“All We Need is Love”-Really???

Is that truly all we need? Try telling that to my 12 year old daughter. I am sure she will let you know God is all we need. I am known for speaking what is on my mind so here goes nothing new. I have been praying about this one for a good year now and feel that I need to be sharing it. The good Lord needed to give me a lot of nudging on this one. A little past history, I grew up in the Christian Reformed Church and I was definitely not taught about what I am going to say. Frankly back then, I think the response would have been: “We should check her into Pine Rest”. Do not get me wrong, there is certainly a time and place to seek that type of help but I believe wisdom and discernment also need to be used. Truth be told, I have used their counseling services a couple times and I am thankful I did. Anyways…

A year to this month, we saw a quick onset of really strange behavior coming from our oldest on a weekend in September. Yes, it did cross our minds that we may need to look at Pine Rest. I had a gut feeling there was more going on though. By that Sunday evening it became evident that my gut feeling was correct. Bruce had sat down with her and started reading the Bible. She had just laid her head down and closed her eyes and promptly sat up screaming “the eyes, the eyes!!, call ______”. When I say screaming, I mean it was so loud we thought all the neighbors on our cul-de-sac would hear. This was 9 o’clock at night and I felt bad for calling him as I know being a pastor he was probably tired from working all day but we could tell we needed to call him as she was specifically asking for him. Not knowing at the time how familiar he was with spiritual warfare (as I had only read books and that was the extent of my knowledge) I kept repeating over and over, "This isn’t Western Christianity, this isn’t Western Christianity". When he arrived he let me know he was very much aware of what I meant and no need to explain. On his way over he had also put out a prayer request to prayer warriors available on a moment’s notice. He asked Bri a few questions to confirm the situation and he proceeded to pray over her. By the time he was done she was extremely tired but when you are in a battle of course it is going to tire you out! Over the next week she needed a lot of affirmation and we spent many nights reading the Bible to her while she fell asleep.

No issues after that and we thought it was a one and done deal until our first week in Haiti. We sat down to dinner and Bri told me the eyes were back. We were surrounded with Christian believers who had battled fights like this before so we sought their help immediately. They knew exactly what to do and they surrounded Bri with prayer, worship, and armed with scripture. These two situations equipped us for the most part to be able to fight these battles as a family. Our first night on the island we found ourselves having to put what we learned to the test. It was a longer than anticipated and tiring night but we were equipped. The next day we Skyped with a friend we had called the night before. She said she had been up all night thinking about it and educated us more along with providing us with a daily schedule to follow to prevent the attacks. Since then, Bri is now prepared and has fought these battles herself. When asked what she thinks of them, she replies, “It reminds me that God is much bigger.”

If I hadn’t dealt with it myself I may not believe it due to my upbringing, but knowing we were moving to Haiti, I read up on spiritual warfare in case I ran across it. It made me sad that I had a hard time finding people state side that were able to help teach me how to fight these battles. I heard a couple times, “I have never seen that, just look to God and find the answers in the Bible, I am sorry I could not be of more help”. Another response I heard to an offshoot of the question was: “that stuff doesn’t happen anymore, we have the Bible now” (prime Western Christianity response). These answers have been wrenching at my heart for the past year as we need to be ready to go into battle at any time. It gives the childhood song, Onward Christian Soldiers, a whole new meaning to me, but isn’t that what that song is all about? What part of the Bible says that because we have the Bible it doesn’t happen anymore? NONE!!! Do not put God in a box, He is WAY too big for that! As a side note, Voodoo is not just sticking needles in a doll like I was told when I was growing up. No, it is the worshiping of Satan. State side it is more well known as Witchcraft. Satan and demons are real and they like to feed on fear. Thankfully we know the one and only true God is bigger than anything else and we are blessed with already knowing that God wins the end battle. Because of this there is no need to fear. Fear does not come from God, only from dark places.

Two places in the Bible we quickly reference and arm ourselves with are Psalm 91 and Ephesians 6:10-18. I would like to leave with you Ephesians 6:13 - Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will be standing firm.” A Haitian friend pointed out something I never thought of before. He asked, “Why do Americans pray for a hedge of protection? We need full protection here, in Haiti!”

Some of you reading this are probably thinking this is super crazy. I don’t blame you, I used to think that too! I believe that God is calling me to share this and my prayer is that this will help some of you understand more, learn along with me, others to grow in your relationship with God, and that some will feel more comfortable talking about your personal experiences with spiritual warfare as this is truly a real part of life. Not everyone will necessarily need to fight like we needed to but everyone should be armed and ready. We are here to fight the good fight. Onward Christian soldiers! 

What is a Normal Day?

We are still figuring this question out. I guess it depends on your definition of normal. Let me provide you with a description of yesterday (we were going to post this yesterday but didn’t get the wifi working until this morning):

6am - Wake up, send email to Agricultural Director, wake up kids, get laundry going, wake up kids again.

6:30 - First knock at the gate from a Starfysh employee. Reschedule to meet in the afternoon.

6:45 - Breakfast and devotions, restart laundry machine as it stops half way through.

7:00 - Second knock at the gate. Head out the door and go to Starfysh. Start generator to pump up a tire on truck, provide machete to another employee to weed around Starfysh, grab eye glasses for the afternoon appointment to see if that will help alleviate the headaches, answer a few questions. Head over to WISH to get the girls started on school as wifi doesn’t work well enough at our house. Bruce drops us off at WISH and we discover we don’t have the wifi router. Call Bruce. Kids run off to find their friend. In the meantime Bruce is headed back to the house to put the laundry on the roof, grab the ladder that we got yesterday from the builder in Makochon, along with the flag for the school, and now also grab the router and take the truck to the garden to drop off the ladder and to pick up the desks and bring them to the school in Makochon. I talk to Dede to order bread from his bakery and see if he is willing to translate for our rescheduled meeting at 4.

8:30 - Bruce calls saying the quad is stuck at the house as he cannot get it out of neutral. Pray again that our quads come sooner than later. He will be coming by in the truck as WISH is right by the garden where the desks are located. I start working on this blog.

9 – Router arrives, went to get girls from friend’s house. Start Riley off on finishing PE requirements. Call IT help as teacher referred us because we need admin email and password to download anything. They transferred me twice and referred me back to someone at iCademy. I left a voicemail and await a call back. Bruce speaks with Greg who is putting up the water catch on the library. He confirms the ladder is too short to use. Bruce leaves to head to Makochon. We move on to another homework assignment (Riley is down to 46 overdue assignments because she is 3 weeks behind due to the wifi at our house and receiving school supplies a week after school started. We are very thankful for everyone who helped in getting them to us otherwise it would have been longer). Bri is only 2 weeks behind.

Noon – Break for lunch with the girls. They eat and go play with friend for half hour. I catch up on emails.

12:30 – Back to school

1 – Bruce arrives back from first trip up the mountain.

2 – Get call from iCademy. She referred me to somewhere else. Bruce gets another load of desks and heads back up.

3:30 – Call from the IT somewhere else. I asked if he could call tomorrow as my phone was almost out of battery and Bruce wasn’t back from Makochon yet.

4 – End school for the day. Meet with Dede and someone else in order to review their present situation and see if there is anything we can do for his reoccurring headaches.

4:30 – Bruce gets back.

4:45 – Head back to Starfysh. Stop at the Green and Orange store to buy pop for everyone.

5 – Pay employees that helped today. Try to message someone state side.

5:15 – Dede delivers our bread to our house. Talk more with Dede and another employee.

6 – Sit down to eat. Remember I was going to message someone state side about something that happened today. Send it before I forget. Finish dinner.

6:30 – Take shower, sit down to work on Blog. Help with school work that doesn’t require wifi. Knock at the gate. Bruce goes to talk to Starfysh's nightguard. Bruce walks back with him to get his phone that was left in the truck.

7 – Realize we need to update our wifi as it is “eating” the GBs way too fast. Attempt but says we need to pay more. Pay more, wait for acknowledgement of payment.

8 – Almost have blog done. Wifi still not ready yet.

Bruce- 9am load 11 desks into Starfysh truck, desks are hanging all over the bed.  Try to pull out of the garden, almost rip the roof off from the outdoor class room.  Get to the narrow gate with the desks hanging over the bed.  Tell workers “It’s not going to fit”. Workers respond, “ It’s okay”, desk falls over the side as the driver just keeps going.  Out of the gate, secure load again.  Head up to Makochon.

10:15- Not even a quarter of the way up, load falls off the truck.  Put desks back into truck and secure a third time.  All this on a narrow, ROCKY, hill as moto’s can barely pass through.

11:30- Drop off desks at the school in Makochon.  This is a very rocky and steep drive up the mountain. Pick up an extension ladder for the project Amy mentioned above.

11:45- Head back down the mountain.

1:00-  Lunch.  Give money for the two employees to get lunch, I don’t eat, time to catch up on emails as it is impossible to email going up or down the mountain…did I mention it’s ROCKY…feel free to insert “Adrian”. Have conversation with contractor about ladder is not tall enough for water catch.  Gives a price on what it would be to “rent” one.  Tell him I will check with my friends first.  Then tries to say he needs an additional $100 for the work.  Refresh his memory on the amount agreed upon, which he signed.

2:15- Second load in truck, this is more tall than wide this time.  Start to head out of town and pull down a wire.  I thought it was an electrical wire but turns out it was string….I think.  One hundred yards down the road stop because another truck is coming in the opposite direction.  We start to go and start pulling a post and roof down off a house/store.  Okay it might be a little wide as well as tall.  As this is happening I am talking to Amy, trying to catch up on the day and make a plan for the rest of the day.

3:45- Make it to school and drop off second load of desks. 

4 - Head back down the mountain, elbow starts to get a red spot, pre-blister from rubbing on the seat because yup, you guessed it, it is ROCKY and you bounce all over the place.

Every day is completely different. There are no two days that are the same. So to us, a “normal” day is having a very different day than the day before.

With our “normal” days, the month of August brings progress. The water catch on the agricultural center was completed and the cisterns are collecting water.

 The desks have been made for the new school and per above, most of them were delivered to the school yesterday with the remaining delivered today.

Work is in progress to get the water catch on the library in order to provide more water for the garden.

The Port-au-Prince Rotary visited and checked on water filters in two of the villages. 

Starfysh’s education liaison provided teacher training. She walked the teachers through what it looks like to partner with each other and explained some different teaching methods. The teachers from Makochon and the Guerrier Institute will be partnering together this school year to learn from each other.