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September Medical Team

We had our first medical team (and first Leve group in general!) here September 11-18. A group of 5 ladies, 4 of which are nurses, from Nashville came to run a medical clinic in the village. The week before the team came, we had the Pastor at the church help with getting people signed up to be seen at the clinic. I’ll admit, I expected a bit of chaos and unexpected issues to arise on the first day. I think we were all surprised how smooth everything went! 

The team wanted to do more than simply see tons of patients, they wanted to get to know the patients and do an assessment. They started medical records for each person, so we have something to go off of for the next team. While everything went fairly smooth, I think we realized we’d have to make a few adjustments to how things would be done in the states. On the first day, during the kids’ clinic hours, most of those kids came by themselves. It was a bit hard for the team to get information from them. Most of them didn’t know their birthday, so we settled on getting their age for their records. 

Here is a letter from one of the team members to their Pastor: 

Pastor Tom, 

As I count my blessings this morning for clean water to brush my teeth with and to drink, for a warm shower and for a washing machine and a roof that doesn’t leak when it rains, I want to say how thankful I am for your and the church’s support for this mission trip. It was a life changing experience that I will not forget, and continued to draw me closer in my own Christian walk. I also am thankful that although there are many challenges and suffering people in Haiti, that we touched 200 lives through the clinic, started a charting system for a future clinics, donated medicines and supplies for future treatment and gave dresses, shorts, teen dresses and over 40 pair of shoes to villagers and orphans. We visited 3 orphanages and bought food for a family of 13. We also paid for a young mother who was in so much pain that she would not breastfeed her sick infant to have several abscessed teeth pulled and filled from a reputable dentist. These are just some of the ways that your support and donations helped us to serve in Christ’s name. Thank you for all that you do. 

Sincerely, 

Lisa

Your support matters! Even if you are not able to join a mission team to Haiti, support those that are able to come. Talk to your church about how your church can get involved in Leve Project and changing lives in Haiti!

A huge thank you to Bronwen, Kay, Colleen, Lisa and Leigh for your sacrifices in coming to serve in Haiti. Thank you to Hillsboro United Methodist Church for your support in getting them here and enabling the work they did here. 

Timoun Leve 8/11/11

Last week was our kick off for the weekly Bible Study for the children, Timoun Leve!  Around 60 kids showed up!!  Some of the kids had attended the program at the house the week that Deanne and Jill were here but there were many new faces. 

Hugues was a big help with the kids.  He got us started with some songs.  We sang a few Haitian original songs, as well as "I've got the joy, joy, joy", "Deep and Wide" and "The wise man built his house upon the rock".  We are guessing that many of the kids that were there did not attend church because they were unfamiliar with the songs.  This is amazing!

Our Bible story was from Matthew 7:24-27. Gwenn had kids come up and help act out the lesson. She had one group of kids that built a house as quick as they could. They wanted to hurry up building the house and didn't put much work or material into. It wasn't built on a good foundation. But, they finished their house fast so they could have fun. The second group put more work into their house. They had to keep working after the other group was finished and their house was built well. When a storm came, the house that was finished first fell down, because it was not built well. The second house stayed standing, because more work was put into it and it had a strong foundation.

The kids colored a dot-to-dot sheet with the summary of the story: Si ou bati fo, w'ap rete fem. If you build firm, you will stay strong.  We wrapped it all up with a few more songs and the kids enjoyed a snack before leaving.  The rain held out for the program but it began to sprinkle as we were dismissing and we were unable to hang around for games. 

There were several adults from the church that also came and sat in on the Kid's Program. Especially in Haiti, it seems we try to preach deep theological sermons, when they don't even understand the basics yet. The adults were just as interested in the story as the children were. Pol, who is at least in his 70s, participated just as much as the kids and piped in with "Amen" and "That's right!" more than once during Gwenn's story. :)

What's happening!

God is doing some amazing things with Leve Project on the ground in Haiti!  We've got several new programs starting. 

First off, we had such great success with the kid's Bible study program when Deanne and Jill were visiting, we've decided to make it a weekly event.  Every Thursday, we will host "Timoun Leve" which translates to Children, Rise up.  We'll be doing a Bible story, singing, snacks and games!  The church is kind enough to let us use their building for the study because several of the children cannot make the journey outside the village. 

This Sunday will be our first week for "Patage Primye Dimanch", first of the month fellowship.  The first Sunday of every month, Leve Project will provide a meal for the church.  Our goal with this program is to fellowship with the congregation and to meet those from our community.  In doing this, we can learn their needs and better serve them.  We are also able to bring believers closer together, strengthening the relationships within the church family.

The basis for almost all aspects of our ministry is taken from Acts 4:32-34.  With every new program we start, our main goal is to become one with the community.  We hope to keep adding more programs to our ministry so that we can achieve this goal.  

making brooms!

This woman from our village takes dried up palm leaves and makes brooms out of them!

Kids Bible Program Day 1

Bonswa from Haiti! This is Deanne and Jill from Evansville, Indiana, and we're visiting the Leve Project house for the first time. Today we experimented with the first EVER Leve Project Kids Bible Program. After a slightly rough start (the kids arrived an hour late), it went great! We had a great turnout...we had just under 20 kids from the village, plus some of their parents. Nicole led the kids in songs like "This is the Day" and "I'm in the Lord's Army" which we accompanied with a somewhat hilarious attempt at motions. They didn't quite understand the whole motion thing, but they enjoyed it. Francois told the story of the Good Samaritan and then we handed out chicos (Haitian cheetos) and introduced them to Veggie Tales. We ended the day with lots of fun and games like jump-rope, soccer, and the circle game where people dance and sing in Creole (we had no idea what they were doing but they were having a ball). Hopefully the next two days go as well as today!