Oh Jesus!

You are sending me home tomorrow, but Lord, let me never forget all that You have taught me here in this country! Let me never forget the children that bathed in the muddy streets. Let me never forget the smell of the dump, where these people of yours came to eat. Let me never forget the pain this country is enduring Father! Let me never lose my compassion for these people Lord! Never let my spirit grow numb to empathy for my brothers and sisters that struggle to survive everyday. Never let me forget how Your Holy Spirit moved in this place..

Lord, let me never live my life in selfishness, but always be looking towards the needs of other around me. Let me continue to be generous to my brothers and sisters with a joyful heart.. Help me to be more humble, loving, compassionate, joyful, and filled only with pure, holy thoughts! Let my soul, along with my spirit WORSHIP only YOU Father! Remove any idols from my life Jesus! If there is something keeping me from Your heavenly presence, then God, tear it from my life! Lord, I only desire YOU! With every breath I desire to EXTOL Your name to whomever I speak!

God, help me to give grace to those back home, which you have blessed immensely, that ungratefully complain in their ignorance. Help me to give grace to the selfish, to the sloth, to the glutton, to the slanderer, to the proud, to the unloving, and to the Christians who don't live in fear of you God!

God, remain with these Haitian people! Heal them, restore them, touch them, fill them with your joy and PEACE! Give them the strength to endure all the hardships of this rough world. Let their sins be covered in your PERFECT grace JESUS! Teach them to turn away from their dark ways that plague their society and only seek YOU Father!

Father, I pray that my work here would not be in vain, but would plant a seed for MANY to discover your love, and everlasting LIFE! I pray that my words to these people would plant seeds that would grow and bloom into a hunger for more of you FATHER.

With my journey coming to a close and as I step off this island, I will with all sincerity exclaim your POWER, LOVE, GRACE and BEAUTY with a resounding..

AMEN!

The Restavek Crisis

Picture this.

You are we were born in the countryside among a small rural community in the country of Haiti.

As a small child you remember that you had a large family of 8 to 13 siblings.

Your family was extremely poor and though your parents loved you they knew they could not take care of even your most basic needs.

A distant relative who lived in Port Au Prince, approached your parents and promised them that you would be well fed, educated, and clothed in their care.

So your parents agreed to release you to them, for hope of a future and better life for you...

You arrived at your new home as a small child of 3 or 4 years old and quickly realized that everything promised to your parents was a lie.

Your "caretakers" forced you to work from dawn to dusk around the house.

You cooked, you cleaned and you took care of the dirtiest chores even as a child when you could barely understand what was happening.

As other children who grew up in the same house went to school, you stayed home, and were never educated, and sometimes never fed.

Often, the people you lived with would abuse you both sexually and violently.

You worked hard throughout the day in fear of your host family beating you with a whip if you didn't complete your chores well enough.

You lived off of food scraps from the rest of the household, and you were kept under the family table at night to sleep.

Until you turned 15 you were kept as a slave, and at that age you legally must be paid for your labor, so the family that kept you throughout your childhood now must set you free on the street.

You were left in the city, on your own without any possessions.
Any education.
Any job.
Any connections to anybody...

Guess what?

There are an estimated 300,000 children in Haiti RIGHT NOW that are being raised like this. They are called restaveks. Child slaves who have no rights, and are often treated like animals or property. Once they finally escape their dark childhood they are then faced with an adulthood filled with no hope of a successful job or any escape from poverty due to never having been educated.

This is the reality of Haiti right now.. With the unemployment rate at such high levels across the country, families are forced to give up their kids to a richer family. However there are no laws which strictly enforce any kind of humane treatment to these kids. The government is ashamed of these cases, so it is shoved under the rug and never dealt with.

However there are organizations such as the Restavec Freedom Foundation, which are fighting this epidemic! Here is a link to their website: http://www.restavekfreedom.org/

..On Sunday the whole group of missionaries, Larry and Me all took the day off and visited Wahoo beach resort. While me and the missionary Lucian were sitting on the beach, we had the pleasure to meet a woman who was apart of one of these restavek relief organizations. I listened as she told us of her passion for these kids, and how big a crisis this has become for Haiti!

In conclusion, I just want to ask all of you again to step up. Please pray for these beautiful children who suffer far greater then most of us can imagine. For the next 10 days I would like to ask all of you to devote 15 minutes of your day, set aside from all distractions and noise, to completely devote your attention to praying for these kids.. As brothers and sisters in Christ we need to bring the light of Jesus into a dark world, so lets take action and cry out to the One who CAN change and heal Haiti.

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14

Lots of love!


-Elijah-

A changing heart

Hey guys!

So the first half of today Me and Larry spent running errands around the City. First we picked up a load of bricks and brought them to the school for the hardworking group of Haitians to continue work on the school. After that, I am pretty sure God was just teaching Me and Larry a lesson in patience! Today was the second day this week that we have gone from hardware store, to hardware store looking to buy an air compressor.. Each place recommended another place which recommended another. I think air compressors may be as hard to find as white people in Haiti! ;)

After another failed attempt at that, we began work on the building across from our house. It is an International Child Care building, which handles sponsorships of the children in this country. We are going to be putting up horizontal support beams on either side of a wall which was damaged by the earthquake.

I have found myself extremely spiritually disturbed today.. I was not sure why I felt so uneasy in my spirit, so I spent a lot of time in prayer today, and read a lot of the word tonight.. I feel like God is moving in me a lot.

Changing me. A lot.

I have been reflecting on the person I was before this trip... I feel like so much of my focus before recently has been on fighting my "human" or "sinful" side. But now I feel like God is trying to change my focus to be more then that. Instead of simply trying not to do wrong, I feel like I should be striving ahead towards Christ and not accepting anything less then holiness. REAL holiness. I don't want to just be known as a good or kind person anymore. I want to be known as someone who contagiously overflows the love of Christ! I want to be someone, who doesn't need to explain where he stands, because all his actions scream exactly where he stands! I don't want to see and think about only the physical world anymore. I want to see beyond, into what truly matters, loving the souls and spirit of BOTH those who stand by me, AND those who oppose me.

I can feel my beautiful Savior taking me to the next step in our relationship..
I am humbled and amazed that the Creator of the universe would even give me the time of day to speak to my heart!

Here are some verses which have spoken to me lately.. I hope they impact you as well!


"Do not love the world, or ANYTHING in the world, if anyone loves the world, the love of our Father is not in him." 1John 2:15

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need and has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" 1John 3:17

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope that we profess, for He who promised is FAITHFUL. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds." Hebrews 10:23-24

"Avoid godless chatter, cause those who indulge in it become more and more ungodly. Their teachings will spread like gangrene." 2Timothy 2:16-17

"Above all else, love each other DEEPLY, because love covers over a multitude of sins." 1Peter 4:7

"Finally brothers, whatever is TRUE, whatever is NOBLE, whatever is RIGHT, whatever is PURE, whatever is LOVELY, whatever is ADMIRABLE- if anything is EXCELLENT or PRAISEWORTHY- think about such things." Philippians 4:8


Once again thank you all for all your guys continued prayers! I am so excited for all the things God has yet to do while I am here in this country.

Lots of love!


-Elijah-

Beautiful Haiti.

Hello again everyone!

So today Me and Larry met up with Pastor Rick and his wife Cookie. They are missionaries that are permanently living in Haiti. All four of us went to Puits Blaine, the fastest growing Free Methodist church in Haiti this morning for service. Because Pastor Rick was preaching, we all sat next to the choir in front of possibly 900 Haitians... It was a little awkward at first! But eventually it seemed like everyone was staring at us less and it became more comfortable.. Pastor Rick spoke on forgiveness, and was translated by one of their church members.



Here is the church right after the service, from where we stood.



After church all four of us took a little road trip up the mountain by Port Au Prince to an extremely nice hotel/restaurant called The Lodge. It was so incredibly relaxing! The food was excellent and everyone there was very sophisticated and well spoken. Most of the food there was imported from outside the country.. Which is amazing since the Lodge is a very difficult place to get to from the city. Certainly it was a whole different side of Haiti. I almost felt guilty for having such a high quality meal, knowing people are starving just across the countryside from me.. But nonetheless, I gave thanks to God who for whatever reason has blessed me greatly!


Here is the front of the Lodge.


One of the things me and cookie talked about today was the tremendous contrast in Haiti.. There is the depressing destruction, and poverty side to Haiti, which I spoke of in my last post... And then another whole side of Haiti which is extremely rich, prosperous, and beautiful. There is not very many people in Haiti which are considered "middle class".

Here are some shots I took today while we drove up the mountain...



Almost ALL of the mountain sides are farmed somehow.. Even on insanely steep angles.



These pictures definitely don't do any justice to how amazing the view really WAS. But they at least give you all a taste!





I will continue to pray for you all! And I would like to thank all you guys that have stepped up to my last posts challenge.

Much love!


-Elijah-

Red bandanas and selfishness.

Hey everyone!

So I just finished an amazing, two and half hour game of chess with Jamie, and my brain is about fried, but I feel like there is a lot I want to talk about. Please bear with me and hopefully my thoughts will make some sense! I apologize in advance if I say something odd.. hehe! It's getting late!

First of all I would like to thank those of you that leave me such encouraging comments. It has definitely given me the motivation to continue to blog as often as I can! =)

On another note, I found out an extremely interesting fact about Haitian culture that could have gotten me in trouble had I not known about it!... I was speaking to a Haitian today (whose name I will undoubtedly butcher) who could speak English very well. We spoke of my home in Michigan, and the weather, as well as my love for snowboarding. He then pointed out my red bandana which I wear everyday while I work, in order to keep the sweat out of my eyes. He then explained to me that there is a Rap group in Haiti. And those who support that group wear red bandanas, while those who support a different Rap group wear black bandanas... He then laughed, as he continued to tell me that many gangs wear red or black bandanas. And to my complete ignorance, he explained that if you are in certain areas of Port Au Prince where there is an opposing gang to the red bandanas, that you could get beaten up.... Needless to say I think I may retire my faithful red sweatband.

I have spent a lot of time thinking lately about my future, and what I am doing here, and if this is what I want my life to be about. I have thought about how I feel extremely satisfied at the end of the day, knowing I have to some degree made a difference to something that actually mattered! I reflect on how I did not spend my day for myself. I did not waste my time seeking what would benefit me more, or what would make me more comfortable.. Then I think about how often my thoughts before arriving here were generally inward focused. Even when I DID do a favor for someone it was only because it would make them more happy towards ME! I did not see a favor for someone worth doing if it would never be noticed.. Oh how self centered my nature IS!... I can't say that I know for a fact that I will spend my whole life as a missionary in foreign countries. BUT! I do know that wherever I go, and whatever My Incredible Lord has me doing, I want to be a missionary in my heart and in my actions 24-7. I know that the ONLY way I will ever lead a satisfying life, is by living it for others.. The funny thing is that I have known that fact probably my whole life, but until you fully and completely give yourself over to an outward focused life, can you see why your life is so often unrewarding, mundane, and frustrating!.. I hope that concept made as much sense in writing as it did in my head. ;)

Lets change gears now... Literally! Larry took me out today to a road in town which doesn't get much traffic, and attempted to teach me how who drive his stick shift. It's harder then I thought it would be! But hopefully by the time I have to drive anywhere, ill have the hang of it.. As if worrying about the crazy traffic here wasn't enough!

Well, sleep is now fighting for my attention, so before I finish I want to thank you all once again for your continuous prayers! I believe God will take what we are doing here and use it in mighty ways to reach out to his children here in Haiti.

I hope God is as real and present in you guys as he is for me!

Lots of love.


-Elijah-

Rest and passion.

Sometimes it seems like the days that you sit and relax are more tiring then when you work all day! Today we took a much needed sabbath day, and we got back around 5PM here and I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open! So now that it is 11:30PM here as I write, I feel as though I have already had a full nights sleep!... But then again, my tiredness could have been due to the HUGE and LOUD party that was going on right outside my window last night, which dragged on apparently until about 3:30, and was finally crashed by some police who unloaded their guns into the air. Needless to say Saturday nights in Port Au Prince are crazy!

Today we went and worshiped God in a tent, right next to the school we have been working on. My understanding is that it is a Haitian free methodist church. The Haitians are so VERY passionate when they worship! I didn't know what to think when a woman up front began praying at the top of her lungs. It sounded as if she was screaming because she was angry. Because of the language barrier, I didn't understand a lot. But I soon realized she was crying out to God... Possibly in desperation? Many of the women in are group were moved to tears by her passionate prayers. I realize this is a different culture then at home, but either way it still got me thinking..

Why are so many Christians back home so scared to show passion for the Lord? Surely it's not because Americans just aren't emotional.. As I say this, I realize that there are "charismatic" churches, which are full of emotion.. But I am not saying our faith should ONLY consist of emotions... However I believe there is a time for sadness, a time for anger, a time for excited-ness, a time for peace, a time for calm, and a time to let loose your heart before God. But it seems our worship services consist of very little WORSHIP! It is as though we have gotten comfortable with watching others worship. Don't you realize that God gave you emotions for a reason? Don't you realize every emotion can give God worship? Why are we ashamed of emotions?.. One of the greatest ironies I have seen, is an entire congregation sing about being free to run and dance...... Yet doing neither. Does it show holiness to act bored? Be aware, that I am speaking to myself as much as anyone else!

On another note, after church today me, Larry and the group of missionaries all went across Port Au Prince, out of town, and through some incredible wilderness, to an extremely nice beach. I swam for the first time in the Caribbean! It was the warmest salt water I have ever experienced. The water was so CLEAR and beautiful!

Here are a few shots I took today..




Outside of Port Au Prince there are long stretches of just prairies, with the occasional "tent city" or small town.




One of the small towns we passed.




We had mountains on one side of us...




And the sea on the other side of us!




Here is the beach we stayed at. =)



I will be praying for you all!
Thank again for all your guys support.
Much love.

-Elijah-