Getting ready to leave in 2 weeks!

The time is fast approaching for our trip to Haiti and we have already seen God at work in our lives! If you read the previous post from Scott you know of how God has worked on him over the last months. We are seeing these kinds of changes in everyone. We are learning that we need to have confidence in God and to trust HIM that our prayers will be answered. We need to know that He will answer them, not just believe that He will if our hearts are well intentioned.



We were commissioned by our church this last Sunday along with the team from Honduras that leaves this Sunday. How blessed we are as a church body to have so many committed people to furthering the gospel around the world. Our pastor teased us that we didn't have T-shirts like the Honduras team did. He said we hadn't raised enough support yet, well as of Tuesday we are all fully funded with monies that are in and monies that have been committed to the team. We will be able to bless the field with a few things that they need down there because of the love and obedience of so many people. What a blessing it is to be a part of all of this and to witness God at work.

We have heard from Touch Global and as of right now we are going to Haiti! The unrest has settled down for the time being however it appears that there is another exiled former Haitian leader (along with Baby Doc who got there on Sunday) that is making his way back to Haiti. We have no idea what all this means to the people of Haiti but are trusting that God has a plan. Please read the following blog from Touch Global for more information on the last week in Haiti and the little bit of progress that has been made.

http://efcacrisisresponse.blogspot.com/2011/01/haiti-blessing.html

Please keep praying for Haiti to stay relatively peaceful. Pray for the next 2 weeks as the final details come together and we gather all of the things we need to bring down there. Pray for health for our team members and for the health of Wes and Mark on the ground in Port au Prince. Pray for a godly leader to immerge out of the rubble and to bring this country to a glory they have never seen before. This doesn't mean that all of the material poverty would be wiped out however wouldn't it be amazing to see True poverty (life without Christ) be greatly diminished in Haiti and to be able to truly show the Haitian's the Glory of God at work in their lives.

Giving ALL the Glory to Him who reigns on high!

Jackie

"Humility and Grace" by Scott Herrmann

Well, these last two weeks God showed me a bit of his grace. I was a little nervous about handing out support letters to my coworkers, fearful of what they might think or say. While I was handing out the letters I was pleasantly graced with their support and encouragement. Then about an hour later, they nearly knocked my socks off when they asked if they could hold a bake sale to help raise money for our team and over the last couple of days they did knock off my socks. Many of them baked delicious goodies and volunteered their time during the bake sale and raised a whopping $738!! It was an awesome display of the kindness and generosity of my coworkers, for which I am very grateful. Oftentimes, coworkers receive the short end of stick when we talk about them. Today, I want to tell every one of them how honored I am to know them.




Thank you Lori, Connie, Michael, Mickey, Gail, Sherry, Jean, Jeff, Carmen, Shirlee, Dave, Dan, Gareth, Mike, Jennifer, Damien, Debbie, Jim Bruce, Gorden, Pat, Mitch, Gretchen, Kate, Kim, Nancy, Jodi, Brett, Burt, Carrie, Kathy, Glenna, Julie, Linda, Sandra, Tammy, and Diane. You are fantastic and phenomenal teammates!



I also wish to thank those that also gave me support from our sister companies IMI Group and 3Wire. I am deeply honored by your generosity as well.



Humbly honored by those around me…



-Scott

Haiti or Bust!

Well, the Haiti trip is now less than a month away and we are gearing up for whatever God has in store for us! The elections in Haiti have caused civil unrest and they will be announcing the results in mid January. The last time they announced results of the preliminary elections in December, American Airlines literally halted all flights into Port au Prince due to the unrest. We are confident that God will settle this unrest down before we are scheduled to go down there so we can carry out His plan for us in Haiti. Each and every member of this team has received a clear calling to serve in Haiti. We are praying and ask each of you to pray with us for Haiti to remain calm and for our trip to go on as planned. Touch Global has indicated that if the unrest continues that they will be sending us somewhere else....The Dominican Republic, Peru, New Orleans have been mentioned. Our hearts are open to go where God sends us but again, we all feel as if God called us to Haiti and He will clear the path for us to go as planned.

As we approach our departure date of February 4 we have already begun to feel the attacks of the enemy on our minds and bodies. We already have a team member struggling with staying healthy and home repair issues that have cropped up over the last week. Two members are dealing with fears and feelings of inadequacy. We are all praying for more time with God and accountability to stay the course with God's plan for us to grow and learn more about Him. Please pray for the evil one to be bound and for us to recognize these attacks right away so we can pray and ask for prayer.

Pray for the details to come together as we prepare our families for our departure and start to get ready to leave the country. Pray for nothing to be forgotten.

Thank you so much to all of you who are praying with us. You are all on our team and we wouldn't be able to do this without your support

Blessings,
Rob, Jackie, Paul, Andrea and Scott

Prayer for the Haiti Crisis Response Team

Hello loyal supporters!
We are preparing for our trip to Haiti on Feb 4-Feb 13. Our team of 5 has been meeting for a couple months now and we are 6 weeks out from our trip. We are getting to know each other and learning more about the Lord and His calling for us in Haiti as we go. It is so clear to all of us that He wants us in Haiti. Let me tell you a little about each of the team members:
Scott- Scott is a 43 year old that has worked with Jr. High Boys in our church for years. He was our son, Brad's, team leader and Brad respects him a lot. His calling to this team came from a request I made to Scott and his wife, Sue to look into the opportunities that MGEFC had for 2011 for missions trips. They went to all of the meetings that outline the trips and decided that Scott would not only go to Haiti but he would join his wife this summer in Poland also! Scott is a researcher and is out to find us the best deals on our gear we need to take into Haiti. He is so far the quiet one of the team...but you know what they say about the quiet ones...they are always thinking and I have a feeling that in the field he will be anything but quiet.
Andrea-Andrea is 37 years old and works in the nursery at church. She is also a teacher so when she heard about a trip to Haiti, it didn't take long for the Lord's tugging to become a reality for her. She is excited to get into Haiti and pour God's love out upon the children of Haiti. The orphans is the first thing she talked about when she inquired about the trip. Andrea is NOT quiet and she is a workhorse! She asks for tasks before they are given to her and she is the first to volunteer her time and talents for the team.
Paul-Paul is the oldest member of our team at age 60 but with his age comes wisdom. He is a historian and has become somewhat of a scribe for our team. He takes notes and saves everything he comes across to share with the group. He is a former construction business owner and his skills in this area will be invaluable to the team and the field. Paul actually has felt the calling to go to Haiti since the earthquake happened in January of 2010. He has followed God's calling. His knowledge of the word is a blessing to us all.
Rob-Rob is also a former construction business owner. He turns 54 a few days before we leave. As stated previously in this blog, Rob was in Haiti 3 weeks after the quake hit in January and is already aware of what is going on down there and has kept up on the recent happenings in Haiti also. Rob is our fearless leader and is helping us all to trust God to get us into and out of Haiti safely.
Jackie-Jackie will turn 51 the day we get back from Haiti. She is the "talker" of the group. Her motto is "there are not strangers on earth, just people she hasn't met yet". She has also kept up with what is happening in Haiti through contacts at EFCA missions and the news. Jackie loves to spend time with people and has a heart for lost people of all nations.

Now for our HUGE prayer request! There has been much civil unrest in Haiti due to a presidential election that many Haitian's feel was unfair. Another election is to take place the first part of January. Due to this the EFCA has canceled or rerouted all trips to Haiti for the month of January. They have not canceled February trips because they feel that the unrest should be done by the end of January and we should be able to go down and continue with God's work in Haiti. Our request is that the unrest in Haiti subside so that we can get in there and continue with our trip as planned. If we don't go to Haiti, we will most likely be rerouted to another field as directed by the EFCA. We all want to do God's will and all feel called to Haiti. Please pray that God calms the hearts of the Haitians so they can begin to rebuild their country. Pray like warriors!!!!!

God calling to Haiti again

Last March when Rob came home from Haiti he said..."I'll be back there". There is so much work to do that he knew he'd be back. Well, the time has come for Rob to go back to Haiti but this time I will join him along with 3 other people from our church, Maple Grove Evangelical Free Church. We will be doing a variety of things such as helping with shelter homes, doing a VBS at an orphanage or 2...or 3, loving on children, doing a Sunday school class at a church, helping out around the house and whatever else God calls us to do.

We do have a few prayer requests right now. One is that the civil unrest in Haiti come to an end so that we can go down and do the work that God has requested. A few trips to the EFCA Touch Global base have been canceled due to unrest. We will not go to Haiti if the staff on the ground feel that it is not safe for us to go...we would however then go to where ever Touch Global sends us. A couple options would be the Dominican Republic or New Orleans. Pray for us to have open hearts and open minds as to where God ends up sending us. Another prayer request is that everyone can get their funds raised. Most support letters have gone out and we have had a fundraiser already. Pray for unity on our team and for the health of our team both now and as we go on our trip. Lastly pray that God would prepare the hearts of our team members and the people we will be ministering too and with.

The journey is not over...far from it! God has us walking in His wisdom not ours. And we will obey.

Wonderful times with friends in Brazil

Vanderlei and Elemar

We had an amazing time in Brazil with 2 churches in Brazil! Our first weekend was spent with our friends in Campo Grande at the home of Pr. Vanderlei and Elemar. What an amazing God loving couple they are. They had a young lady named Stefani living with them to help her out and Elemar was so loving to her. This little lady needs the love of Jesus so badly and Elemar was able to be the hands and feet of Jesus and minister to her. We are blessed to call this couple friends. We went to the newly formed men's and women's groups where Jackie gave a short message on Romans 12. What a great time of prayer and fellowship. They spent a good deal of the time in prayer over the child of one of the members that is struggling. This group was formed to help the women come together to support each other and to study the bible. They also had the most amazing food!



















We spent a lot of time sitting around the kitchen table eating and talking. Elemar speaks a little English and Jackie speaks a little Portuguese and the guys both talk in hand signals but we seemed to communicate just fine! That was a huge concern for us but God broke down that barrier with translators and language skills. Bianca and Thiago were a huge help in translating for us. I don't know what we would have done without them!

Thiago
Bianca and Rob





















Church is held in Vanderlei and Elemar's Home. Fabricio did a wonderful sermon and there was fellowship and snacks after the service. We sang songs we knew and some we didn't. It was so awesome to be in communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Campo Grande. They are very close to our hearts.

Dinner our last day in Campo Grande. Vanderlei, Myllena, Stefani, Rob and Elemar.






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Our next few days were spent on a renewal for Rob and I. Originally, we were going to be taking a missionary couple on a retreat during this time but due to unforeseen circumstances they had to leave Brazil before we got there. So this gave us time to renew our relationship with each other and with God. We enjoyed our Pousada (similar to a bed and breakfast), the ocean and the food! We met some local people and took a long walk around a golf course (yes I said golf course) just before dark and ended up not getting out of there until after dark. Some scary animal growled at us from the forest and we were later told it was probably a wild pig....and they are not happy campers when it comes to humans invading their territory!
Here are a few pictures of our time together in Angra dos Reis.




































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From Angra we drove back up to the Rio area to Niteroi. Niteroi has a thriving church of about 150 people. Pr. Moises and Fabiane were our hosts for this weekend.


<- Pr. Moises and Fabiane We spent time touring Niteroi and a really awesome Fort built during the colonization of Brazil. Niteroi is a huge city right next to Rio De Janiero City. It's next to the bay and the points of land around the bay form a natural encampment for protection of the two cities from the enemies. The famous Sugar Loaf and the Christ Statue were both visible from the Fort. The tour was given by a member of the Brazilian Army as this is a working Fort where barracks are set up for the troups. Moises and Fabiane were great tour guides! Below are a few pictures from the Fort and dinner before.



Moises and Gabriel with a server and Chicken hearts on the right...Rob's Favorite!


























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The church was putting a new ceiling in the facility while we were there and we helped to clean up for a Sunday evening service. Rob was able to give his testimony and share the message with the congregation for that service. During the service a young lady came up to rededicate her life to the Lord. Everyone prayer over her and you could feel the power of the Holy Spirit moving in the room. After church 2 women make a few Brazilian treats to sell to purchase kitchen equipment for the church. The items are awesome and really hit the spot after service.








<- Ceiling tile being "mudded". Father and son ->
work together washing chairs in the
church






Yes, That is a power washer they are washing the floor with and the pews. Everything was then squeegeed off of the floor and the pews were wiped down. This is in the upstairs of a building so the water went downstairs and they then power washed the stairs and the sidewalk out in front of the store below the church. So many people showed up to help out to get the church cleaned up for services that night. Was amazing to watch the body of Christ work together.


A trip to Niteroi just isn't the same without a Pr. Moises Churrasco (Brazilian Barbeque) and wonderful salad and dessert by
Fabiane!



Two Women that sell the snacks
Getting ready for Sunday evening service