March 28, 2012

The team from Central Manor hit the ground running.  After church at Borel on Sunday, we headed to Saut d’Eau to enjoy the fantastic waterfall.  This team is a bundle of energy with all but two still being in high school.  Monday they went through several gallons of paint sprucing up the dorm, visited the homes for Haiti and had prayer with Angelina, a young lady with extreme handicaps, whose family will receive one of the homes presently being built.  Tuesday was a special day for the group because they traveled to Club Indigo to meet their Compassion child whom their youth group has supported for six years.  It was difficult to know to know who was most excited and blessed.  They enjoyed playing games and swimming together and topped off the day with a buffet. 

We hated to leave this team, but we could hear our new granddaughter, Capri, calling us home to Missouri.  So we headed home for the summer with a brief trip back to Borel in June with a work team led by our son Brandon.  We will be back in Haiti in September.  We hope to get a chance to visit your church while we are in the United States and we look forward to seeing familiar and new faces on teams in 2012-2013.  Contact us at bkmcintyre@hotmail.com or 573.756.7882 or 573.631.8126.

March 21, 2012

The team arrived from the Caring Community Church in Pennsylvania.  The members ranged in age from 18 to about 80 with a grandpa bringing his grandson, husbands and wives being missional together, and energetic singles.  They were busy during the week.  They painted two of the Homes for Haiti, repaired vehicles and generators, made and installed screens and trimmed the ceiling in the apartment by our house.  They worked with Andy for two or three days trying to unclog the drains for the showers and toilets in the second floor of the discipleship center.  That was probably the nastiest job on the compound, certainly not something you would spend your vacation doing, but they did it with no complaint even though their arms and clothes were black with muck.  The award for “The Worst Job with the Best Attitude” goes out to Andy and the team.

After they washed up, they did have time to bless the prisoners at the Arcahaie prison with their testimonies and singing, visit the tilapia tanks at the YWAM compound, distribute water to field workers, and share supplies with area schools.  The Caring Community church is a young (20 years old) vibrant church that has sent out a large number of members into full-time Christian service.  We were thankful for the willingness that we saw in this group to serve sacrificially.

Romans 12: 1-2          And so, dear Christian friends, I plead with you to give your bodies to God.  Let them be a living sacrifice – the kind he will accept.  When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of the world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

March 14, 2012

The medical team from Maryland came from Pierre Payen to Borel on Sunday.  We visited Ti Riviere, then took a long drive north through the countryside.  The next day we were in Pierre Payen.  I asked how they had slept and one doctor’s wife said not well, “I kept thinking about all that we saw.  The needs went on and on.  You think maybe you are just seeing the worst part and when you go over the hill, it will be better, but it is not.”   The stories of struggles and blessings go on and on.  This week David, the water filter expert for the water project, arrived.  He is a Canadian who has lived all over the world working on clean water projects.  We‘ve enjoyed his stories and information on Haiti and other countries like Peru, Chile, Honduras, Egypt, Tunisia, and Jordan.  One of his projects involved reviving reservoirs from Biblical times in Jordan.  On Thursday we took Seth and Jess to the airport to return to the United States.  They have worked the past year at HATS, Karen’s orphanage in DeChapelle.  We will miss them terribly and pray that they continue to follow wherever God leads.  Everyday includes something different: hiking to the mountain churches of Borne and Gresseau; trips to the hospital; assisting a woman who just lost her son; unloading a 5000 pound generator; hauling supplies; feeding hungry kids; driving to the heart of Port-au-Prince in the middle of the rubble and squalor that remains two years after the earthquake. Many of us struggle with that overwhelming feeling that you can’t really make a difference.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that we have a responsibility to share the blessings God has given us, but the purpose for our being here in Haiti, or in the United States, or wherever we are, is to share the love of our Lord Jesus Christ with those around us.  Our prayer is that we never get distracted from the message.

Romans 1:16-17 (The Message) – It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews then right on to everyone else!  God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what scripture has said all along: “The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives.”

March 7, 2012

Special guests, neighbors and friends of the Snyders arrived from Pennsylvania.  It was the first trip for five of them and it was a couple of days before they adjusted to temperatures and different eating habits.  The Snyder kids were excited by having the neighbor kids here and they spent a lot of time catching up with each other’s activities.  Christina Miles will be going to Africa this August to live with a family that was a part of the Gothenburg Church in Sweden and are now serving God there.

We also had the pleasure of working with eight guys who had come to Pierre Payen on a work team from Cedarville University in Ohio.  They were a bundle of energy and blessed us and the Haitians.  They completed the screens, painted and built a roof over the stairs to the basement apartments of the guest house.

One of the most exciting events on the compound was the completion of the solar panels.  Eighteen have been installed and are now all hooked up.  The team work that it took to lift these heavy solar panels manually to a height of 20 feet and then put in the proper place was quite impressive.  They are providing power to the guest house, discipleship center, dorm and our house!  With the cost of fuel and generators in Haiti and the abundance of sunshine, it looks like these will pay for themselves within a year. 

Psalm 117 – Praise the Lord, all you nations.  Exalt him all you peoples.  For great is his love for us and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.  Praise the Lord.

February 29, 2012

Bob Eatherton, the Director of the Midwest Region led a group of pastors and church leaders from that region that had never been to Haiti.  Their ministry focus was to travel to several area churches and schools to see the needs and lift them up in prayer.  They hoped also to identify churches/schools in need of sister churches and to bring that information back to churches in the Midwest.  On Sunday we worshiped with our brothers and sisters at the Freycenau church and went by the Elim church in St. Marc.  The next two days the group painted one of the Homes for Haiti in the morning and traveled to churches in the afternoon.  The Ti Riviere church needed assistance with the school which is in the church building, the church at Savanne Tapion needs  a sister church, the church at Verette  presently is just poles without a roof or walls.  Our biggest challenge was going to two mountain churches.  We were able to drive to Godin, which desperately needs church benches since theirs were stolen as well as extensive work on the building.  The church at Gesse was an hour and a half drive and a 30minute walk.  Their sister church has provided a lot of assistance and the church building, which is also the school,  is in good shape.  The need there was for the funds to provide school lunches of beans and rice.  Please contact the General Conference office or Steve Mossburg if you are interested in helping with any of these needs as a sister church or work team.  We are striving to push more teams out into the surrounding communities.  The final day at Borel the team led the dedication of the completed Homes for Haiti.  Our prayer is that as this team returns home, the experiences they had here will spur the churches around them to pray for churches here and to support the work here as God blesses them.  We know that the missional attitude we saw in this group will impact America.  May God be glorified in it all.

Romans 10:13-15   Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.  How then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can they preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

February 22, 2012

A team from the Chambersburg Church of God and their former pastor Earl Mills, who is the new Director of the Great Lakes Region, arrived.  We attended the Chandelle Church on Sunday and Pastor Earl spoke.  This team with 24 members was the largest team to come to Borel and they set several records.  They brought 108 jars of peanut butter, they drank 150 sodas, they gave out over 400 balloons and thousands of pieces of candy and toys during the children’s program they hosted at Chandelle, they distributed a hundred Christian Creole tracks as they walked through Te Riviere, and they donated 6 units of blood at Hospital Albert Switzer.  Most of all this team abundantly shared Christ’s love with us and the Haitian people in many joyous ways. The week was filled with work projects on the compound, trips into the surrounding community, and putting a new roof on a portion of the school at Chambersburg’s sister church in Chandelle. 

The sister church program offers great opportunities for churches in the U.S. to build long term relationships with a church in Haiti.  If your church has a sister church we’d love for you to spend time working there on your next team visit to Haiti.  The visits and financial support given by the U.S. church is reciprocated with spiritual up lifting and lasting friendships.  There are many churches and schools in Haiti who need a sister church.  Some are very large others are quite small.  Many have a school that is part of the program.  Some are in cities; others are in very remote areas.  Your church could find a sister church that fits your interests and abilities.  For more information about the sister church program contact the General Conference office at 419-424-1961.

We look forward to seeing the members of this team leading teams back in years to come.  May we lift one another up in prayer as Paul taught us in II Thessalonians 1:11-12 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of His calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.  We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.