August 9 and 10 The departure day for the team began with a brief message on Acts 20, where Paul left on one of his missionary journeys.  The message was regarding the fact that there is always a time to depart. We dropped the Wood Run group off at the airport first, then headed off through PAP to get a check cashed and actually saw traffic lights and street signs.  We stopped for souvenirs and cold...

August 7 & 8 We’ve had some kids at the orphanage sick with malaria this week, and they are better now.  Everyone is careful to take their malaria meds. Today 20 orph kids and 21 adults piled into the 16-passenger van and old pickup truck and headed for the beach!  We had fun when we finally got in as the gatekeepers wanted to charge more for the white Americans than the Haitians (a...

August 6, 2010 We feel blessed and comfortable here.  Madline, 3 years old now has become a little “chunky monkey” as she is filling out from everyone feeding her!  She came to the orphanage two years ago, when the Mandarin Baptist team was visiting and was near death.  She stayed with Dorothy in Port Au Prince for two months, who nursed her back to health and now is the star of the...

August 5, 2010 Mike and Nick had to leave bright and early at 6 a.m., driving both vehicles to take part of Dan’s group (CPR3, who work on disaster relief and are staying with Shasta’s group) to the airport and then wait in Port Au Prince for two different arriving flights, an all day task.  We all thought Mike would be discouraged spending all day at the airport, when actually he was able to...

August 4, 2010  Day Three for Mike and Bonnie Snider and the Holiday Hill and Wood Run Mission Teams in Bercy, Haiti We had a great morning devotion by the Wood Run Youth Pastor (named Ran). He cited Matthew 5:16, where Jesus encourages us as Christians to be both salt and light to the world and to let our light shine before others.  Also, Luke 6 shows us that God wants us to love our enemies and...

August 3, 2010  Day Two for Mike and Bonnie and the Holiday Hill and Wood Run Mission Teams in Bercy, Haiti  Got a late start on projects today as we had to go to Port Au Prince to register with Samaritan’s Purse.  We bought one kit house and loaded it onto the old blue truck.  Started construction on it and realized that 40 people were too many for one tiny house.  We will finish it tomorrow...

August 2, 2010 Day One for Mike and Bonnie Snider  It’s 8:21 p.m. and we are listening to the orphanage children sing before bedtime.  This was moving day for Mike and me, and day one of a mission trip for 19 people, formed from two groups.  One, from Holiday Hill church in Jacksonville and the other, Wood Run church in Tallahassee.  We are all working through the Jacksonville Baptist Association...

What an amazing week the Lord is giving us! The days are flying by as we grow more in love with the people of Haiti! As Brittany shared in her blog, we are all on our own journey here, and the Lord is using the same mission trip to accomplish so many things in the lives of each of us. One thing the Lord has reminded me is how blessed I was to have a mom and a dad who loved the Lord and were there to...

Reaching the end of the first full day in Haiti I feel like I could already right a book, but I will stick to the things that stuck out to me. David has said from the very beginning that we don’t have one trip of 22 people going to Haiti, but 22 trips with 22 separate experiences, so this would merely be one of 22 different stories and experiences everyone else is having here in Haiti. When we landed...

Recently, a pastor shared with me an interaction he had with someone as he prepared to go with us on a mission trip to Haiti. He told the man he would be unavailable because he would be out of the country for a week. The man asked him where he was a going. “Haiti”, the pastor replied. The man looked at him seriously and asked, “Haiti? Is that still going on?”  The stories...