We have two groups coming this month. One is a group of college age young men from Illinois and another is a large medical group from different states led by Drs. Tony Hlavecek and Ric Bonnell. Also this month we will restart construction on the new clinic and be looking for new projects for the "Feet Across the Mountain" ministry. In God's love, steve