Flapjack Fundraiser Success!!

Thank you to everyone who supported our team this past Saturday by showing up for our Flapjack Fundraiser at Applebee's!


Our team raised about $600 in just over 2 hours of breakfast service - awesome!!


We had a great time serving up hot flapjacks, sausage, juice and coffee to all who came and we also grew closer as a team by learning to manage the pressure of being servers, bus-boys and hosts to all our breakfast guests :)


We leave for Haiti in just over one month and we are preparing by meeting as a team for global mission training with By Grace Alone Ministries. Jean-Pierre Sangai will be leading our team in a training about cross-cultural ministry, differences of Haitian and American cultures and sharing the gospel as a foreigner.


Also, Mission of Hope is doing some exciting things happening right now and our team can't wait to help! Here's a progress report for the month of September:

» The roof was completed on the Bercy site school office. Praise God for progress!



» 88 people were vaccinated through the MOH Community Health Initiative.



‎» 24 women and children were vaccinated in a small outlying village through the MOH vaccination program.



» 158 patients were treated at a MOH medical mobile clinic in Zoranger.



» 900 kids attended Vacation Bible School on the last day of the program! Praise God for bringing these children to MOH to learn about Him!



» Little Pierre (Hope Village orphan with cerebral palsy) will be receiving a pediatric wheelchair soon. Thank you Children Rising, Inc for this wonderful blessing!

As always, if you'd like to support our team traveling to Mission of Hope Haiti, November 5-12, please click on the yellow DONATE link at the top right of this blog page. Every dollar counts as we work to meet our fundraising goal.

Blessings and thank you!

250 Miles for Haiti

One of our Haiti team members, Phil Calland, is embarking on quite the fundraising adventure! Phil is planning on biking the extent of the NC portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway this Labor Day Weekend.

Click here to view the event on Facebook.

Not only is this a great way to bring attention to our November mission trip to Haiti, but it's also a great way to raise money for our team.

Phil is asking folks to not only pray for the success of his bike ride, but to also consider financially sponsoring his ride. You can either choose to sponsor a section of mileage (say $10 per mile) or sponsor the entire 250 mile ride.

If you are interested in sponsoring, please click the "Donate" button at the top right of this blog. In the memo line you can specify "Blue Ridge Cycle Ride."

Thanks so much for your prayers and support for Phil and our team!

- Caylene

Haiti Bound - 3 months and counting!!

Here we go again! Another team from Forest Hill Ballantyne is getting ready to travel to Haiti to serve alongside Mission of Hope Haiti in relief efforts for the country's poor and orphaned. The team will leave on November 5 and return eight days later on November 12.

If you are reading this blog, we are confident you will commit to praying for our team as we prepare our hearts, minds and bodies for this journey. Team members include:

• Dan Austin
• Will Berkeley
• Caylene Brown
• Phil Calland
• Todd Carpenter
• Gentry Eddings
• Joe Hudson
• Karl Kakadelis
• Reid Matheny
• Jenni Wirt

The purpose of our trip will be serving Mission of Hope and simply being available to whatever projects they need help with during the week we are there. These could include painting, construction, ministry with children, orphan care and food distribution. 

Another great way you can come alongside our team and help is to give! You'll notice a PayPal link at the top right of this blog. Just one click and you can give to our team and help us raise the $1,600 we each need to travel to Mission of Hope. 

Finally, spread the word about our trip and Mission of Hope by "liking" our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/ballantyne2haiti

Check back here for more updates, fundraiser information and thoughts from team members as we get ready to take Ballantyne to Haiti!

- Caylene Brown

March 2011 Team Members singing praise songs with Haitian children

Post from Jenny Schmitt's Blog:

As our team begins the daunting task of processing what we saw, heard and experienced in Haiti last week, I thought this blog post from one of our team members sums up what all of us are contemplating. Enjoy.

Jenny Schmitt, Unspeakable Joy

Entering Another World...kind of.

After I returned from Haiti the first time (September 2010), I read the book "Mountains beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder. It's about the quest of Dr. Paul Farmer - a fierce advocate for the poor and a doctor specializing in diseases that ravage third world countries.

Dr. Farmer is from Boston, but he lives in Haiti and has married a H

aitian woman. The title of the book comes from a Haitian saying used when someone is facing a challenge...a challenge so big it seems like you are climbing "mountains beyond mountains."

Kidder essentially travels with Dr. Farmer for an entire year as he advocates to medical schools, community doctors and governments for approval of stronger anti-tuberculosis medication for people in Haiti, Cuba, Russia and Peru.

One of my favorite quotes from the book comes from a conversation between Kidder and Dr. Farmer during a layover in Paris on their way from Haiti

to Russia.

As Kidder looks around the cafe in the airport they are eating lunch in, he contemplates out loud the beauty of the marble floors, mahogany tables and porcelain cups.

Kidder: "Just looking around, it hits me what a different world Paris is from Haiti!"

Farmer: "Well, that presumption would be wrong. Because, Haiti is only 5,000 miles from here and it's not a different world. The mistake is that too many people justifying it as a "different world" when it clearly is not."

Ouch....that realization hit me as much as it hit Kidder when he was having the conversation with Dr. Farmer in Paris.

Even though the sounds, smells, problems and overall mess that Haiti

is seems like a world away, it's not. Especially not from Charlotte - only 1,200 miles.

So, as we head to Haiti on Saturday, I'm trying to remember it is NOT a different world. We live in the same world yet we have such different lives. However, we

have the same God and Savior who loves the people of Charlotte as much as He loves the people of Haiti. He doesn't see our differences, he just LOVES US!

I'll be contemplating this throughout the week as I experience Haiti and open myself up to the possibility of being God's vessel for change and hope.

- Caylene

"God Save Haiti" - from voicesofhaiti.com

t minus 5

In 5 days I'll be heading to Haiti.

You know when you plan for a trip, and you think you have all of the time in the world to do what you need to do? I thought that was where I was, until today, when I realized....5 days!

I know everything will get done. That the pieces will fall into place. That someone else can fill my shoes back here at home while I'm gone.

But I am a little daunted at the doorway I am about to step through.

I feel as if there's a door labeled "LIFE CHANGE" that I am about to walk through....again. Last Fall, when I got on a plane headed for Burundi, I didn't have a clue I was walking through that door, not really. I was being obedient, thinking all I had to do was do my thing in Africa, leave, come home, and resume life.

Well, we all know how that worked out.

It's always eye opening to walk into another piece of the world and into another culture. You suddenly feel very self-conscious for being American. Sometimes, us Americans, myself included, get a little carried away with our enthusiasm for our own country. Sometimes we forget there are billions of other people on this planet. We forget how very rich we truly are.

I dare say when I set foot in Haiti, I'll have a lump in my throat for the next 7 days. All those news reports I have seen, all the stories I have read will become live and in person right before my eyes.

I'll see the devastation.

I'll see the suffering,

I'll see the pain.

I'll see the ones holding their hands out asking for help.

I'll see the look of desperation in their eyes.

I'll see them asking "Why isn't somebody doing more?"

Just as my trip to Burundi turned me upside down and inside out, Haiti is surely to do the same, and then some. Some people can go on a trip like I did to Burundi and come home and readjust like it never happened. But others can come home, like me, and never be the same again.

That's why I am going to Haiti, because I don't want to be the same person I was 6 months ago. I want to be the person who can come home and stir the masses to get of their duffs and help. We're not all called to go set foot in Haiti, Burundi or other places on this planet, but we are called tohelp.

My 7 days in Haiti will only do so much, but when I get home, if I can stir an army of folks to make a difference...that is where hope for Haiti begins.

Jenny Schmitt

As we prepare to travel to Haiti in less than 12 days (!!!!), I've been thinking a lot about my experience at

Mission of Hope in September 2010.

I found this great satellite view of the Mission of Hope campus

outside of Titanyen, Haiti:

View Larger Map

Please join me in praying over this satellite image and for the 60 plus orphans who call MOH home, the 600 plus people who attend church at MOH every week, the staff, the students and the mission teams (like ours) who sacrifice time, money and safety to have a relationship with the Haitians who have benefited from such an amazing organization.

- Caylene