Eating lunch in our new Pass Rein school

Getting backpacks at our new school in Pass Rein 

A little girl from our new school in Pass Rein

Luie, Melissa and Debbie passing out school supplies in Perou

Our teachers in Perou

Nathan and Mike with our new solar panels

Hello,

We wanted to share more from Haiti with you. Our second October team arrived Sunday. They were supposed to fly out of Seattle Friday night and arrive in Haiti Saturday. Twenty minuets before arriving at the airport, which is 2 hours away, they found out that their flight was cancelled. They were not able to get another flight until Saturday evening. The airlines put them up in a hotel for the night, but it makes their trip one day short :(

The team arrived in the late afternoon on Sunday and spent the rest of the day playing with the children. Nathan said 4 people gave their lives to Jesus at church.

Monday morning we spent time organizing and dividing out the school supplies for all of our schools. We also divided out the new embroidered shirts for the teachers at our schools.

Tuesday morning we went to our new school in Pass Rein. We took the school supplies and passed out backpacks. We also took photos of the children and Melissa took photos of each child individually for school child sponsoring. We spent a few hours at the school and totally disrupted their school day:) After visiting Pass Rein, we went into Gonaives to the market. The team then decided they would like to go to bible study and prayer and worship in the evening back up in Pass Rein. On Tuesday nights it is held at someone's house and affects the neighborhood. As we drove into Pass Rein it started to sprinkle. After two songs, it really begin to pour. One of the team members later said they had never been so wet from rain. When it rains in Haiti it is serious, the rain does not mess around all day trying to decide what to do, like in Seattle. We were totally drenched, then we found out that another witch doctor wanted to give their life to the Lord. We drove as close as we could to her home and then got out and walked. When we arrived at her home, she was surrounded by 4 of her younger children and 2 teenage children. The two teenage children said that they also wanted to accept Jesus into their lives. We sang and prayed for her and her children. Then another child in his early twenty's came out of the hut and said that he too wanted to accept Jesus into his life. So we sang some more and prayed for him. Nathan went into the house and talked to another boy in his twenty's and he too said he wanted to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. So again we sang and prayed. The whole household chose to accept Jesus last night. It was a pretty amazing time. We were rejoicing over the incredible opportunity we were given, as we walked back to the trucks in the rain.  

Today, Wednesday, we visited our school in Perou. We passed out school supplies and brought the teachers some of the new embroidered shirts. We also took group photos in Perou. Some of which I will post. Later on today, we took all of the children to the river, which was a lot of fun. We sat in it, were carried away by it. We also passed out new flip flops and crocks to the children and underwear for the girls and a track and field shirt for the boys. Then tonight we showed the second "Ice Age" movie to the children. It is one of those films that show the comedy, which is enjoyable in any language.

Tomorrow we will be going in to see another friends ministry and then we will celebrate my son Dustin's birthday a little late with my son Joshua's birthday a little early. 

Thank you for your faithful prayers. Please continue to lift the ministry, our team and family up in prayer. 

Blessings,

Chris

   Prayer Partners:  Mike here, Just wanted to let you know that we have made an addition to our website at www.newgenerationhaiti.org  Please check it out. We have added a page telling you a bit of the story behind "Trish's Playground."  I was so very blessed to be able to fly home just to attend this most amazing out-pouring of affection and support to a very loving mother who has struggled with the tragedy of loosing her adult daughter and unborn grandson. The fundraiser was a huge success in that it brought so much healing and real sense of the presence of God for her mother Norma. Also it brought many many family members and friends back together again after such a long time of grief. Everyone felt the joy emerging from the ashes. It was such a privilege to be a part of it all.

    One huge benefit for New Generation Ministries is that the money given in Trish's honor will go to our Good Shepherd's children's village in Haiti to build a wonderful covered playground. Yes, your memorial donation in Trish's honor, will help the Good Shepherd Children's Village build a fun playground for orphans to play, be happy and enjoy themselves in, as Trish would have loved them to.

    If you would like to come along side of Trish's mother and help to build this playground, please just click on the donation button on the webpage, and help these children have a fun, safe place to play in Haiti............

Mike and Chris

Hello,

I wanted to send out another update and let you know of prayer needs.

The solar power is running great. It is so wonderful to have power 24 hours around the clock. It is such a blessing, it is hard to express. You would have to live in a place with little or no power to fully understand the appreciation we have. Dana has been here doing the follow up and will be leaving for Port-au-Prince tomorrow. He will be staying with a friend from college who lives in port and he will be flying out the next day. Please pray for safe travel and on time flight connections for him. Please pray that God blesses his socks off for all he had done for the Children’s village here in Haiti.

Sunday night we had 7 more people give their lives to the Lord. Sunday night the Madame, who was the main witch doctor that originally had control over the village of Pass Rein, came to Nathan and said she wanted to talk to him again about accepting Jesus into her life. She still has not made the commitment, but I think she may be closer if she is willing to talk about it again. Please keep her in your prayers.

School finally started Monday morning in Haiti. The Haitian government postponed the start of school by a whole month this year. It is no wonder that the country of Haiti is so oppressed. Almost everything is against them. We also started school again in Marose, Marotte, Perou and Poteau. This year we added a new school in Pass Rein. So if any of you would like to sponsor a child starting school for the first time ever, please let us know. We have a lot of unsponsored children. It is only $15 per month per child. Next week when things are a little more settled into a routine at the schools, we will take our second October team, which arrives Saturday, to visit the schools and take some photos for you. We will be passing out the school supplies you have donated to the school children. Please pray for all of the children as they settle into school, some of them for the first time. Also please pray for our second team as they fly out of Seattle on Friday and arrive here Saturday. My second oldest son and his wife will be part of the team. They are expecting their first and we are very excited to see them.

We have 11 older children going into Gonaives for High School this year. Seven are from the Children’s village and four are from our villages. Three of these children from the villages need to be sponsored, so there is lots of opportunity to help.

Praying that all of you are having a fruitful fall.

Blessings, Chris

John and Dana the brains of the system

Mike and Chris by our new solar energy system

Dana the owner of the company

"Whispered in the sounds of silence...." an old song from the 70's. 

The words I thought of to describe what I am hearing tonight.

I am sitting in the light, and it is quiet, utterly quiet. So quiet in fact that I can hear all the insects singing. Something not ever possible before. Either we had light and noise or no light and the sounds of silence. I know this does not make sense. But in all of the years I have either traveled to or lived in Haiti, light and electricity has been a scarce commodity and has always come with the noise from a generator. There is very inconsistent power available in the three largest cities. Sometimes even in Port-au-Prince the electricity from the city would be off all day and come on at 2:00 am in the morning for 3 or 4 hours. Or sometimes it would just go off and on every 20 mins or so for the whole day. Here in Marose, there is no power available and we have always depended on generator power. So it has been limited, costly and noisy. I am someone who likes to garden with no lawn mower noise or noise from any other power tools. So it took me a few minuets to figure out why I felt so peaceful. Then it dawned on me, that I could HEAR insects, which can be quite loud in the night here, AND at the same time I had LIGHT. Somehow that was never in my expectations of having solar power! It was a huge and joyous surprise. So much so that I went and got Mike, Dana and John and made them go outside and listen to "the sounds of silence". I feel soooo blessed!

The solar powered system is now completely installed and the team is spending time monitoring things. They are also teaching us how to monitor, and do maintenance.Thank you for your faithful prayers. 

Church was great this morning. Many came forward for prayer and healing. After church we took individual photos of the youth group kids (and a few adults that insisted we take their photo also). We will send the photos to their partner youth group in America, along with their letters. 

Please pray for John as now that our system is installed, he will be traveling to Port-au-Prince in the morning and flying out in the afternoon. 

Blessings,

Chris

First row of panels on

Working on the second and third rows

Installing the invertor and electrical panels

The crew installing the panels

Hello,

Today was a great day here in Haiti. Thank you so much for your faithful prayers. There were some hitches with the solar system, but all of them were able to be worked out. The team even said they were ahead of schedule this afternoon. So please continue praying that everything works great as they continue the installation process. We are so appreciative of all who have come together and given of their time, money and energy. It is such a huge blessing to us and the children. I think all of the helpers really enjoyed working together today. The solar system will be a huge blessing to the community also. With power available 24 hours a day, we will now be able to have a small refrigerator, which will allow us to do lab work and have some immunizations available. Again thanks for your prayers, they really helped today.

On another note to Lori, Philip, Brenda, Loralee, Brian T.and Brian D. Today I hiked up the mountain and was able to spend about 3 hours worshiping by myself, singing my heart out to an audience of ONE.(Normally I never get even close to that much time alone.) Thank you so much for all of the incredible music you have written and played over the years. It is so spirit led. Thank you also for the friendship and support. The last song I sang with was, "All I need, you are all I need" Thanks guys!!!!!

Many blessings,

Chris

Doing our hair

Totally engrossed in the Action Bible

One of theVBS projects

Sue and children

Becca and Sue playing with the children

Sue and Chris getting the church clothes organized

Great looking church clothes

So cute !

Feeling like princesses

Could the smiles be any bigger?  :)

Hello, 

We are so excited. Today our first team of October arrived. And thanks to them we will hopefully have a solar power system running. We have been so extremely blessed by Cookshill Community Church. They desired to bless us and chose to hold a fundraiser for a solar powered system for our Children's village. They raised enough to purchase the system and ship it to Haiti. Then Dana, who is an alternative energy engineer designed the system for the Children's village and flew here to install it.  Some prep work was done this afternoon when they arrived. Tomorrow we have two fellow missionaries who speak great Creole coming to help and learn about solar power. So we will have a crew of both Haitians and Americans working side by side. Please pray for everything to go smoothly. They have a lot to accomplish in their 10 days here. Please pray for them to be blessed as well. 

This Sunday Mike will be preaching at Pass Rein and Nathan will be leading worship. Please pray that God draws the people. We still are seeing many salvation's in Pass Rein.

We have two girls who live in Pass Rein who would like to go to high school. They have to commute daily into Gonaives to accomplish this. Pass Rein is a fairly poor area, even according to Haiti's standards. The two girls have asked us to help them with the cost of tuition, a uniform and books. I was wondering if any of you would feel led to help them. $30 per month is all that it would take to help each of these girls further their education. The majority of Haitian's never get past 6th grade. For a girl to be educated is even more rare. We would really like to see these two be able to go to high school, which is the next step for them.

Thank you so much for standing with us in prayer.

Blessings,

Chris

Hello,

I wanted to write and share a few simple things. Sometimes I sit at the end of the day and wonder why I am so tired and often it is because of simple things, not anything big. I have been starting plants in 5 gallon buckets, peanut butter jars, oil (vegetable) bottles, etc. I cannot put them in the ground yet because the ground is supposed to be leveled out. This was supposed to happen next week for the last 2 months. Every day I hear “Mama Chris your plants” Most of the children know that no one is supposed to hurt them, so they call me when someone does, but some of the children just can’t stop themselves. This morning as I watered the plants I noticed that someone was trying to be helpful and wrote Mama Chris on every potted plant in creole, they also spelled my name wrong and wrote Christ instead of Chris. I just sighed and asked who had tried to help. Most times it is something like that. Other times they know what they are doing and know they shouldn’t and still do, like locking a younger child in the kitchen. They are kids and kids do things, like wonder what happens when you stick your finger in the hole of a pencil sharpener? I do my laundry by hand in cold water, two of my older children help me now, but hands get tired after hand wringing laundry for 7 people, think of sheets, bath towels and jeans. So next my laundry is sitting in tubs waiting for me to hang it on the line. All of the sudden I have half a dozen little dirty hands wanting to hand me clothespins and wet clean clothes, some of them white.  The children also have a hard time going around the line of wet clean clothes, instead of just through them. In the process some of the longer items, like the bath towels hit the dust, literally. Sometimes one nanny comes and asks for lotion, soap, toothpaste or something else. Then they all think it and I have a steady stream every 5 minutes for the next hour. Just try and get anything done, like homeschooling for 5 kids. In the beginning it was new and no big deal. After a while it was frustrating. Just the past couple of weeks it has finally become just part of life here. I am trying to learn to walk out my day with less frustration, lower expectations and more joy. I have an extremely strong passion in regards to justice versus injustice and right from wrong. And right now I am being put to the test not only daily, but sometimes minute to minute. Steph, back in Washington likes to say something is a 1^st world problem versus a 3^rd world problem. I read about a lot of 1^st world problems on face book. So when I wake up in the morning and find a pipe has broken somewhere in the children’s village, and because of that there is no water, which in turn means there is no food, I think that ranks as a 3^rd world problem. It is a little bit more life effecting then 1^st world inconveniences, but the bible says I still have the same choice to make.  Will I choose to find joy?  Our walk is full of choices and sometimes they are easier to make then others. Bottom line I do love it here and this is where I know we are supposed to be. But God is using daily, no minute to minute circumstances to sharpen me. I have been reminded of a quote by George Muller “Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.” I do not have the power myself to choose joy, I need God to help me make the choice, in spite of the circumstances, to choose joy. Some moments I can see this and some moments I just cannot. I guess that is where faith comes in no, I know that is where faith comes in. Trusting in Him to finish the work.

Love and blessings,

Chris

Hello,

A lot has been happening here in Haiti, thank you for your prayers. 

Mike said the fundraiser on Saturday night went fantastic. Everyone enjoyed themselves. I have heard that Kiana Bosman even sang a solo in Creole. Way to go Kiana. We are super excited as this fundraiser's purpose is to expand our children's play area even more. It will include a large covered concrete play area, complete with concrete picnic tables and benches. There will be permanent markings for hop scotch, 4 square, and even a couple of basket ball hoops for games. The cover will make a wonderful shade area for playing. Thank you to all who participated in the fundraiser. 

Speaking of fund raisers, thanks to the mission store Bob and Rose Crabtree held in July, all of the children now have new church clothing. The church clothes arrived last week and we passed the clothing out to all of the children in our children's village. The outfits were complete with shoes. I will try and get some photos on the blog tomorrow of the children. 

Yesterday we went to church in Pass Rein. It was a great service. After which we were told that there was a women who was involved in voodoo who lived a few miles away that wanted to give her life to God. So we, along with half of the church went to her house. We started worshiping. She gave her life to the Lord along with much weeping. Then an older women who lived there also, asked if she could give her life to the Lord. Next a younger man choose to give his life to the Lord. We worshiped some more and then she gathered her voodoo items and poured kerosene on them and lit them on fire. You could literally see the emotional and spiritual load she was carrying lifted off, she even looked younger. Once again, thank you to all who faithfully keep praying. 

Today Nathan took the Marose youth group to an area about 45 mins from here for a little break. They swam in the river, spent time praying and worshiping and just hanging out with each other building relationships. We would love prayers for the youth groups in each of our Good Shepherd churches.

All of this week, Sunday thru Sunday we will be having a revival in our Perou church. Please pray for the community of Perou. Their community is very similar to Pass Rein. Pray for the Spirit of God to be there and for people to choose to follow Jesus.

Tomorrow Nathan will be a guest speaker in one of our Pastors association churches, please pray for the spirit of God to move in that church tomorrow evening.

Many blessings,

Chris

Hello once again,

I am writing to let you know that the team and Mike will be flying out of Port-au-Prince early in the morning. I think they will be leaving here around around 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning. Port-au-Prince is 3 hours ahead of Washington state and British Columbia for those of you who are interested. The time zones on the internet do not all agree because this year is the first year Haiti acknowledged daylight savings. It may be straight by now, but I know when we first moved here our phones and computers and other wireless electronics did not agree on the correct time and when we went on the internet we found two different times. The team would really appreciate your prayers for safe travel and on time flights and connections.

The team has done really well this past 9 days. They have been a huge blessing. They have been great prayer warriors in Perou and Pass Rein. They have been great servants and encouragers here in the children's village and to us. And the children have loved VBS. Last night the team passed out glo-sticks. Even the adults love the glo-sticks here. It is so dark here at night that even with a full moon the sticks really glow bright.

I also forgot to mention Mike and I received a cardo (gift) yesterday in Perou. One of the families gave us a live turkey. They meant it for eating, and originally that was what we were going to do with it. But Kevins (one of the children in our children's village) came up to me last night and said he did not want to see it die. He asked if we could find another turkey and have baby turkey's. So this is what we have decided to do now. So out on the grounds among the children's voices you can here gobbling :)  :)  :)

For those of you who are wondering why Mike is flying home again. He has been asked to fly to Lynden by two wonderful women, Norma and Gin Bosman. They are putting on a fundraiser for the ministry in memory of Norma's daughter Trish and Norma's grandchild. It will be held in Lynden this Saturday night. If you would like more information you can e-mail us at the e-mail address on the right side of this page. Please pray that the evening is a blessing to Norma and her family and also to the ministry, as it will introduce our ministry to many new people. It is based off a God arranged relationship, there is just no other way to describe it. I think each one of us has "had our socks blessed off of us", by the others, as the cliche goes. It has been God orchestrated from the beginning. 

Your prayers are so appreciated thank you so much for investing in God's kingdom.

Blessings,

Chris

Hello,

Thank you so much for all of your prayers. We wanted to update you on Haiti and the team. Again no internet for 4 days. We ended up paying someone to come out from Gonaives to work on our internet, he said only part of it was fixable, part of the problem is the internet in Marose  is only running as 2G  instead of 3G like Gonaives. He said the company needed to update it to 3G. That and the fact that we have been at the revival each evening when the power is on has made it hard to send updates. So I will try to catch you up. 

The team has been great. They have been holding VBS each day with the children. The children have really enjoyed it. They have been very creative with the crafts. The program has been based on the bible written for youth in comic book style, called the Action Bible. The artwork in it is pretty incredible. Today they asked the children if they wanted to see the translator do the actions to the songs, as he translated this to the children he was looking sideways at Becca one of the team members, she said his expression was one of "I can't believe your asking me to say this." The children all shouted yes, so he had to act out the song :)

Darrell, who was here in May helping to put some cabinets in for us is also here again with his wife Sue. He has been busy finishing up some projects and repairing things. He worked on our projector and was able to finally get all the bugs worked out between it and my laptop. So we are able to show movies to the children without everything being mickey moused together. I am not that electronically savvy. The only way I could figure the sound out was to hook Mikes laptop speaker to my laptop and put a microphone in front of it that was hooked up to a larger speaker from church. Mike tried buying different wires in the market in town, but we hadn't been able to get it to work. Thanks to Darrell the children watched Happy Feet last night and ate popcorn with Mike and Darrell, while Becca, Sue and I went to the revival. 

The last three evenings we have spent in Pass Rein at a crusade. We held the crusade/revival outside in a large field. It was a ton of fun, kind of like an outdoor summer concert for God. We had a wooden stage built. Some bare light bulbs strung out on wires. Each evening a different pastor preached, Mike preached the first night. Nathan and a team led worship and it was excellent. The Holy Spirit moved and many came forward for prayer. We had 32 salvation's and many re-dedications. Each night was about 5 hours of worship, prayer and preaching. There were  600 to 700 people attending every evening. Worshiping with that many people on fire for God was amazing. 

Yesterday the team also went to the market and spent some time checking out the city of Gonaives. Today they visited Peru. They meet some of the youth group and spent time praying over them individually. We also visited Wadner, the boy who is crippled and spent time praying for his healing. He is so full of Joy when we see him, each time we visit it seems God heals him a little more. 

Many Blessings to you,

Chris

Hello,

Just a quick note to let you know our September team arrived today. They are settling in and will probably spend most of the day tomorrow playing with the children. Tomorrow night and Friday night, Mike will be preaching in Pass Rein. The team will be in Pass Rein for ministry. Please pray that God moves while Mike teaches and that God leads the team during the ministry time.

The internet has been giving us problems for about 5 days now, so I have not been able to send out any e-mails. Mike has been able to receive some on his phone, but it is hard to type letters on a cell phone. We have changed plans twice during the five days. Some prayer for this would be appreciated as it is our most effective way to communicate. Some nights it has literally taken an hour just to get the reply box to come up on an e-mail. We pay at least twice as much for e-mail in Haiti and it is every bit as slow as dial up once was. 

It has been about three weeks now, since the last case of mumps in our children's village. I think we may be clear of them. Thank you so much for the prayers. I really, really appreciate them, and so do the children :)

Mike and I have been trying to get a little bit of time away. For all intents and purposes we are living in a fish bowl. We had a couple here for the Awana training of leaders last week. They mentioned that as they watched through out the week, that we had virtually no privacy, we were on display 24/7. They are very right. We have been trying to work on this and we have figured out that going for a drive on a motorcycle is one way we can get a small bit of privacy. It attracts a bit of attention outside of the city of Gonaives, as there are not many whites driving around on motorcycles through the villages, but we are enjoying the time together. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. 

Many blessings,

Chris

Hello, 

Thank you so much for your prayers this morning. They really made a difference. We wanted to give you an update to last night's prayer request. We know that a lot of you have been faithfully praying. 

Last night at church we had another witch doctor give his life to the Lord. He asked Nathan to go to his home in the morning and help him clean his house physically and spiritually from all his voodoo paraphernalia. When Nathan arrived this morning with some of the church leaders, they were greeted by the man's wife, who was also a witch doctor. She proceeded to cuss and swear at them. She also blasphemed God. The presence of God came and she fell to the ground. She lay there and screamed. As they began to pray for her, the screaming turned to tears. After much prayer she decided to give her life to the Lord. Then she too wanted the house and property cleaned from anything to do with voodoo. PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! So now three witch doctors have given their lives to Jesus Christ, along with at least four other people involved in voodoo from that area. The light of God is definitely present and moving in that area of Pass Rein. Please pray for these men and women as they will be a strong witness to other witch doctors in the area. One thing I have learned over the years, is that the sins you are saved out of, you usually have the greatest voice to speak to others about. Probably because you have been there, understand the struggle and are proof they can be overcome. 

And again thank you, thank you and thank you for your faithful prayers.

Blessings,

Chris

Prayer for yet ANOTHER WITCH DOCTOR and a funny story

Hello again,

Hope all is well as you start into the fall season. Summer is still going strong here, in the mid to high 90's. I think we must have acclimated better than I thought, as it does not seem as hot as that.

We want to thank all of you who have been praying for Pass Rein and the witch doctors who live in that area. We had another witch doctor from the same area of Pass Rein come to the Lord tonight. Four other women from the same area involved in voodoo also came to the Lord this morning during church. Woo-who! PRAISE GOD!!!! He is sooooo good! There has been a ton of spiritual warfare this week aimed at us, (me in particular, but also at Mike and Nathan) which now makes sense. The witch doctor has asked Nathan and some of the church to come to his house and destroy all of the things he has, connected to voodoo, witchcraft and satan. Please pray for protection, discernment and wisdom for Nathan, the church member's  and the witch doctor. Please also pray for the witness that this will be as more and more light enters this area of Pass Rein. What better witness to other witch doctors could there be than the two who are now walking with Jesus. Please also keep the witch doctor who was saved in our Marotte church in your prayers. 

And now for the funny story :) This one is about Mike:)

We have had bees decide to take up residency in the bathroom of the medical clinic and one container, 100's of them, in a swarm bigger than a basketball. All of the men who work for us were afraid of them except one who was not available to help the night before last. So Mike had to take care of them by himself. There were many onlookers at a distance. First he waited til dark so they would be domicile. He took care of the ones in the medical clinic first, which were in the cabinet. He covered the whole cabinet, opened the door a bit and sprayed. The cabinet literally hummed and vibrated. Then the bees started swarming out. Mike got out of the clinic and when he checked in the morning there were about 100 dead bees on the floor, the rest had left. Next he went to the container. So even though he is not afraid of bees, he is looking all around and double checking to make sure he knows where they all are, only problem is, it is really dark outside. So he again tries to block all areas of escape  and just as he starts to spray a giant toad the size of a large grapefruit decides to jump on Mike's leg and hug it. Needless to say this sufficiently freaked Mike out and he screened much to the delight of the girls sitting on the church steps watching him. Hope this adds a smile to your day. 

Love from Haiti,

Chris