WOW!

It feels like it's been forever since I've been able to blog!  The internet here has been up and down for the last week.  Partly due to the sketchy weather and partly because equipment was just in limbo for a while, Praise the Lord that it looks like everything is figured out and the ministry down here can rely on the net for there own work.  Weather here hasn't really been that bac for us, we've had some rain, more than the area is used to, but it hasn't gotten in the way of life for us.  Also, the winds that have come with the tropical storm in the area have really lowered temperatures a lot which is a blessing.  Please do pray for the families living in the IDP camps.  Rain only make living in tents that much harder.

PRAISE THE LORD!!  On July 15th I aksed that you all would pray for the release of shipping containers on the docks in Port-au-Prince.  The ministry here has been waiting for supplies critical to building projects on our compund.  Last week most of our project took a day to fast and pray for the release of the containers, and the next day 4 of the most critical containers were released!!  Two have already been transported to our compound and are quickly being unloaded and put to use.

Life here has beeen a combination of sharing the gospel at IDP camps, doing working projects on our camp, spending some time at a Christian School in Port-au-Prince sharing testimonies and loving on the kids there, fellowshipping with and being a light to Chambrun, building relationships with our own team and the Haitian students who are working alongside us, and also just building relathioship within our team-the Lord has brought some great people to serve here in Haiti and I'm excited to have a whole new wave pf project friends when I get back to the States. 

So much has happened since I've been able too post last there's so much ot share, but for today I'm just going to let you in on a journal entry from July 21. 

We just had small group time to discuss the "Weh Helping Hurts" article in our project notebook.  We had a really good discussion about how we see the results of broken relationships and "god-complexes" in our lives.

At then end of the discussion, Dana (one of the Haitian students in our discussion group) told a stroy about how she has been seeing God work in here life.  She told us that before the earthquake she was asking God to show her how she could serve Him.  She said she knew that as Christians we are supposed to serve God, but that she was very shy and didn't know how she fit into God's plan. 

After the earthquake, God brought her to this summer project.  Now she said she sees how God can use her.  Before the earthquake she never talked about God outside of her Campus Crusade firends.  She said she was very nervous the first time she went to the IDP camp to talk about God to people she didn't know.  But now, she sees how God can use her in His plan.  She loves telling God's story to people who hae never heard it.

This is by far one of my favorite stories from project.  Looking at the physical and emotional mess left after the earthquake, it is almost unimaginable to think that God can use it for good, but seeinf the spiritual revival that could be possible in our generation, I praying God is raising up a generation of leaders who love Him and are going to love and lead Haiti!

Quick Update

Hey All,

I don't have much cocmputer time and the net has been down the last couple days so here's a quick update:

--Saturday we went into Port-au-Prince to visit the Campus Crusade movement there, we drove through most of the city and saw the physical devastation of the EQ.

--Yesterday we wen to an IDP camp to share the gospel

--We have been to Chambrun, the local community a couple of times, we have showed he Jesus Film, distributed supplies, and just hung out.

Hopefully I'll get a better post sometime soon, please pray for team unity.  Our team has had some great highs, but we're definitely seeing the results of losing battles to our own pride.  Please pray our whole team would be filled with love!

Check out the team blog

Hey all,

I thought I had put together a blog before I left with this info, but I guess not.  There is a blog that our whole team is keeping at hopeforhaiti.posterous.com I got to put together a post tonight, hopefully it will be up tomorrow.

Haiti Update

Hi from Randi's Mom,
She wanted me to post for her.
Today was great, we met the Haitian students we'll be working with and spent the morning building community with them and leaning kreole, it was a blast!  After lunch we had our first work projects.  I worked with the group that was helping to make the rooms more malaria net friendly.  All the grounds are pretty new and so the rooms are constantly being tweaked, it took some doing and some time, but we were able to finish and get it all done :)  Our group even used every tool I brought so that made me happy of course :)  God is really drilling Isaiah 40:27-31 home to me, helping me to see that HE's got this all under control.

The GAIN leaders here told us today that there are over 1000 cargo loads of relief supplies sitting on the docks waiting to go through customs, some have been there for months, please pray that they would be released ASAP.

On Our Way!

Good morning from the Miami airport! Our team is all checked in and waiting for our airplane to come take us to Haiti! Surpringsly, my experience at the Miami airport has been much less stressful since the last time I has here 6 months ago :) Last night our we had a big team meeting to go over logistics and at the end we got together with the Haiti team 2 to pray for eachother as we both go out, them to return home changed forever and us to this great new adventure God has for us. Thank you all so much for your prayers, I'm not getting through this without you guys. If you can check our team blog later tonight, I think I'll get to write on it tonight! Love, Randall

CAMP!!!

I spent last week up at Crescent Lake Bible Camp-Family Camp week 1, soooo good!!  Alex and Jake weren't able to join us because they are both in Guatemala until tomorrow, so Nick brought his friend Thomas along.  The whole week was great, the speaker spoke on Elisha, very interesting, and the rain stayed away after Tuesday for the most part.  Here are some of my favorite pics from the week.

Our sunset Sunday night.

 Thomas and Nick enjoying some Frolf action :)

Nick ripping it up on the kneeboard

Dale really ripping it up on the wakeboard!

Nick, Thomas, and me getting ready for the triathlon

Me wakeboarding

Overall the week was great, lots of good fellowship with our camp family and just having fun.  More stories to come I'm sure!  As you may have notice earlier in the week I posted a blog called "Challenge by Choice" that's not up anymore.  I was really in a rush to just get it posted and I've been reading it and there's just something I don't like about it right now.  So, I'm taking it down for a little tweaking, yes T-W-E-A-K-I-N-G tweaking (please pardon the movie reference that only Alex and Mom may see, I couldn't help myself), and hopefully it will make a reappearance soon.

As you may have noticed....

As you may have noticed I have done a terrible job keeping my promise of posting this summer.  I've have a few posts that have been in the works for a while that I just haven't been able to put out there yet, but now as I get closer to Haiti I know more people will be checking to see what's new.  So here's an update and the plan:

On Monday the 12th I leave for a Campus Crusade for Christ summer project in Chambrun Haiti.  I will spend 3 weeks working on a compound near an internally displaced people's community serving and loving families who lost everything in the January earthquakes.

Tomorrow our family (those of us left in the States anyway = not Alex and Jake) leave for a week at Crescent Lake Bible Camp.  So excited to spend a week at camp!  I'm hoping that the time to just be at camp will give me some good time to spend with Jesus and will let me write and publish a couple of blogs that are in the works.

So, hopefully we'll be talking soon :)