Dear Beautiful and Wonderful Supporters,

THANK YOU SO MUCH. Seriously. I can not even begin to emphasize how thankful I am for anyone who put even one prayer out there or made the smallest contribution. I was able to raise all but $350 (a small enough amount that YWAM extended the deadline for me til pre-graduation on June 12th), and that is pretty much nothing short of a miracle! I'm sorry I haven't been able to personally thank all/most of you, and won't really be able to for another month or so, but please know it doesn't represent the gratitude I have for all of your support!

With only 15 days left of my time in Haiti, I can truly say that this has been such an amazing trip and so many things have happened that would not be possible without you! If you contributed even $10, please know that you are responsible for significantly improving the quality of living for at least a few Haitians by supplying funding for things like tarps.

(*pre tarp, photo by leanne)

Anyway, this is just the pre-cursor to the massive thank you I would like to bestow on you (;)), but I just wanted to make sure that in the mean time you know that your money is making a difference!

PORT-AU-PRINCE! (written like a week and ago... yeah for "textedit!"

(*photo found on google images of City Soleil)

Ahhh, It's so eye opening! We recently watched one of my favorite movies, Blood Diamond, and as we drive through or work in various tent cities, I often think of the journalists line when they go to one of the largest refugee camps, "So this is what a million (homeless) people looks like." I am not sure I've seen a million yet, but as the days stack up and the numbers in the tent cities double by the thousands, my eyes have been opened to the reality of every day life for people all over Haiti, and unfortunately, many places around the world.

One of our main projects while we've been here is assisting in rebuilding a church/school in City Soleil, the poorest area in the Western Hemisphere, boasting fun statistics like "90% of kidnappings in the nation take place here." Exciting! Apparently since the earthquake the area has gotten markably safer, but it's always fun to know that according to various random resources, you're working in what is purportedly one of the most dangerous parts of the world. The best part about

the project is that its not just "the white people coming in to fix things." It's mostly Haitians in the area volunteering their time to see their church restored, and we are right there next to them in the assembly line, passing

down the buckets of "BERTONE, BERTONE, BERTONE!!" (cem

ent). Yesss! Something you see a lot of in Haiti is unrest - boredom, apathy, and lack of initiative. It seems that there are so many problems,

they slowly become immune to them and are either too overwhelmed or apathetic to try to make a difference on their own. So it's really refreshing to see people who are willing and wanting to make a change in their nation!

Tuesday all ministry plans were put on hold as we were on base lock down due to riotting in the streets, during which seven people were shot and two doctors were kidnapped.

While much of the rioting is caused by the politcal unrest due to a potential upset in Presidency/the Presidential Race, food is running short and many have been asking where all the money that was given to Haiti has gone. The answer? "The organizations have the money!" While this is true of bigger organizations like Red Cross and Unicef, obviously not every organization or NGO here recieved funding from the Haitian Government (you know, like, yeah, YWAM for in

stance, haha), this answer has unfortunately led to a lot of mobbing, harrassing, etc. of anyone associated with an organization who happens to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Compliments of events like the U.N. having to escort some of our Brazilian friends back to the base after an attempt to grab the girls

from the truck and the kidnapping of the doctors, last Tuesday entailed a base lock-down where we spent the day learning fun things like "what to do when you are driving and get shot in the arm," etc. Our ministry hours have also been shortened and for instance today it wasn't safe to go to the Church site, so we spent the day teaching/singing (Haitian songs are so much

more fun than American songs... what the heck.)/dramas/pr

aying/hanging out at our assigned tent city in another part of City Soleil, where food is a scarcity and starvation is rampant, they have to walk a few miles to get water, the majority of the children are orphans, and many have no more than a few sheets and plastic wrap drapped over tall sticks as their covering.

It's definitely a new experience - being in a city where things like shootings and starving to death and 50,000 people riotting is a normal occurrence, but I can honestly say I'd rather be here than tucked safely away in some American suburb (okay, not that that happens often anyway, but still!). I feel like FINALLY, fiiiiinnnaaallly, I am able to at least get a small glimpse behind that torn and frayed curtain of reality beyond the western way. And I just want to pull tha

t curtain aside and see the full view! Run past it and be with the people, not just look, but touch and feel and live - not just in Haiti, but all over the world! Hah, that, however is a longer thought full of new inspiration and that sort which is better placed in the coffee conversations we're going to have when I come back, yeah? So anyway, moving on...

We live in tents outside of an Orphanage and a Medical Clinic and share two toilets (and 0 working showers) with about 60 people.... and I love it! Anytime we're not eating, working, or meeting, I have the priveledge of hanging out with some of the coolest kids in the world! Seriously. I love them. My love runneth over.

Almost all of them came from the mountain areas, all near death, many of them still operating only in positions similar to the ones they were found in.

The orphanage is AMAZING. All of the kids have beds and toys, eat regularly, and go to school (interesting fact: apparently there are no standing schools left in Port-Au-Prince, and the teachers who come to the orphanage teach in a make-shift tarp class room in the field because they refuse to work inside of a building). If they turn 18 and have still not been adopted, they are allowed to stay on or move in with someone in the city and the orphanage pays for them to go to college and trade school. The disabled ones, all though the orphanage has none of the means to properly care for them, are here for life unless someone takes them.... Which, by the way, a rehabiliation home for the disabled in Texas offered to take ALL of the handicapped kids/adults/whoever living here, but the Government so far hasn't allowed it, even though the orphanage is so ill equipped to care for them that many of them spend their days strapped to wheelchairs or immobile in cribs meant for small children. I've learned a lot about the Haitian Government this past month, and... let's just say there's a lottt of room for improvement.

Well, this is getting unfortunately lengthy so I will just add on more quick point that maybe you could pray for, and then close on up...

There are YWAM bases all over the world, but the Port-Au-Prince one was founded only four days after the earthquake, and all of the living situations, etc. are temporary. Amazingly, last week the Mayor gave YWAM PaP 30 acres of land to use to build both a base and 1,000 permanent homes for families currently in tent cities. This is great, but has come with problems of it's own as people in the surrounding community have considered that land to belong to them, and there are four men who have threatened Peterson, (the PaP base director and simultaneously one of the best leaders I've ever encountered) basically using their status of working with the police etc. to say that they have gun access and no work should continue without a form of payment made to them. They threatened away all the hired Haitians who had been working there, and I got to be in the team that was sent down a few days later to work anyway, haha. The Four showed up plus some buddies, but when they came over to where I was working with two others, really the most uncomfortable part of the exchange was only when they head guy made all the other guys in his crew come talk to me to work on their english. Thankfully, they didn't seem particularly angered by our work there, so hopefully it will continue to go in our favor. So yeah! If you could just pray for favor with the community so that we aren't doing more damage than good, and peace with those men, that would be awesome!

Anyway, man! I feel like there's so much more! I guess that just means you should come down/up/over to Haiti and find out what's going on for yourself! Hope all's well!

Love,

Sara

Irony in the Worst Form Possible

"He who is faithful in little..."

Here in Saint Marc, many days we have the priveledge of being our own supervisors: examining the options and deciding what to do, how we should do it, and when we should finish.

It's easy to keep going on days bursting with "importance," projects we can see immediate results from and which give us the energy to joyfully persevere. Days when we're picking up litter for hours in weather with heat indexes of 112 degrees, however, it get's a little more difficult. One thought that has been coming to mind and giving me the motivation to push through, though, is this:

"One who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much." (Luke 16:10)

Wednesday especially, every single forsaken sliver of a plastic half jutting out of the ground represented a small part of something much bigger. My heart, and the willingness (or lack there of) to take part in not just the "important" things, but the little things.. knowing that a week later, that plastic sliver would be replaced by two rusty tin cans, but for the day, because it was asked of me, I needed to put my all in to it.

That same day we hosted another gathering with the girls from the Brothels. I know just being present is valuable, if proved only by the question asked on their first visit: "Do you really love us? Don't you know that people will judge you and talk about you if you are with us?" But as encouraging as it is to have a group of girls you barely know run up to hug you, calling you by name, joyful to see that you've returned to invest in their lives... the actual event is kind of frustrating. It's difficult, wanting to form relationships with people but feeling so limited not only by the cultural differences but the very language itself. That day we were doing art projects and one of the Haitians from the base was speaking, and there wasn't necessarily a specific need for me to be there. So when I left to use the restroom, I went through about a 3 minute "Ehhhhhhh," mental battle where I tried to figure out if leaving an hour early would be fine or not.

Ha.. Then God reminded me of my heart, or at least what I wanted it to look like. The things I claimed to be passionate about, the things I supposedly wanted to dedicate my life to. I've had a heart for prostitutes for awhile now. "If I went back to Amsterdam,"I have thought, "I would want to work with the prostitutes." The same for Thailand. The same for America, even.

Then I got the big "OH. Rigggght."

I am with prostitutes right now! This is the sort of opportunity I had longed for, and when I actually got it, because it wasn't the exact context I had thought about previously, I didn't even recognize it. "If you are here with prostitutes now, and you are not making the most of that opportunity - how can you say that this is what you want to do? How can you claim that this is one of the ministries you'd like to be part of, when it is right in your hand and you put it aside because there's an easier or more interesting option?" In essence, if I couldn't serve these women here and now, if I was not faithful with this "little" situation that only entailed a few hours where only the bare minimum was required of me, how could I ever expect to be faithful in bigger situations?

Ultimately, I was really just convicted to make the most of every moment. Not just moments I've looked for, but in anything that's presented to me. Returning to the Brothel Event, I wasn't specifically needed - everything would have been fine without me. But I wouldn't have been there for the woman sobbing on the ground, mourning the loss of her relatives in the earthquake and the life she now has to lead as a consequence. I wouldn't have been able to speak to her in the words of the only language we both know, embrace and compassion. I wouldn't have been able to see the paintings of which the women drew depicting themselves: full of colors and flowers and vibrance and beauty. I wouldn't have had the priveledge of hearing the prayers of the women, requests for houses or children or husbands, and the few that stood out especially, vulnerable pleas to be freed from this business... one specifically crying out a desire with a weight neither a sentence nor a person should bear: "God, free me from this slavery."

Ahhh. We are so quick to make up our own idea of what ministry looks like, or wait for the exact situation, and miss everything that is right in front of us. This is something I've dealt with almost everywhere I go, especially places like Saint Louis where I somehow get the mindset that I can only really be doing something productive if I somehow manage to escape the city. But over and over again, (especially in this past year), I've really had to remind myself of a major theme: "If not now, when?" If I am not living the way I'd like to now, chances are, even in a new scenario, I won't be living that way then either, or worse, will never actually end up in that situation and will waste all the other opportunities I'm given by not even recognizing them as such.

More specifically to my time in Haiti, it reminds me that my "ministry" is not over when my work day is. Being faithful to what God's called me to do doesn't mean feeding an orphan anymore than it does being gracious to the cashier with the bad attitude or kind to the people I already interact with everyday. If I am not treating even my tent mates with grace and love, how can I truly administer it in other situations?

Well, as always, there's a bit more to this thought but I've gotta go so feel free to think up the subject yourself. ;)

Love!