i have 9 of 12 spaces filled for the youth ministry coaching program. if anyone else is interested, the application deadline is a week from friday – march 5. email me (mark.oestreicher@gmail.com) if you want an application.
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i posted a link to this video days ago, but wanted to embed it now that i have bandwidth. we found rudy in a tent hospital, where he was healing from a surgery on a broken femur. he sang this beautiful version of “redemption song” for us that brought us all to tears. rudy taught himself english by listening to music.
yes, please, god; bring your redemption to haiti.
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here’s a video from our trip — just some shots from our van as we were driving. you’ll see what the “tent cities” look like, as well as some views of the city center in port-au-prince. finally, a long food distribution line by the city port. this was a very sobering drive for all of us. we’d seen some of this on the news, but were brought to silence by the miles upon miles upon miles of these views.
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one of the many moving moments of our haiti trip was this one. we’d spent some time with pastor christian, a 74 year-old wise and humble pastor of 11 churches totaling 10,000 people. later in our trip, he hosted a pastors meeting for us attended by 260 pastors, representing about 1000 churches. this is the cross-denominational group adventures in missions is hoping to work with for hosting groups and developing church partnerships. but this moment, when we asked him to pray for us, and he started singing… well… i just started weeping. you won’t be able to understand the translation, but it’s hardly the point.
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i’d forgotten about this post from last year; but, re-reading it this morning (after seeing a bit of incoming traffic to it), decided it was worth re-posting. after returning from haiti last evening, i took max to carl’s junior, where i had a “grilled cheese six dollar burger”.
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this is not a lent bashing (or spiritual discipline bashing) post. i think the practice of giving something up for lent, when actually seen as a means of reflecting on what christ gave up, is a beautiful practice (of course, for many, it’s not much more than an inverted new year’s resolution). i’ve given stuff up for lent before.
however, this time around, i’m in a wallowing kind of place, connected, i’m sure, to the stress and sadness of all our transitions here at ys. can you say “comfort food”?
so, tuesday evening, during a pre-lent pancake dinner with my kids, i broke the “no twittering at the dinner table” rule and twittered that i was thinking of giving up abstinence for lent. that got me thinking: i’ll create a big ol’ list of MERELY SOME of the things i’m going to give up for lent this year. my kids helped me with some of them.
just sit back, and be amazed by my resolve.
THINGS I AM GIVING UP FOR LENT THIS YEAR
ferel cat adoption
miley cyrus music
michael jackson gloves
driving under the speed limit
reading chick lit
putting my tongue in fans
pogoing
watching the movie “little women”
D&D
stamp collecting
whoring
running for political office
taunting babies
launching my rap career
nude banjo playing
climbing mt everest
goober (that peanut butter/jelly stripey thing)
faux candy
buying gold bullion
thong underwear
tunneling under the wall
my search for the “lost” island
stove pipe hats
parachute pants
jam sessions with U2 in my basement
colonizing
phrenology
constructing a scale model of ancient jerusalem out of mike & ikes
road tripping with rod blagojevich
vampire hunting
amateur brain surgery
freeing willy
well, i could go on, because i’m really good at abstaining, as you can see. but, please, feel free to suggest more things i might consider giving up, in a comment!
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yesterday, our team in haiti did some initial contact and assessment work in two tent villages that are side by side (late addition: when we crossed the border into haiti, one of the first stories we heard was from a mother who talked of her twin boys dying in her arms during the quake; tonite, we learned that the name of these two tent villages — marassa — means, or at least implies, “twins” in creole. and interesting bookend to trip). i blogged an aspect of that experience here.
last night, as our group was debriefing the day, we felt compelled to do something more tangible for these two villages. the village committee at one of them had asked we return this morning and lead a time of prayer for healing; so we knew we were headed back anyhow. we cooked up a little social media experiment that actually manifested as a missional prayer. adam mclane had twitpic’d a photo of the people we were filming from his iphone, and it had the gps coordinates on it. it got retweeted about 600 times within an hour or two. so, we got the “please help us” video edited and uploaded, and the twitterers among us simul-tweeted the photo and video link, along with a message to anderson cooper, asking him to show up at 9am and bring help. that tweet went viral like a prayer through social networks, being retweeted thousands of times. our hope was that anderson cooper’s people would see this (which, surely, they did), and do something.
but god had another designs on how to answer our prayers.
after starting the healing prayer service in the one community, a few of us pulled off to go find a way to get some immediate physical help. we were told that one of the only open grocery stores was near the airport — about 2 miles from where we were.
but when we got near the airport, we started praying that somehow god would give us access to the massive conglomeration of armys, ngo’s, and the u.n., operating out of the airport grounds. sure enough, we pulled up to the guard gate, explained what we were doing, and were waived in. a second barricade produced the same results. inside, we said ‘hello’ to an american dude walking past, who just may have been an angel. he walked us around to various tents, trying to champion our cause. as we met with u.s. military, canadian military, and several ngo’s, we began to get discouraged that nothing would come of this, with all the red-tape. but we’d also been told, over and over, that giovanni cavanni, at the i.o.n. tent, was the person we needed to see, as he was coordinating which idp’s (we were learning vernacular for these tent villages) would get help. by the time we approached the group of tents where the fabled giovanni was to be found, we were picturing him as some kind of godfather, and assumed we’d never even get an audience. but we were ushered past guards and workers, right into giovanni’s tent. he was a young, hip, northern italian guy who clearly had power, but deeply wanted to help. they had not yet identified the tent villages we were seeking help for, and we got them into the database, plus got email addresses and lots of other stuff to follow up on that will lead to getting long-term help for these people.
but we still knew we needed some immediate food supplies for today. so off we went to the grocery story (which was a nice one, heavily guarded, with only haitians with some money and military shopping in it). we bought almost all the rice and beans they had, some oil, and most of their baby formula. we had $2000 of donations that had come in over the last couple days; and when our final bill was tallied, it was $1983.
we drove back to the two communities, met with their “village council” (they call it the committee), and talked about the help we hoped would come from our time at the airport, as well as adventures in missions groups we hope will come in the months to come. we re-confirmed their desire to help their people, and particular commitment to the widows and orphans in their midst. then we formed long human chains, and unloaded the truck.
it was somewhere in the midst of unloading the truck that it struck me how our collective act of prayer last night, carried out by our team and thousands of others who joined with us from countries far away, were being answered in that very moment. in fact, god had been answering them all day long.
at the end of the day, i was about to get into the truck to leave, and i noticed a teenager staring at me. and i saw his feet. he might as well have been barefoot — he had rubber flip-flops that were falling apart and smaller than his feet. in that moment, a story i’d heard 20 years ago came back to me, of a kid on an urban missions trip who saw a homeless guy and jumped out of the church van to give the homeless man his shoes. i knew what god was prompting me to do. i walked over to him, smiled, put my hand on his shoulder (to steady my tired fat body!). i leaned over and slipped off my tennis shoes, picked them up and held them to his chest. there wasn’t a translator around, but i said: “these are god’s provision for you.” maybe i was just saying it to myself; and that would have been enough.
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if the theme i sensed yesterday was hope, then the theme today was joy. while suffering leads to perseverance, perseverance to character, and character to hope, i think there must be a sense where hope leads to joy.
in the midst of such devastating heartache and desperate need, i witnessed joy break out multiple times today:
1. first, as we were driving through the city, we saw a church service taking place on a street. there was a stage set up at one end, and the street was packed with thousands of dancing haitians, giving praise to god. it was the kind of shear unpolluted joy that i have very rarely seen in my life. seth barnes, the adventures in missions director, has been traveling the world for 25 years, and has never seen anything like what we saw in port-au-prince yesterday and today. i’ll post a video of this at some point,when i have better bandwidth.
2. minutes later, we spent time in a small community where one of the pastors we’re working with is trying to bring some help. adam mclane and i spent an hour with the pastor of a small church (well, the building was small — it looked like it should hold about 100 people; but he said there are about 1000 people coming every sunday). he was a wise and grace-filled older gentleman, who’s own house had been damaged, causing him and his elderly wife to sleep in a tiny cube made of sheets just outside their house. the moment of joy came when we gave him a few packets of toiletries and supplies, as well as a few large bags filled with little bags of drinking water. he started to hand them out, and it felt like pandemonium. adam and i were both concerned that things were going to turn ugly. but then i saw the pastor’s face: he was grinning from ear to ear, filled with absolute joy at the opportunity to bless people with provisions they so desperately needed.
3. the third outbreak of joy came in a tent community we visited, which i posted about here.
4. shortly after this, i was in another tent community where some of our other team members were meeting with the newly formed community leaders to consider how we (and other groups who follow) could help. and as i jumped out of the truck, a guy came running up yelling, “marko! marko! marko!” i was a bit disoriented as to how someone here could know my name. but it turned out to be johnny, the young man i’d connected with at an outdoor prayer service the day before, showing him my tattoos (at his request) and explaining the spiritual signicance of them. lars rood, one of our team members, said later that i’m a “walking evangecube“. :) what a joy to somehow reconnect with this guy in a city of millions.
5. finally, as we were driving back to the missions compound where we’re staying, we got stuck on a street as a massive group — a parade, really — of dancing, shouting, and praising believers moved past us with banners that said: “christ for haiti, haiti for christ”.
wow, what a day. i have a new reference point for joy.
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today, a few of us were in one of the hundreds of tent communities that have sprung up in and around port-au-prince. we met with a group of about 40 people (though thousands live in the community and the one next to it), listened to their stories, hopes and needs. even in the midst of such great loss and devastation, they possessed joy. they mentioned that no relief had come their way — no water, no food, no tents (their “tents” were sheets hung on sticks and wires). when i asked how they were surviving without food and water, the pastor i was speaking with said, “we’re not.” they are starving and desperate, yet still hopeful.
at that point, i had a crazy idea. i asked the pastor if he thought it would be ok to have the group of 40 shout “please help us” in english for our video camera. he turned to them and asked them, and they all loved the idea. they started practicing how to say “please help us” in english, which was actually another great moment of joy amidst the hardship.
later, we were able to bring them some water and a small amount of bread. but we’re trying to connect with NGOs and american news agencies in haiti to see if we can do something to help the people in this one-of-many situation where no help has arrived.
please link to this, tweet this, facebook this, and help us get the word out that there is still SO MUCH need in haiti. we’re asking people to call out @andersoncooper on twitter, imploring him to show up at 9am tomorrow (monday, feb 15) when we reconvene at this community. join us, and let’s see what happens!
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Romans 5:3-5 – not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Today, my 2nd day in Haiti (and first full day), I was relentlessly pursued by hope.
On a human level, this seems completely illogical. I witnessed so much pain, so much loss, so much destruction. I saw miles and miles of downtown Port-au-Prince streets with every other building smashed to pieces, the streets piled high with rubble (many of the rubble piles doubling as temporary graves). I saw trash overflowing in every stream.
And the squatter villages. I’ve seen squatter villages in other countries; but they’ve always had a sense of semi-permanence to them, having developed over years, with shacks poorly cobbled together with solid materials. But the squatter villages here are different. They’ve sprung up all over the city – hundreds of them – each with hundreds, if not thousands of temporary homes. All built in the last few weeks, they’re built on wobbly scrap-wood frames and wires, with sheets and blankets for walls, and tarps (at best) for roofs.
I listened to story after story, and they started to blend together. Everyone knows someone who died in the quake – most know many. And even if their home didn’t collapse, it’s broken enough that it’s not safe to re-enter. Little kids accepted power bars and bottles of water from me as if I’d just handed them the keys to the kingdom.
But this suffering is producing perseverance, which is producing character, and hope is overflowing in a way I’ve rarely seen.
Today was Haiti’s first-ever National Day of Prayer. We originally had other plans for the day; but when we learned of this beautiful expression of hope. As we drove into the city center, we passed dozens of churches overflowing (literally, out onto the streets) with people singing and praying (and fasting, I understand). The main gathering at the city center is reported to have about 60,000 people at it.
We stopped at one of the large gatherings (not the one at the city center), and I sat in the scorching sun near a few young adults. One of them – Johnny – noticed the tattoo on my leg (the cross of St. Patrick), and asked me about it in broken English. He and his friends were fascinated by it, and by each of my three other tattoos. Since each of my tattoos represent Christian themes of life and re-birth, we struggled gloriously through a conversation about spiritual things. Johnny, and another guy named Junior (pictured with me here), both spoke some English, and translated everything I said to their friends, as well as translating questions from their friends for me.
Later, after driving through the heart-wrenching city center, we visited a large prayer gathering at the church of Pastor Christian, one of the pastors we’re hoping Adventures in Missions groups will be working with. I’d guess there were about 3500 people at this site. As we made our way into the crowd, I realized I was in observation mode. I realized my post yesterday had been more of a travelogue than a reflection of what was going on inside of me. And I knew I had to move into co-participant mode. So I broke from our group and wiggled my way deep into the crowd. When I got to a place where I couldn’t proceed further without being rude, I stood and prayed in the midst of the crowd. When they suddenly all sat down, I realized I was the only person standing. I looked down, and the woman next to my feet was making a place for me to squeeze onto the blanket she and several other women and children were occupying. I sat, looked around, and realized I had somehow ended up in a section that was all women and children – but the welcome was palpable. Throughout the next hour of singing, dancing, prayer, preaching, leg cramps and back spasms, I participated with these Haitian women and children, calling out to God on behalf of Haiti. It was a profound, tangible experience of hope being birthed out of suffering.
Later in the day, after many stories I don’t have space to share here (including a beautiful conversation with a group of young men constructing a tent-home for someone, all of whom had decided to follow Christ on the day of the earthquake, as they heard others crying out to Jesus), we met with Pastor Christian. A 70-something man of deep wisdom and grace, he pastors a group of 11 churches totally about 10,000 people. We talked with him about bringing groups to help, about his vision for Haiti, and about how he saw his country responding. At one point, Pastor Christian was sharing something about all the work to be done, and he let out a very deep sign. We could all see, in that moment, the immense burden he was carrying, and how tired he was (he hadn’t been showing this). We gathered around him and prayed for him, while he sunk into the grace of Jesus. About 10 minutes later, he asked if he could pray for us. As we bowed our heads, he began singing. He was singing a prayer over us, and it was truly one of the most beautiful things ever to enter my ears and soul, even though I couldn’t understand the words. I instantly started crying – but they were tears of hope: hope born out of seeing a man, and a hundred thousand others, place their hope-born-of-suffering in a Savior who brings redemption. I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite Bible verses: Zephaniah 3:17, which describes God “rejoicing over us with singing.”
I’m emotionally and physically spent, and a little bit sunburned. So I’ll leave you with this:
Zephaniah 3:17 – The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
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this morning, we left santo domingo at 5:30am, and began our trek to haiti, with a handful of stops along the way. our team is getting along great — such a cool mix of people.
our first ministry stop was on the dominican side of the haiti border, where a complete hospital had been set up in tents on the compound of a ministry organization. the hospital was being run by “u.s.aid”, a u.s. government funded agency. the nurses and docs were wonderful — all there as volunteers. a highlight was sitting with a haitian man who was healing from a broken femur, and listening to him sing bob marley’s “redemption song” (watch a video of this moment here). the man had taught himself english by listening to english-language music, and he had a beautiful voice. all of us, including the nurses, were in tears by the time he finished.
our first stop in haiti, just barely across the border, was at a church that is housing 30 refugee families, and also runs a hospital. with so little medical care in port-au-prince, thousands of haitians have made their way to these care facilities outside the city. yesterday, the place had 6000 people on their grounds fasting and praying! the place was just not that big — so that must have been an amazing thing. we toured the hospital, and prayed with a couple of the patients. one woman told us her story through an interpreter. she’d been trapped in rubble for 24 hours. when the ground started shaking, she grabbed her twin 17 month-old boys, holding them to her chest. but when she was pinned under the rubble, she could tell that one had instantly died, and the other only lived for the length of a few cries. the story got worse than that, but i don’t think i’ll share all the details here. but she talked about calling out to jesus, and how she was rescued. when we asked if we could pray for her, we discovered that the man sitting in a chair nearby her was her husband, and he came up and sat next to her on the hospital bed. as we laid hands on them and prayed, her husband began crying and shaking, speaking out, “why, jesus? why, jesus?” of course, it was a heartbreaking story, and i felt a small bit of the pain this couple must have been going through. i was thinking of my own two children.
after a flat tire on one of the cars, and then the donut spare going flat also, we had to rearrange things; but we made it (a little late) to a meeting with about 40 pastors. we were meeting with them to explore the possibility of setting up church partnerships between their churches and u.s. churches. there was lots of story sharing (including some painful ones of pastors who’d lost family members). we handed out lots of packages of supplies (everything from toiletries to medical stuff to diapers), as all of these pastors are housing or taking care of families who are now homeless and without resources. we filmed short videos of each of them, for the potential church partners, and took photos of them, and prayed with them. the whole time we were meeting in the church, there was a youth group meeting in a little shed-like space on the other side of their yard. it was awesome to hear the youth group singing “you’re all i need” to jesus, especially when they all clearly have so many needs.
we’re staying at a mennonite guest house in port-au-prince, where we just made our team dinner and had a good time of sharing. i only got about 2 hours of sleep last night, so am looking forward to a bit more tonite.
to see posts from the rest of the team, check out our facebook group (where posts will be linked in the next 24 hours or so).
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