Today was a great day in Haiti! We got to enjoy some down time with each other at a Haiti resort, Wahoo Bay. We were able to reflect on our week and share some our favorite experiences with each other, while continuing to bond with one another. In everything we have done this week we have felt Gods presence and even today while we were chilling out on the beech, snorkeling taking naps, etc.....we were still able to see and feel God in his beautiful creation of Haiti. The caribbean  blue water against the rugged mountains, the white sand, palm trees and a few jelly fish reminded us of how awesome and creative our God is and how much he must love us to give us a beautiful world.  After the drive back to MOH, we met with the hope reps and recapped the week with all the groups who have been at MOH this week. It was great to hear about all the moments where God intervened in the lives of the team members this week. The challenge each of us were given was go home and make Charlotte our mission field and act on what broke our hearts here in Haiti. Tomorrow, we leave Haiti. We have a full morning of roof construction before leaving Mission of Hope around 1:45pm. We miss you all very much and are looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow night. We're looking forward to the baptisms on Sunday and fellowshipping with our FHC brothers and sisters.  Please pray for a safe and productive morning and a safe trip back to Charlotte. We will see you all tomorrow!

"Therefore, my beloved brothers, the steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,  knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."  1 Corinthians 15:58 The above bible verse holds true to the last 4 days of rigorous construction work our team has faced and that our days of labor will not be in vain, but will serve as housing for our beloved brothers who are serving at MOH as interns. The interns are called "hope reps". They support and guide the mission teams in their efforts to serve the Haitian communities.   I want to introduce you all to Pierre, one of the orphans at MOH. He is 3 and his current condition is undiagnosed because the technology is not available. Pierre is a bonafide miracle. Last Fall, one of the guards found Pierre abandoned outside the MOH gates. He was a shell of a child. Unable to move or communicate, Pierre was very uncomfortable and unhappy. Fast forward to today: Pierre giggled his contagious giggle as Mike did physical therapy. He recognized  each of us and remembered some of our names. It's beautiful to see him loved by the other orphans.  On so many different levels we've experienced God this week; such as spending time with babies like Pierre and making him laugh, picking flowers and playing basketball with the older kids, working construction along side our Haitian friends, doing our team morning devotions. In everything we do here we feel God and our filled with the Holy Spirit.  We love our God and love serving Him! We ended the night with Tyler playing a djembe drum in the middle of a intense rain storm! It was epic! (Tyler wrote this)

It's Wednesday and we're half way through our stay in Haiti. Last night we had a worship service at the Mission of Hope Church. Haitians really know what it means to praise our"Senye" (Which means "Lord"  in Creole).  We worshipped in Creole and English. It was awesome to hear the same songs we sing at Forest Hill sung by the members of MOH church. What blew us away was the Haitians sang louder when they sang in English versus when they sang in Creole. Hearing these familiar songs  in this context, with these people, took these songs to a different level. Imagine "Our God is Greater" with fist pumps,waving arms, and jumping. They sing this song the way it should be sung.  God has blessed us with great health this week. Everyone is hydrated, rested, and free of sunburn and injury. We've had a great breeze and the weather has been relatively nice this week. Considering our group is a construction team, being on the good side of Haitian weather is a blessing.  We have 1 workday left, please pray that the weather holds as we need every minute to finish the projects. We finished the 61st latrine door today and the wall framing for the intern offices. We started the framing for the roof and we still have a way to go. Please continue to pray for the teams' safety and patience. It a lot of tedious work!  Several of our team members got to venture off the construction site and do some pretty cool things. Emily went with the mobile clinic to Simonette and worked with over 100 patients.  Mike and Tyler traveled to a nearby hospital with Naoki and David, who run the prosthetics clinic. Mike worked with a patient who recently under went a transtibial amputation. Tyler took pictures. It's a great experience to work side by side with the Haitians. With a 90% unemployment rate in Haiti, I love watching the Haitians coming and going from work. Jobs are hard to come by and they are good stewards with their jobs. You hear a lot about "Haitians helping Haitians" at MOH. It's inspiring to see it. Last night we sang, "Savior, He can move the mountains. Our God is mighty to save." God is using MOH and the Haitians to move some pretty big mountains in this country. 

4-29-12 God you are Awesome! It's hard to put into words how amazing today was! I had no expectations coming into this mission trip , the only thing that I truly wanted was to be filled with the holy spirit and be led by him each day.  Today the spirit had us by the reins! We started the day off worshiping in the MOH church with hundreds of Christian Haitian  brothers and sisters. It was an awesome experience watching them praise and worship our one and only God in such a humbling and exciting way. They were loud, happy, joyful and just so grateful for our Jesus Christ and the hope and future he gives us. It was kind of a humbling experience because we have so much and they have so little, and they were praising and thanking Jesus for his great love and blessings like they were the ones that had everything. As I'm thinking about this I realized that they did have everything. God is everything, and everything else is nothing! So after church we take off to visit the village of Bercy which is a beautiful piece of property by the sea.  The future plan for Bercy is to build schools and housing, but also to make it a nice resort so people will continue to come to Haiti to serve, but also relax, have a good time, and the money from the resort will help support the new schools and other future needs. At Bercy We spent time watching kids play in the ocean and viewed some new construction sites. God has an awesome plan for this village and it was great to see it in the works. The second village we visited today was LeVeque.  This is a new village that has 350 new homes and through the MOH will eventually have 500.  Visiting LeVeque was the highlight of my day. We were greeted by 100 kids wanting to be held, played with and loved. We all had kids in our arms,  or on our shoulders. We played soccer with them and taught them how to do pull ups while tickling them and making them laugh.  I think we all experienced Jesus loving on these kids through each of us.  We ended today in devotion as a group of new friends praying and worshipping the Great God that we began the day worshipping. Today was a Great day in Haiti! 

Bonjou!The Wifi at Mission of Hope is down, so we will do our posts via Phil's phone. Saturday, we made it safe an sound to the campus. Sunday we went to church and it was amazing! The people of Haiti know how to praise the Lord! Most of us do not Creole, there was no language barrier as we all worshiped together. It was the most beautiful sound. Monday we started our projects around the MOH campus. We have a group putting up walls in the offices for the MOH interns, one group designed and are building screen windows for the offices, and the last group is building doors for the latrines at the villages. We are continuing these projects today. We have been blessed with great weather and an amazing breeze. Everyone is healthy and taking in all His goodness. He has protected us from injury, given us good rest, and really brought this team together is such a unique way.