UPDATED! Items still needed for my trip to Haiti

If you are able to help with any of the outstanding items below, please email me at mdpiche@gmail.com. These are all expenses for which I will pay out of pocket that are not included in the money I raised for my time in the field in Haiti with AIM.

• 86.6" x59.1" footprint - extra piece of material that goes between the bottom of the tent and the ground to protect the floor
• sheet or sleeping bag liner for warm weather
• travel alarm clock
• travel locks
• insect repelent (DEET 30%)
• rain gear - rainy season has started and hurricane season begins in June
• stuff sacks/ziplock bags to pack clothing inside of my pack
• good sandals (recommendations were Chacos, Tevas, or Keens - I only own flipflops)
• 3 pairs of shorts that come to the top of your knees (Running shorts are not appropriate, and apparently mine are all too short!).

What love looks like...

If you remember, I began this blog by asking what does LOVE look like today - do we still see examples of selflessness and acts of genuine love, where the well-being of others is put completely ahead of our own? Well, I came across a blog entry by Aaron Brunner (he's been in Haiti with AIM since just after the earthquake) that is a testimony to this kind of love...

This past week Aaron visited an orphanage completely destroyed (the Fleury Foundation Orphanage). Before the earthquake it ran a medical clinic, bakery, housing for 50+ kids, a church, and a school - they lost everything. During his visit to the site, he came across a crushed building that used to house the kids but now all that remained were a hat and dress draped over the rubble. When asked why those were there, he was told the following:

The day the earthquake hit, the children were out in front of the building sitting down or playing around. One of the house mothers was on the 2nd floor with two of the children as the building came crashing down. She jumped to protect them, hovering over them, agonizing in pain as the walls crumpled on top of her. The children crawled out of the rubble barely scraped while the mother laid there, body beaten and weakened by the blow. She knew that the children had made it safely out as she took her final breaths beneath the rocks. She laid her life down for these sweet sweet babies. This hat and dress were hers. They are a reminder to them of her sacrifice. The way she gave her life as Jesus did, so that others might live.

This story is a true testimony of love. Although I am just reading about it second hand, I am blown away and moved by it... I want to say thanks again to all those who have donated towards my trip so far. I am so grateful you have allowed your hearts to be moved for these people and have generously supported me.

And, a special thanks tonight Teresa & Jessica W, your donations just came through today and have helped put me past 25%.

Unexpected phone call...

Going to Haiti just got a step more real for me today. Not just because I have spent the past two days taking the Critical Incident Stress Management workshop, a two day training program that prepares you to provide basic crisis intervention services ("psychological first-aid") to individuals in acute crisis using a structured system, but because of a call I got on my cell.

Well, maybe not because of a call I got (my cell was turned off after all - I, mean was in class) but because of who it was that called and left a message - Pastor Erimus Bernadin, of Église Taberable du St. Ministère.

That's right, not even two days ago I was matched up with a church, given information (posted below), and asked to pray for this group of people, when today I go to check my voicemail and hear a message I can barely understand the first time except for one word (or name, rather) - Erimus.

I knew AIM would tell the church that they had been "matched" with me for prayer, but I did not realize that they would be able to contact me. So, I was definitely caught off guard. The message was very brief. But, hearing a human voice, who I have a face and very specific needs to match with, has taken my trip to Haiti and my relief involvement to a whole other, much more personal, level...

If you're reading this, I would love you to partner in prayer with me for these people with very, very real needs. I would love to be able to tell them that you and I are praying for them, specifically, and that Église Taberable du St. Ministère is not forgotten.

Église Taberable du St. Ministère

Exciting news today! I've been matched with an individual Haitian church through AIM's
Church-to-Church Partnership Program that I will most likely get to visit while I am in Port-au-Prince. So, for the next few weeks/months I'm going to be praying specifically for its pastor and members. I'm so excited for this opportunity to connect with people over there this far ahead of my trip.

Below is what I already know about Pastor Erimus Bernadin and his church, Église Taberable du St. Ministère:

Number of people in their community: 1000 people

How many families affected: 23 families

Community needs: to be reconstructed

Vision for community:

1. We need the church to preach the gospel of Christ
2. We need a school to prepare children for the future
3. We need a clinic to give medical care to people

Prayer needs: That God may have mercy for the nation and lead the people in the path of justice; then we’ll have testimonies for the glory of God.

Committee names: Erilme Lamour – construction supervisor; Chilene Jean – Teacher; Gladys P Dorval – Nurse; Abelard Belizaire – lawyer (student); Dieudonne Paul - reporter.

I Have a Dream... For Haiti

"But to die a dreamer surely must be better than to die a cynic. To have lived life in hopes of creating a better world has got to be better than to die pretending that nothing was wrong in the first place, right?":: Amen to that.

Read more at I Have a Dream... For Haiti :: Blog entry by Californian pastor Dustin Metcalf, written in response to his time in Haiti in 2009.

Having Haiti on the heart

Haiti has been on my heart since August 2009. I began getting to know a bit more about Haiti before the earthquake hit and the country's plight became a major news story when a pastor from my church shared some of his experience from a recent trip there.

When meeting with Haitian pastors at the end of their time there, the American pastors asked what message the Haitians would like them to bring back to their churches in California.

Their answer?

To tell them "thank you" for remembering them. They were so thankful to have been recognized and remembered by the outside world (keep in mind, this is back in August '09). Many of the inhabitants live on smaller islands and have never met anyone from the outside world. These people hunger to know God and be known by Him but they believe they have been forgotten ... Haiti has the lowest per capita income of any country in the western hemisphere. Plagued by disease, malnutrition, illiteracy, political upheaval, and deforestation, more than three quarters of the population live in extreme poverty. For many who have heard of Jesus and would like to know him, their health is so poor from malnutrition that they cannot physically make it to church because they cannot get there in their weakened state by foot (most are too poor to have animals such as donkeys to help with travel).

In Haiti, life for children is particularly difficult (and has been for a long time before the earthquake)... They are 'supposed' to begin school at age six, but many can’t afford the mandatory school fees, and some villages don’t even have school facilities. It’s not uncommon for a child to enter the first grade at age 15, if they enter school at all. Because entire generations of parents are being wiped out by AIDS, children are left raising children when elderly grandparents are not able to step in. Right now one of the major issues that has resulted from this is what the UN is calling 'child slavery' - children are being deprived of most basic human rights to things like education, health, and food as well as being subjected to multiple forms of abuse including economic exploitation, sexual violence and corporal punishment.... (For more see the UN article: UN human rights expert condemns child ‘slavery’ in Haiti)

While God's made me more aware of what's going on in this particular country, He's also been putting it on my heart to Do Something. The first step last summer was sponsoring a child... the little guy I've been blessed to be able to help (and fell in love with at first sight) is Djefly (that's his picture! cute,eh?). He's 5 years old and speaks creole. Djefly lives with his Grandmother, he has no parents, brothers or sisters. His grandmother struggles to provide for them. They live in a community severely affected by the HIV and AIDS crisis. In some communities in Haiti, AIDS affects the entire social structure and a generation of hardworking adults is being wiped out. Frightened children and exhausted grandparents rarely have money for food, school, or medical care. Djefly isn't in school right now, but hopefully he will be soon.

Since starting sponsorship back in the summer, God also planted a seed in my heart to go to Haiti for some kind of missions trip. Originally, I had been looking at an opportunity to go over Christmas '09 in hopes that I might be able to talk my family into joining me. Things didn't work out that way. I continued to look into various outreach and missions opportunities but timing or logistical issues seemed to keep coming up, preventing them from being something I could pursue tangibly. Until after the earthquake hit, when I received the information on the trip with AIM.

Then things started lining up. Although some people might look at this as me being an adventure seeker,everything about going to Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake puts me well outside of my comfort zone. This is most definitely not a vacation. But, when God puts something in our hearts, loving Him means obeying Him. And God kept has kept going to Haiti on my heart. Towards the end of February, about a month since I first heard about the AIM trip, it got to the point where I knew the waiting was over, this is the opportunity, He wants me to Go.

I am really excited to see how God will provide for me to get there and serve Him and the people of Haiti.

What does love look like?

I have a confession to make. I have LOVE on the brain.

And not your bells and whistles lowercase 'l' love. I'm talking about LOVE, with a capital 'L'. Of the Agape variety - the selfless kind, passionately committed to the well-being of others as described in Corinthians: "patient, kind, doesn't envy or boast, isn't proud or rude or self-seeking, isn't easily angered, keeps no record of wrong...doesn't delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres". The kind that never fails.

And I've been asking myself, what does that look like today? Does that kind of love exist in the world today?

When I think about my life and what kind of a legacy I want to leave behind... for me, as a Christian, it boils down to Ephesians 5:2 "live a life of love".

If nothing else, I want to be remembered as someone who loved. In the biblical sense. In the selfless sense. Because, at the end of the day, I believe that while we have each been created with a divine appointment, we all share a common purpose - to love.

I came across a quotation by St. Augustine that attempts to answer the question What does love look like? His response: "It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."

My prayer today, tonight, and tomorrow? That my life will be a testimony to that image of love.