My First Somewhat Scary Pregnancy Moment with Melissa

May22nd
2013 1 Comment Written by Ryan

We are obviously entering into new territory, as Melissa put in our last blog. Yesterday, I had my first tense moment when I learned what happened to Melissa, especially because she is pregnant. Maybe this happens to many others during pregnancy… I have no idea.

One of the workers found Melissa on the hallway floor at the guest house. She picked Melissa up and carried her to a bed. She had passed out. Melissa said she was heading to the bathroom, feeling like she was going to throw up, but then didn’t remember anything after that.

Our workers were so wonderful, immediately bringing her water to drink, propping her head up on a pillow, and wiping her face with a cold wash cloth.

When I got to Melissa, I said we should call someone. Melissa said that the ladies at the maternity center were in the middle of program, so we shouldn’t bother them. I decided to just call to see if they could give us some advice – I really didn’t know who else to call. Beth was so gracious and said to bring her over.

I brought her over to the maternity center and they ended up putting a 2-liter IV in her to replenish her fluids. Beth, Dr. Jen, and others were there and able to check up on her. It sounds like she was really dehydrated. She had been sick with Haitian happiness (as we like to call it) for the last day. Thankfully, she is doing better now.

The first-hand experience made me appreciative of Beth and all the ladies in a new way. We have always loved what they are doing. When things are difficult at the guest house, I often think about how it is helping support this program.

I wanted to share a segment of a blog Beth wrote the other day.

—

I drove John to the airport Monday morning, returned home, jumped on the treadmill and not three steps later my cell phone rang. A new lady in our program was at the maternity center bleeding. I jumped off the treadmill and into the car. Sure enough this sweet and very poor lady was miscarrying. Her husband was with her, they were newly married and really wanted a baby. Sad stuff the day after Mother’s Day.

Just as I was finishing up with her another of our ladies came in walking bent over with premature contractions. Doubled over she seemed near ready to deliver. I quickly called our nurse Wini to come help me. After all our checks we realized she was not really in labor at all but was definitely having contractions due to dehydration. We put her on some fluids and had her rest a few hours in our birth bed that wouldn’t be used for birth today. She wasn’t eating or drinking. Why not? She lost the water bottle that we gave her and a clean water source is neither free nor convenient. Eating – well, she hasn’t felt much like eating. Her body rebelled and put her into premature labor demanding food and water. Marie France has a hard life and things like enough food and water just aren’t guaranteed. We offer both those things daily but getting to us is a chore. She used to have a job to feed herself and her children but her employer raped her and here she is pregnant with her former employer’s child and no job and no money. Drinking water is the least of her problems.

Tuesday morning and I leave for the maternity center. The road is blocked so I go the back way. A giant pile of rocks meets me half way so I twist and turn through our neighborhood and somehow come out a mile or two away. I finally find a road I know and eventually make it to program. I walk in expecting a normal program day. One of our soon to be graduates is telling Agathe a story and she has tears dripping down her sweet face. Come to find out her house and neighbors were robbed and her husband was shot in the chest and in the back as he tried to run. He is now at Doctors Without Borders Hospital. This husband and dad who worked each day to care for his little family is now fighting for his life. His wife has good reason to cry. Our shoulders slump and we cry with her.

As the child development program starts one of our pregnant moms arrives with a worried look. She hasn’t felt her baby move since yesterday and she is concerned. I grab the Doppler and quickly pray I will hear a reassuring baby heartbeat. I do. Loud and strong! Crisis averted – we smile, I complete her prenatal and send her on her way. As program ends she is back, this time her skirt is soaking wet. Her bag of waters has broken. This is not good news for a mom who is only 31 weeks along and measuring really small. Not good news at all.

This is beyond our skill level and we start to look for back up. The first hospital states if she doesn’t have high blood pressure along with the broken waters they won’t take her. For the first time in my midwifery career I am hoping for a high blood pressure. Nope, perfect. We crank up our ambulance and prepare for hospital number two. While waiting for family to arrive and all the wheels to be set in motion dear little Guernise lays on our birth bed weeping. For the second time today our bed is used but not for its intended purpose. At one point I enter the room and there is Cherline, our loving housekeeper (and so much more) holding Guernise in her arms praying and crying. Women with women. Praying for one another in those grief filled and frightening times of life.

The second hospital takes her and we are relieved.

I saw a lot of sadness packed into the last two days. I also saw women who know how to pray for each other, women who know how to comfort each other and women who love each other. Our maternity center sees a lot of joy, we have a lot of fun and witness the miracle of birth over and over. Sometimes it is required of us to dip our cups into a well of sorrow and grieve with people in loss. And this we willingly do because the word midwife means to be “with women” and Christian means to be “like Christ”.

Fear can keep you up all night, but faith makes one fine pillow. ― Philip Gulley

Family, Haiti, Heartline haiti, maternity center, pregnancy

Surprise!

May19th
2013 32 Comments Written by Melissa

If you know Ryan or me very well, you’d know that we’re not the first people to want to hold someone else’s baby at a gathering, or to volunteer for nursery duty at church. I’ve always said that I’m either having zero kids or four, leaning more towards zero. In Haiti, literally everywhere you go, when you see a Haitian you’ve talked to before, they ask you, “Why don’t you have kids,” or “When are you going to have kids?” My typical response is, “I have cats.” And they laugh but continue to press on for more answers.

Sparing you the details, which if you know me well, you know that I am also not good at talking about subjects like this, Ryan and I suspected that we may… possibly … be expecting. After putting if off for a few weeks, we decided to go buy a pregnancy test. Now I didn’t want to get one from the Heartline Maternity Center because I wasn’t ready for ANYONE to know. And I couldn’t go to Delimart, our regular grocery store, because every time we go there, all the cashiers ask us when we will have kids, so they would have FREAKED out! So we found some obscure store and pulled up on our motorcycle.

Ryan, being the gentleman that he is, decided that he needed to stay out and “watch the bike” rather than going in with me on this dreaded trip. Thanks husband So I go in to the pharmacy and ask for a “bagay pou tcheke si ou ansent” (thing to check if you’re pregnant). After repeating myself a few times, the man said, “Pregnancy test?” I guess I could have just used English. So he gave me one, and I concealed it well in the bag and we zipped home on the moto.

Well, after taking that test, and then going back to the same place and buying another one the next day (from the same man who remembered me), the tests came back POSITIVE! CRAZY!!!! We were (and still are) a bit in shock, but are also super excited. It’s unbelievable to me how neither of us ever really thought we’d have kids, but as soon as we found this out, it was pure joy!

Not really sure what to do next, I called my friend Melissa who has lived in Haiti about half her life and is a nurse/midwife. Her and her husband just moved to the States, however, her husband happened to be back here needing to work a few weeks still. He is an OBGYN, and had a shift at the hospital the next day! She said we could go in for a sonogram. Thank you Lord!

So it would be our first experience in a Haitian hospital, and we had no idea what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised, as it was neat and clean. He met us with a huge smile and congratulations. I got on the exam table and he started the sonogram. At this point I still had doubts that this was actually happening and we were really pregnant. But the first second he started it, he said, “Yep, there it is.” Aaaahhhh! It was crazy. And so cool. There’s actually something in there! And moving around!

So, God willing, Ryan and I will add another member to our family mid-November. I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence, but I am finally convinced that it’s true. We are excited for the next part of this journey, and wanted to share our news with you!

Family, Haiti, Life baby, family, maternity, pregnancy

Defined Purpose

May11th
2013 2 Comments Written by Ryan

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Top 10 Qualities of Effective Mission Trip Teams « Previous

On every night we serve dinner at 6pm. At the long dinner table we get to hear stories from the guests and teams on what their day was like. Many times, it’s a great chance to talk with other groups or just process and reflect on the day.

We love seeing many teams who have a defined purpose. One of my favorite groups is a guy (Jeff) and a few others that worked closely with a Haitian friend who had a vision to start a school in Cite-Soleil. It was the heart of this Haitian friend that sparked the vision and it was all of them working together which made the vision successful. Maybe at times it can be difficult and messy but it’s highly relational partnering on a long-term vision. It was awesome seeing the partnership on the vision. I loved that it was originally conceived by a local Haitian and that Jeff listened, came along side, together they built up a mutual trust and eventually opened the school!

3 Starter thoughts on good defined purposes:

Below are 3 starter thoughts on some good defined purposes for teams. It is not in any order and there could be an additional 100 items you could add to this list. To be honest, I have struggled with what a “missions trip” is exactly and it’s purpose. Maybe it’s because we have seen all sorts of groups, maybe it’s just the semantics. Technically, we have seen work teams, vision trips, evangelism teams, discipleship teams, medical teams, security training teams, film teams, etc.

This list would encompass any of those team types. No-matter what you are doing in Haiti, it is good to consider these things:

1) Focus on Long-Term Partnerships with Local Churches The Gospel Coalition writes in there article Toward Better Short-Term Missions:

The next step is to work primarily through local churches with a long view in mind. When your short-term ministry team leaves a particular setting, Christians will still live and work where you visited. Your desire should be to serve at the request of and under local church leadership. Your disposition should be one of a learner, with the humility to take your cues from national leaders. You need to be careful, especially when dealing with money. But if you can build a level of trust, the most effective trips will be extensions of another church’s ministry. This might lead to bringing fewer team members but result in much more effective ministry.

2) Mutual Focus on the Benefits for both the guest-goers and the host-receivers

Eric Swanson, in the article “Increasing the Effectiveness of Short-Term Missions”, mentions that it is important to understand how we rate a successful missions trip.

STEM’s Roger Peterson points out that because short-term missions are often led by youth pastors, the trips follow a common pattern. Too many of them result in little missional impact on the host-receivers because of the trip objectives didn’t include that dimension. Instead, it’s tempting for the youth pastor only to set goals around the goer-guests: (1) The youth have a good time. (2) The youth get some basic discipleship. (3) The youth return home safely.

In other words, a trip can be viewed as “successful” even if nothing positive happened in the lives of the host-receivers.

It’s not wrong to have some of those objects but Eric points out an important factor:

The quality of the experience is based on the quality of the relationship between the goer-guest church and the host receiver. The stronger and more trusted the relationship, the more both sides benefited from the missional exchange.

The most effective engagement was ministry “with them” as opposed to ministry “to them” or “for them.” Churches agreed that their most effective paradigm was short-term trips in the context of a long-term relationship.

3) Discipleship

When Jesus entrusted a mini-commission to his twelve disciples, he sent them out on a short-term mission. His mini-commission had a specific purpose and a specific audience (Matthew 10). Like the twelve short-termers, Jesus sent out another seventy-two (Luke 10) as transformational short-termers into the cities where he himself would soon be ministering.

The apostle Paul’s ministry is recorded in the book of Acts as three missionary journeys through four different provinces and two different continents. His longest stay in any one place was the two years he spent in Ephesus. And yet in a span of ten years he planted multiple churches in scores of cities.

We owe much of our Christian heritage to Paul’s short-term efforts. When Jesus gave what is now called “the Great Commission” in its various forms (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:47, John 20:21, and Acts 1:8) the mission was clear: The people of God were to be a sent, missional people, sharing the gospel and making disciples wherever they went.

The best interpretation of the passage begins, “As you are going, make disciples….” What if Matthew 28 provides the answer of what we are to do for ourselves and others on short-term mission outreaches? As we are going we are to become more of a disciple, making disciples, or helping others make disciples of Jesus. After all, shouldn’t we be doing and measuring against what Jesus asked us to do? A “missions” trip after all should, by definition, include the mission Jesus sent us to do.

Everything we do–evangelism, building projects, acts of charity and mercy, back-yard Bible clubs, prayer walks, etc.–should be in service to “making disciples.” This is not to say that there is not value in “vision trips,” “cross-cultural exchanges,” “construction projects,” etc., but to call something a missions trip or missions outreach, by definition, should include the mission of making disciples. Now we have something to measure against—for the goer-guest and for the host-receiver. How does this missional experience help make disciples?

Everything we do therefore must focus on building relationships – helping people discover how God designed them to relate to Him, to relate to themselves, to others and to all of creation. Here is a powerful question to ask about our efforts to alleviate poverty: ”At the end of the day, the ultimate question for our poverty-alleviation efforts is this: Have we worked in such a way that both we and the materially poor are closer to fulfilling our highest calling of “glorifying God and enjoying Him forever?” – Helping Hurts

Final Thoughts

Darren Carlson reminds me and articulates well – “There is a tendency to try and get everything right, to discuss every scenario, to examine every possible pitfall, and in our preparation bring every person through a process that feels like boot camp. But the beauty of gospel ministry is that God is not handcuffed by our foolishness. He is still accomplishing his purposes amongst the nations. For any harm we may cause, God is using others to bring great advances for the gospel. So become a thoughtful global Christian. Think critically about cross-cultural engagement. Be convicted if you are harming the church in other cultures. But know that in the end, God is still on his throne, and his work will be accomplished.”

Haiti haiti, team

How to Learn Haitian Creole

May8th
2013 2 Comments Written by Ryan

Why learn Creole?

One thing I here from missionaries is that, I wish I took more time to learn the language when I first came to Haiti. I was reminded of this again when I read a popular article by Laura Parker describing her number one mistake was not learning the language first and only. Here is the clip from the article:

Learn the Language, First and Only. When we got here in April of 2010, we hit the ground in a full-out sprint. We gave ourselves very little time to adjust or get culturally-acclimated. Instead, we dove into ministry in a panicked frenzy. And while much may have been accomplished at the girls home we worked for, our long-term ministry and effectiveness have suffered because it has taken us so. much. longer to learn to communicate. We’ve had individual tutors, we’ve done 6-week long classes for tourists, we’ve promised {and then re-promised} to do Rosetta Stone daily, we’ve made flashcards and more flashcards. And we still only have a workably-mild grasp of the language. I assumed we would be fluent by now, honestly, and it frustrates me that I still have to pre-plan my Thai phone calls.

Learning the language while you are in the thick of ministry is like trying to get your Masters when you have small children and a full-time job. You can still do it, but it is much harder and much slower and much more frustrating. Trust me, the three months or six months {or more?} you devote to simply learning the language and adjusting to your new culture will pay off dividends in your long-term effectiveness.

How can I start learning Creole?

Of course, nothing beats learning Haitian Creole when you actually live in Haiti. As strange as it sounds, even if you live in Haiti you do need to be intentional about practicing. Here are some ways to study whether you live in Haiti or not.

Free

Sweet Coconuts Blog
She has *tons* of exercises, lessons, audio and material that you could use all for free!

University of Kansas
They have some great free material up. I would listen to the following audio with the text over and over again:

Ti Koze Kreyòl: A Haitian-Creole Conversation Manual

A tongue-in-cheek account of boy meets girl in Haitian Creole class, and of their honeymoon adventures and misadventures across Haiti. Organized as nineteen topical conversations with explanatory notes and a complete Haitian-English glossary.

Download textbook | Download audio (73.8 MB)

Free iPhone / iPad / Android Apps

Google Translate (apple store / google store) – I use this almost daily! I have my phone with me all the time so when I don’t know a word and it is important to the conversation – I have a quick-key to open up the google translate app and type it in. Works great for studying as well though it’s not 100% accurate for Creole.

There are many free apps available which are great! Some free one’s just have a few beginning lessons and then you pay for the full app.

Apps
- Android - Haitian Creole (free / paid)
- Apple - French Creole (free)
- Apple - Byki (free)

Once I started getting serious I ended up downloading a free flash card app and created my own flash cards that I could study when I had free time. If you want to access the flash cards I made just search for username “youthenme” in the app.

YouTube

Can search for “learn haitian creole” or creole sermons or about anything and find creole speaking, singing, etc.

Paid

Creole Made Easy (Amazon) – This is the way we learned. We bought this book and then hired a Haitian to teach us 3 days a week for 2 hours. There is a workbook and CD’s you can buy to supplement this book. We did this for 6 months when we first arrived.

Other paid methods

Haiti Hub – Fantastic resource! You pay a one-time $100 for a life time subscription.

Byki App (iPad / iPhone / Android) – Great way to learn with a flash card learning style with listening.

The Pimsleur Method - Known others that have used this method and enjoyed it.

Haiti creole, haiti

“Sitting in a Chair in the Sky” Hilarious Clip & Fantastic Documentary of Haiti

May4th
2013 2 Comments Written by Ryan

In my opinion, I found this documentary to be fairly accurate and well done. He ends up asking the hard questions which I liked.

This next clip is just hilarious :-) Don’t mind the subtitles.

Haiti, Video documentary, funny clip, haiti

Macaroni au Gratin

Apr26th
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Melissa

This recipe is brought to you by our cook Marjory. When she was one year old, her mother died, and so she was taken in by another Haitian woman. This woman was an incredible cook, and taught Marjory most everything she knows, including this recipe. It has become a guesthouse favorite!

Ingredients:

For chicken

(From steps 1 & 2 of Haitian spaghetti recipe)

15 chicken drumsticks
3 limes (or Haitian sour oranges)
Vinegar
Salt
Parsley, 1 bunch
Scallions (green onions), 1 bunch
Garlic, 1 head
Chicken bouillon, 1 cube
Butter

Remaining Ingredients

Oil (any kind)
Salt
Garlic (2 pieces)
Butter
Flour
Milk
Mayonnaise
Rigatoni pasta (10 6-oz. bags)
Mozzarella cheese, shredded – 2 1/2 lbs.

Step 1: Prepare Chicken

Follow steps 1 & 2 from the Haitian Spaghetti recipe. *Be sure to save about 3/4 cup water from when you boil the chicken the second time. Add it to the chicken after it is shredded. It will give it extra flavor.

Step 2: Prepare noodles

Bring water, a splash of oil, some salt, 1 green onion, and 2 pieces of garlic to a boil. Add rigatoni pasta and cook until al dente. Drain water and discard garlic and green onion. Pour noodles into a large bowl and set aside.

Step 3: Make the Sauce

In medium saucepan, melt 3 Tbsp. butter. Add a large spoonful of flour and several cups of milk. Heat to a boil until it thickens. Stir continuously! If sauce is chunky when thick, you can pour it through a fine strainer to remove chunks.

Add about 2/3 cup mayonnaise and stir well. Taste and if it still needs more flavor, you can add salt and/or a small part of a crushed chicken bouillon cube.

Step 4: Mix it all up

Pour cooked chicken in the large bowl with your noodles. Stir. Then add sauce and stir again.

Pour noodle mixture into cake pans or whatever dish(es) you want to bake them in. Sprinkle shredded mozzarella cheese over the noodles.

Step 5: Bake

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. We like our noodles to be softer, so you can bake them for less time if you want them softer. Haitians cook everything until very well done, so they like to bake it a lot longer than 30 minutes – until noodles/cheese are pretty hard (not my favorite).

Enjoy with a nice side salad and some fresh baked bread. Mmmmm.

Guest House Recipes, Haiti haiti, recipe

Last Week (w/ Towing Vehicles & Replacing Water Tanks)

Apr20th
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Ryan

It’s been busy at the Guest House. I have been enjoying the repeat groups we currently have staying at the house. It’s a chance to get to know them on a deeper level.

We had a mess of car things happen this past week. I was going to write about it but then noticed that Nick already had a great summary:

Filling stations in Port-au Prince have been out of gasoline for five days. That’s 3 million people with no gasoline.

They say the reason is because an oil tanker from Venezuela is two weeks late. Probably Venezuela forgot to send out the boats after Hugo Chavez died.

The prediction is we’ll have more by Sunday. [FYI - We have gasoline again!]

In the meantime, traffic is thinning out on the roads. Diesel is still available, so most vehicles out running now are diesel.

Our cars were out by like Wednesday. For some reason we always run them on quarter tank anyways so it didn’t take long. So much for preparedness. Except then, in a back corner somewhere, a few extra gallons were found yesterday, so we dumped them in our Montero. Now we’re back in business!

Except today Ryan and I got stuck at the hardware store because the Montero wouldn’t start. The starter is bad. We just took the starter out last week and brought it to a starter repairman. He repaired it, but now it’s broke again. I’m not thinking he did a very good job.

John and Pierre came and towed us home. That was exciting, getting towed halfway across Port-au Prince. I was driving the Montero getting towed (with no power steering or power brakes) and Pierre (red hat and shirt below) drove the pickup truck pulling us. Sometimes Pierre drove faster than comfortable, all while dodging traffic and potholes. At one point he drove off the road to avoid some obstacle… without slowing down!

Ryan was with me and couldn’t watch. He kept trying to occupy himself looking down on his phone. He did take the following pictures though:

Of course during all of this car excitement, we had been having issues with the water at the guest house. The pressure tank went bad. For a while, we attempted to use the broken tank but it just kept getting worse. Eventually, we purchased a new tank for the Guest House. Below you can see our detailed diagram of the new tank Also, we couldn’t empty the old one through the valve, so ended up drilling some holes in it – looks kind of funny.

Of course, the normal side-projects of installing fans! Fans must be one of the biggest marked up items in Haiti. These guys are $120/piece. I suppose they can get away with it.

Guest House, Haiti haiti, vehicle, water

Emphasis on Learning

Apr10th
2013 1 Comment Written by Ryan

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Top 10 Qualities of Effective Mission Trip Teams « Previous Next »

From my little experience here in Haiti, there are no easy answers. We enjoy the teams that come wrestling with ideas. They often foster an atmosphere of sharing and discussing.

The difference between teams having the attitude of I am going to fix Haiti and I want to learn about Haiti is huge. It cannot be understated. The idea of “coming to save Haiti or <name your country>” is easy to understand given the nature of our American cultural context.

By definition, short term missions have only a short time in which to “show profit”, to achieve pre-defined goals. This can accentuate our American idols of speed, quantification, compartmentalization, money, achievement, and success. Projects become more important than people. The well is dug. Fifty people converted. Got to give the church back home a good report. Got to prove the time and expense was well worth it. To get the job done (on our time scale), imported technology becomes more important than contextualized methods. Individual drive becomes more important than respect for elders, for old courtesies, for taking time. - When Helping Hurts

From what I have seen, the teams that come to learn end up getting the least frustrated when their timeline isn’t met, and they arguably get the most out of their experience. I am not saying to stop doing work. In the midst of building, holding medical clinics, craft making, speaking, or whatever you are doing in Haiti, make sure that it is in a position of humility and learning. Remember we are all guests in this wonderful country.

Haiti is the land of unlimited impossibilities as John often quotes. It is a privilege and great honor that we can live or visit other cultures like Haiti. Take the moments you have while visiting to step back and ask yourself:

What can I learn from this culture?

“I was talking to a friend about the common sight of a broken-down vehicle being fixed right in the middle of the street. Sometimes the vehicle has one wheel jacked up, sometimes a mechanic is working underneath with his legs sticking out, forcing vehicles to steer around him. I asked my friend why the police did nothing. He responded, “What can they do?” When I suggested that it would be easy to get them to push the vehicle to the side of the street, at least, by fining them for impeding traffic, he was horrified. ”What, make people pay money for such an innocent thing?” - African Friends & Money Matters (p. 7)

The thought patterns are different. In contrast, the Western ideal is to seek macro-solutions to problems. Drivers will wait in line or at a stop light, and buses will very seldom stop outside the designated bus stops. They depend upon macro-solutions rather than seek a micro-advantage.

The important thing these teams do is to ask questions and to learn.

Why do they do it this way?

I heard someone ask this tonight at the dinner table. I was so excited. It’s easy to disregard a culture’s ideas and practices, and it can be difficult to press-in and learn the why.

What can we exchange from each other?

What resources do they have?

Try to ask this instead of What do you need?

Let’s look at the question, What resources do they have? This is a great way to begin with a focus on their strengths. What are the assets they bring to the table? This approach affirms people’s dignity and moves us away from our western god-complex. This approach enlists and inspires local involvement, and it enhances local initiatives.

Mrs. Jones, a mother who has lived in poverty all her life, described the experience of poverty like this: “In part it is about having no money, but there is more to poverty than that. It is about being isolated, unsupported, uneducated and unwanted. Poor people want to be included and not just judged and ‘rescued’ at times of crisis.” - Total Church (p. 79)

In short,

Come to learn
Come to ask questions
Come to understand
Come to be an advocate to friends and family back home

When you share your last crust of bread with a beggar, you mustn’t behave as if you were throwing a bone to a dog. You must give humbly, and thank him for allowing you to have a part in his hunger. - Giovanni Guareschi

Haiti culture, haiti, poverty

Top 10 Qualities of Effective Mission Trip Teams

Apr7th
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Ryan

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Top 10 Qualities of Effective Mission Trip Teams Next »

Running the Guest House has allowed us the opportunity to see hundreds of missions teams come and go. As part of Heartline, we have hosted many short-term missions (STMs) teams. I am definitively no expert. I don’t promise to have all the answers on this subject because, well, I don’t. To be honest, the few STMs trips I have been on didn’t have all these qualities.

What I do know is that teams, we enjoy and we see as effective, have these qualities I will post about in this series.

Effective qualities of short-term mission teams begins with:

1) Preparation

The mission shouldn’t start when the wheels of the airplane touch down in Haiti (or any other country). A highly equipped team will start preparing a year or more in advance before leaving their home country.

Effective teams take the opportunity before they come to learn as much as you can about the culture before stepping foot on someone else’s soil. Learn by watching videos, reading blogs, books, and anything you can get your hands on. You can be prepared by learning about:

The culture and history
The partnering organization
Other organizations in the same country
The long-term missionaries you will be supporting

Teams that have done this research usually ask the insightful questions and are able to grasp a new level of depth on the issues and solutions. It also shows that the team doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time but are serious about being involved in making a difference.

In the short-term missions workbook by Tim Dearborn he says, The most important aspect of short-term mission service is preparation. The long-term impact of your service will be deeply affected by the quality of your preparation.

Teams that make this upfront investment will increase the depth of their experience and make them a blessing to the culture, their long-term missionary friends, and gives a longer lasting impact for each individual team member.

Make pre-trip learning a requirement, not a suggestion. Simply wanting to go and coming up with the money is not sufficient to qualify somebody to join the team. If people don’t want to spend time to learn before they go on the trip are they really going to have a learner’s mind-set during the trip? - When Helping Hurts

Starter Ideas…

Below are a few book ideas for cross-cultural travels:

Here are a few suggestions for digging into Haiti (though you could do the same type of searches for other countries):

Haiti history on Wikipedia
The Quake - PBS Special (and more)
Latest Haiti news on Google

Interesting…

One team, before arriving in Haiti, had setup a small tent city outside of their home town for a weekend. They had setup a limited water supply and made Haitian food for meals. They were attempting to simulate the experience and hopefully better prepare the team for the journey ahead to Haiti. They weren’t going to be staying in tents in Haiti but they wanted to learn more about conditions and what was happening after the earthquake.

This same group spent 2 years preparing for the trip down to Haiti. As you can imagine, when they touched down in Haiti, they were ready.

Guest House, Haiti haiti, missions, team

Recent Happenings

Apr4th
2013 2 Comments Written by Ryan

Nick, the heartline driver / available for all things, recently said the following which I find true…

Rarely before have I been in a situation where the line between My Life and My Work has been so blurry.

This week we’re hosting a team of 30. If I counted the number of hours I’m putting into my job it would be pretty much the same number of hours I’m awake. On the other hand, it could be said I’m not working at all, just living. - Nick

This team has been very inquisitive. Many have done their homework on Haiti and asked me questions that I struggle with on a weekly basis. Here we are day in and day out facing real issues of injustice straight in the face. See video below for an interesting perspective.

Here is what’s up recently

We visited Andrama’s church. If you remember, Andrama works at the Maternity Center and cooked with Melissa on the Run For Life. Melissa & Andrama became good friends after that. She invited us to her church. For some reason, what stuck out to me was these older ladies standing up waving their arms with the music. Maybe it’s because I hardly ever see older people (the mean average age in Haiti is 27 years.) The place as a whole just seemed free to worship, dance and sing loudly.

Bench seats

The current team is helping us secure the bench seats at the Guest House from falling.

Car Repair

Nick and I worked on the Mits yesterday. We have been finding auto parts places and little shops that have the pieces we need. We attempted to get our starter rebuilt. Looks like today, I will go back and go for attempt #2 It doesn’t quite work we will try it again.

Bakery

Bakery propane tank has arrived and now Josh has started to experiment with recipes!

Lifetree Team

Here are some Lifetree team pictures.

- I gave some of them some first hand experience buying food on the side of the street.

- Melissa & the ladies cooked a huge feast! The picture doesn’t even show half of it.

Police Ticket

Nick and I almost got a ticked. One of our lights were out. Pretty comical considering how many other cars have their lights out as well

Police offered us a $50 bribe option or a ticket for the brake light being out. We stood around not willing to pay the bribe figuring they would give us the ticket. After some time staring at each other the police said we could take off! No bribe & no ticked!

Video

Great video on if justice is worth it… (Thanks Tara for the find)

Guest House, Haiti bakery, car repair, church, haiti, police, team, video

My First Somewhat Scary Pregnancy Moment with Melissa

Surprise!

Defined Purpose