Thank you so much for your continued prayer support for my family, my self, and Gods ministry though us to the people in Haiti. This last trip was very different for me. We went as a pastors delegation to the pastors in Haiti. We taught regularly to the pastors in different areas of the country. They were so appreciative and gracious to us for encouraging them, and building them up in the word of God. We also visited several other orphanages and ministries along the way. It was a very full trip with a very full schedule, and many stops. But we were always well received. I made a lot of new contacts and gained much helpful info for our ministry.

Our construction is moving forward at a good pace. As the funds come in we are employing several local Haitian workers and helpers. And we are training one of our older boys to be a construction worker himself. One other young man is the first of our kids to go to high school this year. A very special opportunity, that we have been working on for a while now. School starts on the 7th of Sept. for us, as it does for most of our local kids. We will be launching a new "School Sponsor" program, for our neighborhood kids to come to free Christian school this year. They will need books and uniforms and will receive a good hot meal each day. A sponsor would pay $10 U.S. per child to cover the above expenses. We have 225 children enrolled this year. We are going ahead in faith that God will provide the sponsors, because this is what He has directed us to do.

Our October team will put a roof on the first new orphanage building. and a November team will drill a new well and work on the water system that so many of you contributed towards. Thank you for your generosity and your listening to the Lords call. I am glad to be home with my family, but miss Haiti already..............Thanks for your time and your heart..............Mike

Country Update - Haiti

UNICEF estimates that 490,000 children are orphans in Haiti. This translates to just about 6% of Haiti's population. In 2004, at the height of intercountry adoptions into the U.S., over 350 children were served through intercountry adoption into the U.S. Thousands more were served by the orphanages in Haiti, which often provided support to the community. However, over the past three years the processing of adoptions in Haiti has slowed to a crawl. Abandoned children endure adoption processes lasting two or three years before being united with adoptive families.

Not only is such lasting institutional care damaging to the children who wait and wait, but the slowed process has had a negative effect on the many desperately needy children of Haiti who are not waiting in orphanages. Many orphanages support free medical clinics, schools, nutrition programs and family preservation programs. Orphanages have been a resource for temporary care for children following a family crisis, such as a fire or illness. But now that children languish in orphanage care for years, orphanage directors report that the beds are full, the food and medicine supplies are insufficient, and the children needing temporary care are left on the streets with little prospect for life.

In an attempt to move towards transparent and democratic government, Haitian officials now adhere to the Haitian Constitutional law regarding adoption, written in 1974 by Jean Claude Duvalier. While the law of 1974 places severe limitations on the size of family and age of those who may adopt, it also allows Presidential Dispensation for those not meeting the family size or age limitations. Unfortunately, Haiti lacks an organized and transparent system for obtaining Dispensations. This confusion over Dispensations, along with the absence of a sense of urgency regarding institutionalized children has caused extensive delays in the adoption process and further victimizes children who have already lost much.

Haiti has a pending solution to this legal logjam. A newly proposed adoption law will clarify who may adopt; increase protections for Haitian children, their birth parents, and adoptive families and streamline the adoption process. This legislation is supported by the United States and French governments along with the NGO community, including Joint Council.

Joint Council's work in Haiti has been extensive, from working with the Haitian government, adoption service providers, orphanages and other NGO's on developing and implementing Standards of Practice for Intercountry Adoption, which were signed at the U.S. Embassy in Port-A-Prince in January 2009 (see Joint Council's page on Facebook for the pictures) to advocating for a change in the current law. In August Joint Council launched the first of many advocacy efforts to support the change in law. Joint Council's efforts, entitled the Haitian Children and Families Initiative, strives to ensure the new law is implemented. A second effort will occur this month. This effort will include a petition to U.S. Congress requesting support of the law. You can sign the petition by clicking here.

More details on this month's initiative will be available on Joint Council's Haiti country information page in the coming week.

Here are a few photos from the Walk for Water that I previously posted about! What a Blessing it was! Thank you again to Aumony and Naomi!

Haiti again

I just got off the phone with Mike. He was in an area where there was no cell phone coverage. Glad to make contact with him. Pastor Kim from our church is with him on this trip. I guess Kim has fully packed every minute. Mike said it was like having me on the trip. There is so many needs and and time is so limited that I always feel like every second counts when we are there. Any way they are doing well. He said our Pastors association around Gonaives and Marose has grown now to almost 50. They had a teaching time with Kim, Mike, Philip and Deojon(spelled wrong, but I have no way of getting the correct spelling right now). Afterwards the pastors from our association prayed over them and Mike said it was awesome. The holy spirit was definitely there.

Tomorrow the team goes to Deojon's church in Port-au-Prince and each one will share his or her testimony there.

We have a huge praise report from here today. Two girls from our church, Naomi and Aumony put on a walk -a- thon called "Water for Life". It was geared towards children, we walked from the church to Lynden city park. The purpose was to raise money for the well and water system for the orphanage. We would like to drill for a well that is deep enough to be safe with filtration and provide water without running out. We also would like to put a 2000 to 3000 gallon holding tank on the hill above the orphanage, that would receive water from the well via a pump. Then through a water pipe system we could provide running water by gravity that would feed the kitchen for cooking and washing and also provide water to our future boys shower and toilet room and girls shower and toilet room. The church through a" give your best garage sale" raised just over $6000. At the walk -a- thon today they raised $8000. Mike knows the figures better than I do, but this is pretty close to what we need to accomplish our goal I believe. Praise God !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The team will be traveling home after lunch tomorrow and should arrive home sometime Monday afternoon. Please pray for safe travel. Thanks sooooo oooooo much. Blessings Chris

What's up in Haiti

I talked with Pastor Nathan today. He said the teaching time for the pastor's association at our orphanage went well, as did the children's activities. Thank you for your prayers.

Mike also shared a praise report. Ben, the driver for the last trip whose daughter was healed, had asked for prayer because he did not like his current job situation. When he returned to work, after driving our team around while they were in Haiti, he was let go from his job. He then found a different job and loves it. He says this is a result of praying with the team. He is happy and God gets the praise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I should hear from Mike again tomorrow. I will send another update if I do. Thanks again for your prayers. Chris

Latest up date

Hello
Thank you for all your prayers. I heard from Mike. They had a pastor's conference for
Haitian pastors today. It was very good. Tomorrow morning they leave for our orphanage in Marose. They will have about 3 hours driving time. So please keep them in your prayers. There will be a teaching time for the pastors association that Mike and Nathan have started near our area. There will also be some vision casting. Mike has some activities planned for the children too.
Should be good. Please pray for safe travel for all of the pastors in our association along with our team, and for our vision to be caught. Also for the children and those interacting with them to be blessed. Thanks and Blessings Chris

WOW, the last trip was great. We had a good team and we had several significant events that really made the trip worth while. Everyone got home safe and sound, ( although some of us were delayed an extra night in Miami ). We spent more relational time with the kids, They absolutely loved it. Gin really put her teaching skills to work with several projects for them. And can you try to imagine how you might feel if you had been adopted out of Haiti as a child, and then went back to minister as a young woman. For Kiana and Sonize, this was a real special insight, one they won't easily forget. Becca got the medical clinic ready to open, all we need now is a doctor and a sponsor. We saw miracles,healings and the team really got the vision for the ministry. Thanks so much for your prayers. I leave on Sunday to help with a Pastors Conference in PAP, then to show a team our ministry in Marose, then up to Tricotte. I know that I have probably asked too many times, but the power of your prayers is significant to the work that God is doing. ...........Thank you again..............Mike

Pictures and Welcome home!

Haiti Team August 2009

Making cakes!

Our Tap Tap for the week!

Heading out!

Thought we'd upload a few photos now that we're home safely! Thank you for your prayers and support! There will be more to come!
~Lelands~

Another Haiti Update!

Hello again,

I talked with Mike today. I guess they have been doing some VBS every day and the children are loving it. They finished up making the

chalkboards today. Early tomorrow morning the team will start heading to Port-au-Prince, and then home. It's about a 30 hour trip from the orphanage

to home. They are supposed to fly into Seattle around 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Mike has yet to come home from Haiti and have all flights work.

He either has delayed flights or broken down planes at each airport. So the team would love prayer for traveling. The ride to Port-au-Prince has become worse each trip, due to road damage from the hurricane last fall, that they were stuck in. He says that people have remade the road by driving off of it where ever huge washouts are left from the hurricane. There is no government road work done in Haiti for the people. So that trip is pretty hard.

Mike shared with me a great praise report. When they travel to Haiti, Mike hires a tap tap for the time they are there, as no one in the orphanage has

a vehicle. Tap taps are usually small pick ups painted as wildly as you can imagine and you hire them by taping (really banging) on the side. In this case

it is a huge tap tap. They look like huge flatbed trucks with built wooden walls or railings for sides and some kind of covering over the top, some times.

They are totally painted out. Anyways they hire the same driver for the whole time also and he stays in the church with the team. So Mike noticed that

the driver was not very happy looking and sitting outside on the porch of the church. So he talked to Benjamin (the driver) and found out that his wife had called and said that their daughter was very sick and throwing up blood. So Mike said let's go get the team and pray together. So they prayed and two hours later Benjamin's wife called and said their daughter was totally healed. Praise God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So again thanks for your prayers.

Chris

Haiti trip update

Hello again,

I talked to Mike and the team today. They are having a blast. The baptism was smaller than they thought it would be, but was really fun and special. Three of our older boys in the orphanage choose to be baptized also. The team had a lot of fun baking the wedding cakes and cupcakes. They also enjoyed the wedding and said they took lots of photos. They have done a lot of stocking of the medical clinic. Tomorrow and Monday they will be making chalkboards and doing VBS with the children. Mike has an interview with a medical doctor that will work in our clinic part time. So he would like prayers for that. The team will go to our church in Marose during the morning and another church in the evening. We have 5 new children in the orphanage. So now we have 40. Three of the children are the children of our cook that passed away earlier this year. Two others are children that Nathan thought needed help. So we have 5 new children to be sponsored. Thank you so much for all of your prayers. Chris

Haiti trip

Hi

This is Chris writing this time. I heard from Mike and the team in Haiti today. The team is doing well. He says some of the women would like a few less bugs and a little less heat. They unpacked medical supplies today and spent part of the day playing with the children. Tomorrow they have a meeting with area pastors. Also they are baking cupcakes and a wedding cake in a bread bakery run by a fellow missionary. I believe this will be the first time ever these children will have had cake or cupcakes (complete with sprinkles). Should be a lot of fun. Our daughter and Pastor Nathan's sister will also be altering wedding clothes my daughter brought down for a bride and groom. Mike brought the groom to the Lord on his last trip and after Mike had left the groom told Pastor Nathan that he thought he should marry the woman he was living with. Nathan told him to wait till Mike came back and they would perform the ceremony. So Saturday evening the team will celebrate a wedding. Saturday morning will be a baptism of about 60 people that the team helped bring to the Lord on a previous trip. This will take place in the river behind the orphanage. The cupcakes and wedding cake are for those two celebrations. On Monday they will go to Gonaives one of 3 or 4 of the largest cities in Haiti. In Gonaives they will be helping another missionary with his daily feeding program. They will help feed about 250 children. So they have some full and exciting days head. Thanks so much for your prayers.

Friday July 31st
See the picture below as construction continues on the new orphanage. We are so excited to see the progress you have helped us make. This is the first of three buildings. It is the dorm building. The building is 140' long and will be divided into separate living quarters, with a nanny for each of 5 to 6 children. This will give them a parent "type" guardian to watch after them. Each child will have his or her own bed, WOW, most have never had one. I just can't express enough, how grateful I, and these kids are for the prayers and support you have so generously given. You have made this progress possible............Mike

July 24th 2009
Getting close to our team trip on August 4th. We will be taking medical supplies, computers, and toys for the kids. It will be a good trip. I'm only back for two weeks, then off again for a pastors conference. This will be a fantastic opportunity to encourage and equip these dedicated pastors literally giving their lives away for the sake of the gospel. Please pray for them, and us. We will also be taking with us, a delegation of business people. These are wanting to see how best to invest in business to create jobs and income for the people. This is something that we have prayed for for a long time. Please pray that doors are opened for these opportunities. When I get back I will post some pictures of our orphanage construction progress...........Mike

July 13th 2009
Just a quick note of appreciation for all the people that have lately been putting their Faith in Action. It is one thing to say that we are so touched by the stories we hear about the children in Haiti. And quite another to do something about it. The poverty and the oppression on these children is almost insurmountable for them to have any chance at an upbringing that will allow them to be sustainable and have a family of their own, if they even live that long. But some of you lately are amazing examples to all of us.
A Garage sale that netted over $10,000. A worship/Dance performance, for" the least of these". A children s walk-a-thon, where families with small children can walk a couple blocks and show first hand how to put even the smallest Faith in Action. A hot dog stand for the support of the participants of the next mission team. These simple acts, are exactly what Jesus was talking about in Mt. 25:31. And these simple acts are what is building a new orphanage for these children and providing them with a new well of clean drinking water, and sending them to free school and feeding them....Get the connection....We do, and we thank you....Very much....Mike

July 9th 2009

We are so very excited about all the activity at the Good Shepherd in Marose, Haiti. We are well under construction of the first building of the new orphanage. The building is 140' long, and is divided into 12' X 15' rooms. These will be the living spaces for the kids and nannies. Our approach is to assign a full time nanny to about 5 children. Meeting not only their physical needs, but some love and personal attention as well. All eating will still be done corporately to insure good nutritional meals. Special thanks to our regular supporters and those that attended our 1st annual fundraiser dinner in May. This is the result of your compassionate giving. To help these children have just the very basics of life.

Our next team trip is August 4th. The team is set and getting ready to experience the heart of God. Please pray for them, and their mission.

We would very much appreciate you prayers for the up-coming pastors conference August 24th. This will equip, encourage, and empower selected pastors that have dedicated their lives to advancing the gospel in Haiti.

7/8/09

First Post; Thank you so much to Maria, a wonderful, big hearted Woman, Wife, and Mother, who seeks God and sees with her heart, the things that He sees, and is willing to do something about it. We are very appreciative and inspired by her............

Welcome to your own blog :)

Hi Mike & Chris :)

This is the beginning of your new blog ... and this is where YOU will post ...

Maria