Sunday Morning ServiceTuesday, March 10, 2009
Praise the Lord, we are home safe! God blessed us with safe travel and we arrived at the church around 1:30 am. Leaving Port Au Prince was quite exciting for a few minutes, Bill Clinton was coming in and they had the roads closed to the airport. There were men in uniforms along the streets with big guns! (and people everywhere) Willem was able to talk to one of the guards while we had to pile into one vehicle and the truck with our luggage to get through. It was like something you would see on TV!
Sunday morning church was a great way to prepare us for coming home. The singing was wonderful, they sang with such passion! Kent Lawson shared a few thoughts and then sang
" Above All". Pastor Fred preached with Wilem interrupting. I wish we had video the service because it was just amazing to see. The presences of the Lord was there from the beginning to the end!
I will be adding more pictures to the blog so keep checking!
God Bless and thank you for your prayers!
Louise
Sunday morning church was a great way to prepare us for coming home. The singing was wonderful, they sang with such passion! Kent Lawson shared a few thoughts and then sang
" Above All". Pastor Fred preached with Wilem interrupting. I wish we had video the service because it was just amazing to see. The presences of the Lord was there from the beginning to the end!
I will be adding more pictures to the blog so keep checking!
God Bless and thank you for your prayers!
Louise
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
This picture was taken on Wednesday when we weredoing the footer and leveling the ground.
There is so much to tell you all but it is so hard to put it into words.
Working on the house has been quite an experience. There is a lot of
people there to help us and several young boys. There are two women
who work all day long. they have walked this narrow path that was at an
at an incline. They carried buckets of sand on their head, and then today
they carried cement blocks on their head. The whole family has worked
on their home. Today the walls went up and we got to put the prayer blocks
in blocks and surrounded the home with your prayers! That was such a
blessing. I will add some pictures of the home for you to see.
This is something Tracy Sarris wrote ( she is here with First Baptist Church) after our experience on the plane. I believe you will enjoy it.
Louise
Monday morning 3 a.m. came too quickly for our Haiti Mission Team. Fourteen willing and eager Believers heading out to do something to reflect God's Glory. Things started out with prayer, donuts and hot coffee. The ride to the airport held an air of expectation and laughter as team members started their journey toward Haiti and lifelong friendships. Stories of previous trips mixed with reassurances for those on their first mission trip. The Spirit was there and was beginning to prepare us for things to come. Throughout the day God showed His Presence. He was there is the last minute need to check oversized carry-ons without having to pay the $200 in fees. He revealed Himself in the scales falling from the eyes of American Airlines staff allowing them to realize that those funds could be used for the work in Haiti. He exposed His Power in our rush to a connecting flight delayed just long enough for the Team to arrive. Another God moment was when the mechanics discovered a gas leak on the plane that we had just boarded. Our spirits remained high as we waited for a new plane on which we would finish the last leg of this journey,seeing God at every turn, feeling His Touch. Yet again God preparing us for what was to come. Constantly revealing that He was there. You see, that last plane almost went down. The storm that was bearing down on Haiti during our descent caused the plane to careen from side to side as we attempted to fly into Port Au Prince. The feeling was that of a poorly planned amusement park ride. Instead of hearing the reassuring sound of the landing gear making contact with pavement, the plane went up quickly, the nose at a 45 degree angle as the pilot pulled the over 200 passangers and crew of flight 803 back into the sky. THe view from the window as runway lights, lightening and nothing but clouds. Later we learned we were less than 500 feet from the ground. If that pilot had not acted so quickly we would have been the latest story on CNN, statistics...number on a chart indicating lives lost to air travel in March 2009. Talk to anyone on that flight and one word keeps coming to the forefront...prayer. The crew did their job that day and for that we are thankful, but ultimately it was The Hand of God that lifted American Airlines 803 to Port Au Prince out of that storm. His Plan March 2, 2009 did not include a loss of life but if it had we WOULD NOT have become only statistics, numbers or names on the news. We would have given testimony, glory and honor to our Lord through obedience unto death. That night five mission teams, over half of that passenger list, lived out and almost died Paul's statements in Phillipians 1:19-21. And for that and the courage provded as only God can in times af great trial...I am thankful. Blessings, Tracey "I will have suffiicent courage so that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death
Louise
Monday morning 3 a.m. came too quickly for our Haiti Mission Team. Fourteen willing and eager Believers heading out to do something to reflect God's Glory. Things started out with prayer, donuts and hot coffee. The ride to the airport held an air of expectation and laughter as team members started their journey toward Haiti and lifelong friendships. Stories of previous trips mixed with reassurances for those on their first mission trip. The Spirit was there and was beginning to prepare us for things to come. Throughout the day God showed His Presence. He was there is the last minute need to check oversized carry-ons without having to pay the $200 in fees. He revealed Himself in the scales falling from the eyes of American Airlines staff allowing them to realize that those funds could be used for the work in Haiti. He exposed His Power in our rush to a connecting flight delayed just long enough for the Team to arrive. Another God moment was when the mechanics discovered a gas leak on the plane that we had just boarded. Our spirits remained high as we waited for a new plane on which we would finish the last leg of this journey,seeing God at every turn, feeling His Touch. Yet again God preparing us for what was to come. Constantly revealing that He was there. You see, that last plane almost went down. The storm that was bearing down on Haiti during our descent caused the plane to careen from side to side as we attempted to fly into Port Au Prince. The feeling was that of a poorly planned amusement park ride. Instead of hearing the reassuring sound of the landing gear making contact with pavement, the plane went up quickly, the nose at a 45 degree angle as the pilot pulled the over 200 passangers and crew of flight 803 back into the sky. THe view from the window as runway lights, lightening and nothing but clouds. Later we learned we were less than 500 feet from the ground. If that pilot had not acted so quickly we would have been the latest story on CNN, statistics...number on a chart indicating lives lost to air travel in March 2009. Talk to anyone on that flight and one word keeps coming to the forefront...prayer. The crew did their job that day and for that we are thankful, but ultimately it was The Hand of God that lifted American Airlines 803 to Port Au Prince out of that storm. His Plan March 2, 2009 did not include a loss of life but if it had we WOULD NOT have become only statistics, numbers or names on the news. We would have given testimony, glory and honor to our Lord through obedience unto death. That night five mission teams, over half of that passenger list, lived out and almost died Paul's statements in Phillipians 1:19-21. And for that and the courage provded as only God can in times af great trial...I am thankful. Blessings, Tracey "I will have suffiicent courage so that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Trip (as told by Tricia)
All I can inform you of is my brief phone conversations with my parents on their trips. Their flight left from Indy fine Monday morning. In Chicago they were faced with an hour delay which put them barley in time for their flight in Miami. They were not sure if their luggage was going to make the flight but they were happy to be on it themselves. Upon taxing out to the runway the plane was turned around due to a problem that is unknown to all. But this did give everyone time to eat and luggage time to catch up. Their flight eventually made it off the ground from Miami to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The flight is ruffly an hour and a half so upon departing into Port-au-Prince their was a bad storm which created so turbulence on the plane and the pilot could not land the plane. He circles around and eventually turned around and went back to Miami while he still had the gas. The members of the team had to go back through customs, uncheck all 30 pieces of luggage and stay the night in a hotel in Miami then board a new flight at 7 o'clock this morning and are now happy to say they have made it to Haiti. But the "God"ness in it all is that last night on the flight from Miami to Port-au-Prince when the turbulence got horrible and Mom was scared my Dad reminder that is was shortly after 7pm and the church was praying for them. Mom will update you with more information and I know they already have pictures they are excited to share.
Sunday Morining
Lori Watkins announced that see will be leading prayer meetings every evening of the mission trip for the mission team. The meetings will be held at 7 pm and everyone is invited to come and lift the team in prayer. If you are unable to attend we hope you set your alarm at home to pray for the team especially at that time. Then the entire team came forward and the church surrounded them in prayer.
As a church we gathered around our mission team and prayed for their safety and that God would make them his hands and feet in Haiti. We continue to pray while they are gone but hopefully the image of the mission members surrounded in prayer by their church is enough to remind us that we are all going as a church not just a mission team.
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