The, "Surprise, I'm actually going to start updating this!" Post!

As a newsletter of some sort has been requested and I had a bit of down time, I thought that I may as well start updating this fella... so here we go!


We (as pictured above on a very lovely day often referred to as Easter) are stationed at the YWAM base in Saint Marc, about an hour and a half drive from Port-Au-Prince, home to tons and tons of internally displaced earthquake victims, a lot of goats, pigs, cow like creatures, malnourished but joyful children, zombie dogs, and now a bunch of crazy volunteers from all over the world.

Our team has been spending our time by alternating weeks working on/around (ish) the base, and living in and discipling a tent community of displaced Port-Au-Prince victims outside of a Medical Clinic (which, pre 3 months ago, was used as a public bathroom for the past 10 years... Mmm, home, sweet home!).

The tent community is often exhausting, but always awesome. Along with just hanging out with the people there, we have various teachings most nights which are open to anyone in the surrounding area, many times ending with some legit prayer times and/or an intense showcasing of local talent in the form of dance or rap off's, which usually attracts an all ages crowd of between 100-200 people. Our first week there we were in charge of finding out as much about the people living in the tents as possible and creating case files for each tent: their stories, skills, needs, desires, etc. Combining this information with everything else we could gather about the community, we have been working to create sustainable jobs for the families - ones that can get them going on enterprises that will last far beyond our time here.

Monday we held the first "Community Meeting," Wednesday started a basket weaving class, Friday the pregnant women in the community were employed to do laundry, and tomorrow we're holding a class on just basic business skills and how to use the resources they have to make money, etc. Already the people have gone from milling about, bored, aimless, tired and ready to argue, to smiling and joking and seeming like they have a sense of purpose. It's AWESOME, and it's just the beginning!

As far as base work, welll, I thought it would mean doing a lot of menial jobs such as washing dishes or cleaning bathrooms, but turns out it's awesome! (not that toilet scrubbing isn't....) There are so many important things YWAM Haiti does, and most of them are held on base. The YWAM base has multiple uses: in addition to running a DTS and various other ministries, it houses a school, a church, a distribution center, and tons of trailers etc. which are used to store and sort food, clothing, medical supplies and other essential needs for the Haitians. YWAM is responsible for feeding about 10,000 people a day, so a lot of time was spent just moving mass amounts of beans, rice, salt, and vegetable oil from containers to trucks for food distribution

(110 lb bags...I'm going to be buff! okay, well, I couldnt actually carry those by myself, but still! whew!), organzing the medical depot, cleaning up the streets, ministering to people at the medical clinic, working de-rusting and working with the concreters for the MEGA TENT they are setting up in the back lot to run food distribution and/or a youth center/whatever they want to use it for and then spending the afternoon hosting a gathering from the local brothels. It has been so sweet - no matter how trying the physical labor is, even if my hands stop working, I still have the energy and the motivation to keep going.
And it's not just the big stuff, it's even in the smaller things when I'm just out of my element i.e. Leanne and I ended up heading up a soccer game for the prostitutes - I suck at soccer/any sport that's not rock, paper, scissors,which isn't actually a sport, and I'm not actually that good at it. But the whole time I was just full of energy and we just had a blast! Afterwards I brought out my nail polish, wanting to paint their nails -and they ended up giving all the blancs (white people) full out manicures! (For the record, the experience itself was a lot less awkward then my face seems to be declaring it was, haha) It's really difficult to out give here... Everyone is so generous even with the little they do have!

Anyway, there's so much more to say, and so much more being done (i.e. I just got back from preaching at the Church Service of a Pastor friend of ours. What the heck!? An American who avoids public speaking at all costs, behind a pulpit in Haiti speaking to 150+ people who I could never even hope to communicate to in my own language!? Whoaaa, what a privilege, and how amazing it is to see God using the weaknesses of the Unlikely to spread His hope!), but I just wanted to lay out the basic gist of life here, so that next post I can just jump in to one of the many awesome things that are going down rather than detail you to death with background information. ;p Hope all's well in whatever land you're reading this from (is it?? I want to know!), and that you know someone in Haiti is thinking of you!
Love, Your Zanmi (friend) Sara