Brandon & Jessica

Meet some people from Pistere.

These ladies were here everyday to watch the drilling. And they were hilarious!

We met with their Kasak (mayor) pastor, and school director before we began drilling, and we were pleasantly surprised. This community already had a water committee formed, they sent in a formal written request for a well, and they knew exactly where the greatest need was in their community.

Now meet the people from Crossroads Church in Colorado.

The first day-setting up the drill rig.

You have a community that needs clean water, and you have a church that donated money for a new well. But that isn’t the peanut butter and jelly part, yet. The true peanut butter and jelly happened because the community of Piste understands and values the need for clean water, and Crossroads did one very important thing before coming to visit-they read “When helping hurts”. So instead of thinking they were coming down to drill a well, or to fix Haiti, or whatever reason they thought, they were very open to the fact that they are visitors-here to see and experience a different culture and to see the need. And the key difference being that when they saw the people and their need, they didn’t react emotionally by trying to just give them stuff. Of course it can be hard to come down and see a place like Haiti and not emotionally react. It’s so different here.They live very differently than we are used to seeing in the States.

But because this team read that book to help prepare their hearts and minds, there was a difference in how they interacted with the community and treated the people there. In addition to the fact that this community was special.  Haiti is has long history of foreigners coming in telling them what to do, and also doing it for them. They have a history of receiving handouts, and thus a lot of people react to seeing foreigners by holding their hands out and asking for something. Now this is neither here nor there. It simply is what it is. It is a controversial topic, and one in which I’m not in the mood to debate. But, know that the vicious cycle is the expectation from some Haitians that when we show up anywhere, we have to give them something. And on the flip side are foreigners (ourselves included!) who see such huge needs and want to help by giving stuff. But is giving someone a piece of candy helping them? Or hurting them? I mean, it’s only a piece of candy for goodness sake. But what about clothes, since some of theirs are torn and worn? Or how about money for a new house since they live in a mud hut with a mud floor?  And on and on it goes.

My point being, there will always be needs in a place like Haiti. So how we go about helping with those needs is very important. And of course we have, and will continue to make mistakes along the way. But we are also so pumped that Living Water is transitioning to really work on the development side of things too, so that we are not simply giving things away and doing it for them. That, and it’s not just about the water. Because we can meet basic needs-and that is very important-but do they know the Lord? And how are we supporting and building up the local church in the process?  When you read a book like ‘When helping hurts’, your perspective changes a bit. And you want to help in a way that edifies and builds those who you are helping up.

I saw peanut butter and jelly happen with this team simply because the people in the community weren’t asking for handouts while we were there-they were so thankful that we were trying to help them get clean water. And the team was there to simply see the need, and show those people God’s love. They didn’t bring lots of stuff that can sometimes cloud the message of “I love you and so does Jesus”. The times the community and the team looked forward to the most were simply the times spent together-playing on the soccer field every afternoon, doing Bible stories with them, chatting with the crowd that sat by the rig to watch, or visiting people’s homes and praying with them.

And not to spoil the ending, but we didn’t find water. After drilling to about 80 feet, and casing the hole, we discovered there was no water there. The formations looked like there would be water, but in fact, there was not. Our first dry hole. That dry hole hurts, especially after you get to know the people who live there. We walked to the next closest hand pumps and one was a half mile away, the other a full mile. Of course we prayed and pleaded with the Lord to produce water. And He reminded us that He is indeed in control. His timing is perfect, even though it would have been great timing to hit water with the team here. So we’ll continue to drill, until we find water or we run out of drilling pipe.

Where to begin?

We’ve been back a week now, and sometimes switching from one universe to the next isn’t a big deal, and other times it leaves my head spinning. Do you want to know what I was doing the last 48 hours before we left? Certainly cramming in more family time, but also shopping and stocking up on all sorts of ‘needed’ times. I get so intense those last hours. I have a constant tetris game going on inside my head, trying to picture our two suitcases and what will fit. Can I get away with three boxes of wheat thins or just two? I’ll take them out of the box, but will it be pointless because they’ll get all squished and broken? And of course I end up with about a dozen books I can’t leave behind, because even though we got a kindle for Christmas last year, I still buy or borrow hardcopies because I do love the smell of a book book-something a kindle can’t replace. That and my husband doesn’t share very well, so it’s a marriage saver when I have my own something to read.

This last minute packing, weighing, packing, cramming, sweating nonsense has become quite comical to on lookers. My mom and mother in law were around to witness my insanity and tried to help but realized it was like trying to step into a swirling Toronto and not get sucked in. At first glance, it seems like nothing will fit,but I have learned the art of stuffing and will leave no item behind. And of course, all this is done the hour before we are supposed to leave, causing us to usually be a little late for the trek up to LAX.

And for what? I sit here a week later, and can hardly even remember or find those precious items I felt couldn’t be left in the states. Well, that may not be entirely true as I just had some chocolate covered macadamia nuts (can’t exactly find those here) and I did use some yummy vanilla powder in my trader joe’s coffee this morning.

But then, after driving through town the other day, I feel like so lamel. How is that? I can buy buy buy, consume and consume and not feel any remorse in the states. And yet just a day after coming back here, I see a large family living in a small hut with not a whole of material possessions in the world, and my mind goes blank. What was I doing?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my three bags were excessive-yes we did pay extra for two extra bags!- but it still gets me thinking. It’s so easy to be consumed by what surrounds you. I’m not always thankful for living here, a place that constantly reminds me how much I have, or how wealthy I really am. On some of my hard or bad days, when maybe our generator goes out, or our batteries die, or we can’t get the water to turn on, or our truck breaks down-all it really does after I vent and sometimes have a small pity party-is remind me that I have all those things. I have a house with plumbing inside, knowing most of my neighbors do not. In fact, 7 out of every 10 people in Haiti just go right outside anywhere. Or how about when I’m mid shower and we run out of water? I’ve learned, two years into this, to take a deep breath and that soap left on my body will dry off just fine. Okay, who I am kidding, I’m not always that cool about it. And when I do freak out, I feel like such a tool because none of my neighbors even have running water in their houses.

To be honest, those are the things that make me both love Haiti, and not love it so much. I don’t like to be constantly reminded of how well off I am. I don’t like to read verses about the rich young ruler and realize that I am indeed that rich. It’s annoying. I’m not rich, Bill Gates and his friends are. I don’t like that I can hardly go a few days without seeing, experiencing, or hearing of someone’s struggle to live and survive.

But since when is it all about me?

I chuckle to myself because God has to remind me of that a lot. It’s not all about you Jessica. There is more than what meets the eye-God sees our hearts. So, thankfully or not so thankfully sometimes, living here allows me to examine my heart. Often. The Lord is showing me, teaching me, and reminding me, that I am accountable before the Lord. Period. Me and only me will stand before His mighty throne and have to give an account of what I did with my time and my resources.

I didn’t mind grocery shopping back in the states. I know plenty of people who hate that job, but not me. However, grocery shopping here in Haiti isn’t so fun. The main reason? We have a huge out door market and it’s not exactly like the quaint ‘outdoor market’/ farmers market we all are used to. If you take away the fresh cut flowers, the free samplings, clean tables displaying goods, and people sauntering about with their dogs-they are basically the same. Our food items are displayed in in what I would describe as opened up rice bags filled with the basics-like flour, sugar, wheat, etc. And make shift tables display goods like mini stores-one table holds all household items, another canned goods, another meat, etc. Whatever scarce produce and veggies you can find are all piled up nicely, but laying on the ground instead of a table. And it sounds like you are at a flea market because there is a hum throughout the whole place-this low murmur of women bantering back and forth. The way these Haitian women negotiate is an art form! I’m of course intimidated, but after the rough markets in Port de Paix, Cap Haitian isn’t that bad! I used to have to simply concentrate on walking the narrow pathways without stepping on food, into a nasty puddle, or running into someone else. I’ve had to get used to arguing over the price of my chicken, rice, beans, cleaning product, everything. And the point is, you have to negotiate. It’s just the way it’s done. You never take the first price, because word will quickly spread among the small booths that you don’t know what you are doing. Trust me, that is experience talking! It’s never too unfriendly, but I have to be on my A game at all times!  Thankfully, now Manette will go for me or with me too.

But we also have two grocery stores. That’s right, two. That is two more than we had in Port de Paix. And one even has sliced turkey and sometimes cheese. I know, delightful! It’s about the size of a small 7-11, but it’s like heaven when you can find sometimes find cream cheese, chocolate, baguettes, and on the rare occasion yogurt. The other grocery store is like the size of a normal 7-11, but it doesn’t always have power, so buying things there can be a gamble. I’ve learned-the hard way to only buy a few things there.

One of the best stocked days-I had to take a picture. Do you see the cream cheese and even FETA?? Yes it's about triple the 'normal' price, but some things are worth it!

Kind of like the organic isle in a grocery store-way over priced. It's for the folks who don't wanna brave the market!

You never, ever get a chance to forget where anything is from in Haiti..fish with all body parts attached.

We have also discovered the other side of life, that is the other side of the border. Just on the other side of the border, in the Dominican Republic, they have pretty amazing stores! Including but not limited to: a great grocery store, hardware store, pet store, ice cream store, and even a tasty restaurant with high speed internet!! It’s pretty much amazing. We’ve figured out we can hop over there and do some shopping in one day, and hop back. So, a little bit ago, we did just that with some friends.

We took the hour or so drive to the border, parked a car, and all piled out. Everyone brought duffle bags to fill up on goodies we are missing, and heading across. They day was filled with tasty food, shopping at the hardware store for the boys, a mini sad like Kmart, but a haven to us girls(complete with hangers, hair dye, and even some Christmas decorations!!) and ended with everyone at the grocery store. Do you remember that old show, Super Market Sweep? Where they would time couples and race about the grocery store to win a prize? Well, that’s pretty much what it’s like. Because while this store has more than we can ever get in Haiti, it’s not stocked like stores in the US. And therefore, when you spot something you have to go for it. Like tortillas, or tortillas chips, or yogurt. There could be five of those items,or only one. Sometimes you have to be ruthless, and sometimes we’ll each just take one and share with each other-of course it depends on the item! But it was such a fun day, hanging out and doing activities we all miss-even that old chore of grocery shopping!

That is Nikki riding in the back of this cart thing that took all our groceries the few blocks to the border for us! Nikki took one for the team and rode in there to keep an eye on our stuff. Cracked me up!

Nick and Nikki in the back of the truck loaded down with groceries.

We all squished in one car-very Haitian of us-Left to right-Nikki, Nick, Jillian, Dan, Julie, Tabitha.

The border.

I have been a Christian for a long time, and was baptized when I was little. However, I don’t remember that important event.  And I have thought about doing it again, several different times throughout my life. I was going to do it in high school, when I finally starting making Christianity more than just something I did because my parents did, or just going to church on Sunday. I thought about doing it again about three years ago when I really began to grow in my relationship with Him. But it always felt strange, since I had been baptized before. But it also felt strange that I didn’t remember it. Don’t you think something like that should be remembered? And so, when one of the pastors on the trip announced he was going to do baptisms, I perked up. I thought, it’s time. It seemed appropriate to  do in Haiti, considering this is where the Lord ultimately led Brandon and I. It was three years ago that we began to question ourselves, our relationship with the Lord, and what it really meant to be a Christian. We read several books like Crazy Love, The Hole in our Gospel, and Forgotten God and they left us questioning our walk with the Lord and our commitment to Him. Of course we loved Jesus. Sure we wanted to please Him and do good. We went to church on Sunday, were in a growth group during the week, we tithed and volunteered. But something wasn’t quite right.

All we knew was that God wanted us-all of us-and nothing less.

And He wanted obedience. In my experience, sometimes obedience is that nagging feeling in the bottom of your stomach-knowing your supposed to do something but not sure how to do it or even if you want to.  In our lives, it started with small things, things that seemed fairly inconsequential at the moment. But I believe God was challenging us, giving us opportunities to obey him to see if we would choose to obey-even when it’s hard, or inconvenient, or not what we wanted.  Of course there were times-and still are-when we know what the Lord wants or is asking but we still don’t do it. Why? I’m not sure really. Fear is one. Or my pride will get in the way. Or even laziness. But He is faithful.  Even when we miss an opportunity, or disobey Him, he freely forgives when we repent, and gives us another chance.

So I did it. Even though I felt slightly silly, since I have been a Christian for a long time and baptism seems to be something you do when you first become a Christian, or when you are ready for everyone to know. But I think the reason I finally did it was actually because it became an obedience issue. Those other times I mentioned how I wanted to get baptized throughout the years was because I think the Lord wanted me to. But I didn’t want to. It seemed embarrassing to do it so many years after I had given my life to the Lord-like I wasn’t that committed at the time, or only now was I wanting others to know. So, as strange as it felt-as a missionary getting baptized-I did it. And it was pretty awesome.

Everyone on the team went out for culture day, and one part of that day was visiting a beautiful Caribbean beach. There were five of us who wanted to get baptized and we took turns being dunked into the clear warm ocean. We shared our testimony with everyone else who was there. And it was pretty cool to have Brandon on the other side of me, baptizing me with Ryan.

Brandon and Ryan baptized me.

I forgot to tell you that the poor second liquid church team had a few uninvited visitors too. We found and killed three large spiders while the first team was here. In fact, check out this story…

I went upstairs after getting home one day with the team. I went to shut our door and right behind it was a giant spider. I remained fairly calm, considering,and ran downstairs yelling for Brandon. But turns out he was outside and the panic in my voice got worse. One of the team guys, Jeff, asked if he could help with anything. In fact, his direct quote was, “Is there something I can help you with? Because you are calling your husband in that high pitched panic voice my wife sometimes uses when she’s freaked out.” I paused to laugh and breathed a sigh of relief. Because even though I pride myself on killing all sorts of nasty bugs here, I haven’t been able to kill these beasts yet. If I’m forced-like I”m home alone and it’s him v.s me- of course I will I step up and rid Haiti of one less hairy legged monster. Until then, I am perfectly okay with being the damsel in distress and asking for help! So Jeff followed me upstairs along with a  few other curious people. I grabbed the best spider killing instrument-the broom. You can’t use a shoe for these things. Using a shoe would require getting way too close, and you have to use the right broom otherwise they just grab the bristles and swing back at you. So Jeff assumed the position, wound up and smacked him good. He scriveled up into a ball and Jeff turned to me with a satisfied face. However, myself and Dawn weren’t too sure. We voted for another at bat. They are too large to do anything but smash them to pieces. But Jeff thought once was enough-until he went in for a further inspection and wouldn’t you know his little leg twitched. Jeff grabbed the broom, handle first, and went for the glory. But the spider had the last laugh because as Jeff made contact black oozy stuff squirted on his arm! No lie. We all screamed out and Jeff calmly asked me to remove to black goo from his arm. I used a precious Clorox wipe, thinking that the bleach should kill whatever that stuff was, and Jeff was worth using a wipe on considering he did kill it and all. And now, weeks later, I can’t close that door without first checking behind it to see if any more of those things are lurking around.

So the second team didn’t get to see any of them that up close and personal. But the guys did find one outside while unloading the trucks. They took care of business and vowed not to tell the ladies-and I can totally support the ‘on a need to know’ theory when it comes to that! Except when downloading photos I found this photo…

His face says it all.

They have come and gone. It’s been almost three weeks, and I’m just now getting to post some thoughts and photos. That malaria really put me behind, and I still am not caught up on all my random thoughts and musings that I love sharing with you! So for now, you’ll be getting information just a bit behind, and I am sorry about that. What I love about our blog is updating you on life as it happens here-so for now just pretend you are streaming a video with terrible internet and instead of a just a few seconds of a  delay-this is like a three week delay!

Not only was being sick terrible, but that also meant I was not able to participate in any other activities. And as such, I hardly went out with the team! It was killing me, but Dr. Stone had me under strict rules-and even though I felt better while they were here, I still got tired super easy and couldn’t risk not getting better. So typically, when a team is here, Brandon and I split up the team for the day. Brandon will take half and show them how to drill, how the rig works, and they work on getting the church/school/community clean water. While they are busy doing that, I take the other half of the team and  we interact with Haitians. We do Bible stories, hygiene lessons, visit homes in the community. Because even though people think they are coming down here to drill a well, that isn’t the only thing they are doing!  And that is why Brandon and I make a good team. Brandon is in charge of the logistics and everything involved with that, I am making sure that they don’t just remember the hole they drilled in the ground, but the people they served and helped too.

A sea of yellow! The kids were so excited that the team wasn't just there to drill-they played games with them, did Bible stories and simply loved on them!

Christy doing a Bible study lesson for the kids.

The team praying over the hole after they finished drilling.

Norm, Alice, Christy, Brett and Greg

Doing devos out on the balcony in the morning... what a great time of gathering together before the craziness of the day!

The whole gang! And with the director of the school-and our amazing translator Ivenor!

Praying and sharing with the community before they left...it's always hard to say goodbye.

It was super fun to have another group from the same church come and visit. As always, it was so nice to sit and chat with them and hear their hearts-for serving, missions and even Haiti. The cool part is that this church has already planned another trip sometime in the spring. We are amazed at the passion they have for the Lord, for sharing the gospel, and for giving people something so needed and so simple-clean water.