We spent a lot of time in prayer and intercession for the youth camp and the church and it was out of this that God started to deal with me.  I thought I had dealt with all my rejection issues from my family, but during this time God brought up an incident that I had always thought to be insignificant.

During my childhood there was an incident in which I had tried to protect my brothers from my fathers wrath.  It involved them spilling some insecticide which was very expensive.  When I saw what had happened I tried to clean it up before our father found out. They left the building while I was cleaning up and when my father walked in and saw what I was doing he assumed I had caused the problem.  Needless to say, I was punished.  My brothers did not confess that they had done it and I didn’t say anything.

What I did not realise was just how deeply that injustice had wounded me.  And, as a consequence, the fact that I had not forgiven my father or brothers over it.  The wound was so deep that I it took almost 1 hours before I could stop crying long enough to talk about it.  Even then I could not talk about it with the whole team.  I just talked to Sylvia and Sarah about it and they helped me walk through the process of repentance and forgiveness.  As I said this was not something I expected to be dealing with on this trip but I am grateful to God for taking me through this.  I always thought that my strong feelings about injustice was just how God had made me, but in fact it mainly stemmed from this one incident.

Now about the team time in Limbê.  This was a good time of praying for God’s heart for the nation of Haiti and the Jacob’s Well Youth Camp.  As we spent time praying for the camp we didn’t realise how much the staff were observing us.  When the Pastor who runs the camp returned half way through our time there the staff reported to him that we spent a lot of time in prayer.  This impressed the pastor tremendously.  He came to us during one of our prayer times and talked about the fact that most teams they host spend a lot there time working and very little time praying.  He was very pleased that we spent so much time praying.  He said the greatest need they had was for prayer.

The Pastor then shared with us some of the vision and history of the centre and his personal history.During this we found out that he had been asked in the 80′s to start YWAM Haiti but because his mentor at the time was conservative and thought YWAM to charismatic he turned YWAM down.  He also shared about the need to disciple the young people of the area and we started talking about some of the curriculum of the DTS.  This Pastor is very interested in hosting a miniDTS at some point soon and maybe eventually a full DTS.

We also ran some seminars during this week for the church.  One night was a combined teaching from Paul and Sarah.  I understand this went well although I was not able to be there as Sylvia had fallen and was hurt (she’s fine, just a small bruise).  The second night we separated the men and women.  Sarah took the women’s teaching and I took the men’s teaching with the help of Paul, Yoel and Philipson (our Haitian translator).  This was a very good time talking about being men of purity and integrity, which ended with a hand washing ceremony, confessing our past sins and committing to praying for one another.

So, our time in Limbê was very different but also very fruitful.  We moved from Limbê to the Dominican Republic and the city of Santa Domingo.  I will cover this time in the next post.

The next day (Wednesday) was for travel recovery and preparation for the first week of ministry.

First ministry day (Thursday) started with an elementary school assembly (8am) at a Christian School. The talents of some of the team really shone here, working with the children, and a number of the children responded to God. From the Elementary School we went to the top of a mountain overlooking Port-au-Prince and prayed for both the City and the Nation. The Lord showed us that He has a plan for Haiti, to prosper her and bless her and make her fruitful. He also showed us that the Haitians were to go from here to the nations of the world as missionaries.

On Friday the team went to a place that is the site of a mass grave and memorial for those killed in the earthquake of January 2010. It is estimated that some 200,000 to 300,000 people are buried at this site. It is a national memorial to these people. A time of worship and prayer was held at the memorial and we partook in communion in remembrance of what Jesus did on the cross for Haiti. In the afternoon the team went to a Good Friday service at a Haitian church close to the house. After the service the Pastor and his wife meet with the team to plan a ministry time in the north of Haiti starting the next Friday.

The Sunday saw the team in two different church services in the morning (1 the same Haitian church as the Good Friday service and 1 a Korean church).

The first day of medical clinic (Monday) was an hour and a half drive from Port-au-Prince. This is a village that a Korean YWAM team/NGO (Serving Friends) is building for displaced people. The medical team saw around 25 patients this first morning and the rest of the team prayed for each patient who wanted prayer.

One of those patients was a little baby who had bad diarrhea and Paul (our doctor) advised the mother to take her baby to the hospital. We prayed for the baby to be healed before she left the clinic and noticed that there was a voodoo necklace around the baby. (We saw the mother again 2 days later with the baby. She had not gone to the hospital but God had intervened and the baby was healed. Because of that we were able to convince the mother to remove the necklace and we destroyed it.)

The next day (Tuesday) only the medical team went back to the village. The rest of the team stayed back in Port-au-Prince as God was doing some things in the team felt to press in for the break through. This happened later in the morning and brought a freedom that released God’s power. God has called this team to spiritual warfare for the spiritual healing of Haiti as well as the physical healing.

Wednesday saw the team back out at the village for the final day of the medical clinic, this was specifically for the children of the School Serving Friends has setup in the village. During the medical clinic the prayer team did a prayer walk around the property the village is to be established on and did warfare at the gates of the village area.

The team went back to the Christian School on Thursday to share with the high school assembly. After the performance of the “Everything” drama a strong challenge was given to the students. Almost all of the senior class responded to the challenge. Some of the students wanted to know God’s next step for their lives, while others were committing to His call on them to missions or ministry.

After the Christian school the team went back to the village for one last clinic with the school children. They also prayed for the children and teachers of the school.

Friday saw the team pack up and move to Limbê to a place called Jacob’s Well Youth Camp. ( see map)
Jacob’s Well Youth Camp

DAY 2:  Safe arrival in New York, picked up by Yoel’s father, taken to and checked in at YMCA  in Flushing; treated to dinner by friends of Joel & his family.  (Taylor went to meet her parents and spend time with them).

DAY 3:  Slow start to day with jet lag, etc.  Beautiful day!  Went into city and relaxed at Central Park in the sun — God is good!

DAY 4:  Shopping for supplies to take to Haiti; some went to the Metropolitan Museum — what a blessing!

DAY 5:  Sunday — went to Onnuri Church — sang Creole worship song in Korean service; Sang song & Yoel gave testimony in English service.  They gave a delicious Korean lunch  Went very well!  Treated to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant by another friend of Joel’s family — God loves us!

DAY 6:  We went out to places around the city — Times Square, Ground Zero, Wall St & Statue of Liberty — praying for the Lord to change the atmosphere of the city and make it a blessing.  Pray for direction, unity, protection & an amazing time!   Later in day we did a final pack.

DAY 7:  Departed YMCA @ 5.35am; flew out of JFK @ 9.05am, arrived in Haiti at 12.45pm.  Have settled into our house.  Everyone is very quiet as we are still suffering from JetLag and a busy schedule in New York.

Another great blog to visit regarding CERT is Tim Bonno’s blog.

Reblogged from Bernie Kay's Journey:

I’m currently in Oahu, Hawaii getting training on how to teach people how to become Community Emergency Response Team members.  I was asked to do this after Sylvia and I went through the CERT training.  Part of the reason for doing this training is that we want the YWAM campus to be equipped for an emergency such as the tsunami. Part of it is that we also want to take this program, which has been developed by the US Government’s Federal Emergency Management Administration department, to other nations and communities to help them to be self-sutaining during an emergency when professional help is not available immediately.

Here are some links to help you understand CERT.                                                                           University of the Nations CERT                                                                                                        Wikipedia definition of C.E.R.T.                                                                                                                     Citizen Corps C.E.R.T.