Grandma Alleluia Goes Home

Family and Friends,

As all of you who read this blog are aware, our good friend and ministry partner “Kiki” passed away in August at the young age of 45 and some odd months. To put that in perspective, a well-known and well-loved member of our community passed away a few days ago at almost exactly twice his age. She was ninety-one, and her name was “Grandma Alleluia.” Actually, as you could probably guess, that was not her real name. That is only what we lovingly called her. Her real name was Electa Gesneste Erival. She was born on July 18, 1920, and passed away on Oct. 16, 2011.

Grandma Alleluia was a fixture at Ebeneezer Church, and I described her in the original installment of “our church” on this blog. She was well-known for energetically shouting “Alleluia! Alleluia!” and jumping up and down if the preacher made a good point in his sermon, or if she just felt caught up in the power of the Spirit. Sometimes she got completely carried away and couldn't stop shouting “Alleluia!!!”, until finally she had to be gently calmed down by the Pastor. Many people who have visited on mission trips here will remember her vividly.

Sadly, she had a stroke (or something like that, because they use that word for a lot of things here) last week and passed away. I don't know if it is exactly accurate, but I like to picture in my mind that she was at home praying, began shouting “Alleluia! Alleluia!”, had the stroke in the midst of her excitement, passed away instantly, and without skipping a beat found herself in the presence of God doing exactly the same thing she always did on Earth. Wouldn't that be perfect? Isn't that how all of us should go? Especially at the age of 91 and having lived a nice, full life.

Speaking of her nice, full life...I decided it would be worth my time to do a little research and find out more of her story. I didn't make it to the funeral, because it was scheduled at the exact time as we were having church. Later, however, I did some asking around in the village to discover who Grandma Alleluia really was. This afternoon I sat down with Robert, local historian who knows English very well, and got plenty of details and a little history lesson thrown in for free.

Back before Ti-Rivier was known by that name only, the area was divided into several smaller villages or neighborhoods, and the place where Electa grew up was called Capasi. It really isn't too far from where we live, maybe fifteen minutes. In those days (1930s, 40s, 50s) it wasn't uncommon for young Haitian men to go to Cuba for several years to work and make decent money. This was what Romain Erival (Electa's future husband) chose to do. Sometime in the late 1940s he decided to return to Haiti to find someone from home to share his life with. He and Electa got married. I'm not sure of the year, but it had to have been fairly late for a woman to get married in those days.

The fact that they married somewhat older seems to bear out because their children who are still living all seem to be fifty-something or maybe early sixties at the oldest. As an aside, it turns out Grandma Alleluia's son is actually Robert, the half-crazy man who keeps trying to sell the Ebeneezer church building to us. For some reason I never put that together. The problem is the age difference. He seems forty years younger than her, at least, so I always thought he was her grandson. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how her passing plays into that whole ordeal.

Back to the story...

So Romain returned to Ti-Rivier back in the 40s or early 50s and they were married. As the story goes, it was actually his mother, Electa's mother-in-law, who saw the need and began the church. They slapped together some coconut tree branches for walls and began to worship in some other location long forgotten by most people around today. The church grew through the years and at some point Romain, Grandma Alleluia's husband, became the Pastor and leader of the whole thing. It wasn't until their son Matthew (now deceased) established himself in the US and began to send home money that they were able to construct the building we see today. The two houses around that property were built there at that time or shortly after as well.

Romain died somewhere between 5 and 10 years ago, so Electa really wasn't a widow for terribly long. People seem to remember her for being quite the laugher, and someone who would mix with all people from all walks of life and think nothing of it. She might have even laughed at a few off-color jokes in her day, surprising those who thought they knew how a Preacher's wife was supposed to act. She sold meat in the market for a living and enjoyed talking with everyone on the way to the market, throughout the day, and on the way home.

Speaking of going home, that is what she did the other day. She really seemed to have a fire in her heart for worshiping God, and it definitely didn't cool down with age. If it did, I can hardly imagine what she was like several decades ago. You don't see many 90-year-old people around here, so she will be missed by all. The funeral was huge from what I hear, and no doubt many “Alleluias” were formed in the mouths of everyone there, flavored with the sweetness of laughter and the saltiness of tears.

May Your Adventure Cause You to Shout "Alleluia" Today!
-the Grimm Family Adventurers

ALEXIS

Family and Friends,

Just before publishing this blog post we published one about our missionary giving so far this year, which has been solid.  Page down to read that information in the next post on this page.

Is anything really worth attempting in life that isn't impossible in human terms, especially when you are talking about ministry and reaching lost people for Jesus? Shouldn't we undertake great endeavors for God's kingdom that will fail unless He works great miracles and displays his awesome power in the midst of our weaknesses? Don't you agree that we are called to live that way, shunning the trappings of fleshly comforts and false security and the avoidance of risk? We still believe Jesus is calling people today to step out of the boat and walk on water.

It is that approach to ministry and life, combined with the constant affirmations from Scripture, that continues to energize us for the Bible School project. I've never been one to be content living life as it has always been lived. This passionate drive to constantly innovate and try new approaches to ministry has reaped both positive and negative results in our life as a family, but it is a constant part of our story, and God has used this character trait to bring us to this exact moment in time. We feel Mission Haiti is on the brink of something truly remarkable. It is something new and exciting, and yet in many ways it is a return to the way things started, when Jesus first told his followers to “go.”

However, we cannot take any credit for reaching this critical point in the journey. We (the Grimms) are only standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before. My missions professor, Dr. Jay Moon, told us an unforgettable story in class one day. He talked about how his family went to rural Ghana for many years and saw a great deal of fruit from the work of the ministry. Churches were planted, wells were dug, and people were very open to the good news of Jesus. He was thankful to God for these blessings, but only later did he find out that they were the fourth or fifth missionary family to be sent to that area. The previous ones had labored long and hard without seeing much result, and Jay's family benefited from all of that sowing of seeds. Jesus said something similar to his disciples one day. He said, “I have sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” (John 4:38)

One of those who has gone before and paved the way for us was Kiki. That is why we are so pleased to announce that that Bible School will be named after him and his father, a former pastor of great influence. The full name of the school will be the ALEXIS Ministry Training Center. Here is a excerpt from the student recruitment brochure we are working on:

“ALEXIS”- The Ministry Training Center is named after two people:

Reverend Alexis- A Pastor in Haiti who labored in the fields to support his family, sacrificed so much for his churches, and raised up many young leaders.

Jean Kuisline Alexis- Rev. Alexis' son who served Mission Haiti from the beginning and passed away in the summer of 2011. Known to all as “Kiki”, he became a successful businessman, processing adoptions to USA, Canada, France, and Belgium. He engaged in ministry through his work but also regularly traveled to the remote villages and countryside of Haiti to powerfully share Christ with all people.

If you read the three part series, “Kiki Goes Home”, you will remember that Kiki once attempted something humanly impossible, and he was successful with God's help. He left rural Haiti as a young man and tried to “make it” in the big city of Port-au-Prince. God had a plan for him and directed his path in so many ways, opening doors and allowing him to positively impact so many lives. It is our hope that the ALEXIS Ministry Training Center will help many people follow a similar path and calling, attempting great things for God.

We have been very busy working out all of the details, with the help of Mike and Pam and the Mission Haiti board, of what the ALEXIS MTC program and campus will look like exactly. We are making great strides in that area lately, finishing the documents any institution for higher education needs to have available: brochures, application, student handbook, etc... We are also finishing the budget and putting together plans and strategies for fund raising and recruiting of students and professors.

A ballpark figure for the next 6-8 months will be something like $100,000 we will need to raise for this project. One significant cost will be scholarships for the students, especially those coming to the program from Haiti (see “10 Adventures in 10 Days: #2- Bible School” for our vision about having students come from around the world to join the Haitian students for study, ministry, and fellowship). Though we already have the land paid for, a house for the Resident Director finished, and the money in hand for the dormitory (if we stay under budget), we will continue to raise funds for several smaller building projects like a cooking and storage shed, shower/toilet building, classroom, meeting/eating building, and other items.

There is also another large building project in the planning stages. About half of the 100K we hope to raise will be budgeted for a new house containing the living space for the Ministry Director and his family (the Grimms), the ALEXIS office and library, and room for visiting professors and other guests to the school. We will attempt to make this home wheelchair accessible, which is something fairly unheard of in these parts. It will be exciting for our family to be able to be in the middle of all of the excitement of campus when this project is completed!

So I (Cory) have taken up grant writing as my new hobby. Time will tell whether or not this will bear fruit for the ministry. File that under “humanly impossible” and we'll see what God does! I will also make at least one recruiting/fund raising trip to the US in the coming months. Soon we will publish a detailed brochure explaining all the ways people can help make ALEXIS MTC great through financial partnerships. The whole project is slowly morphing from a dream and a vision into something we can see before our very eyes. The moment when those student show up next September on the freshly finished campus with all of their zeal and energy for the Lord will be almost too much to take. Only God can make this happen, and we believe with all of our hearts He will...for the glory of God, for the honor of Kiki and his dad, and for the thousands who will one day benefit from the ministries yet to be birthed by the future students of ALEXIS.

May God Ask You to Do Something Impossible Today!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

Brief Financial Update

Family and Friends,

Our missionary financial support has been strong in the third quarter of this year, putting us back on track to make budget, which was a real blessing and an answer to prayer! Two important contributions that helped us a lot were the fundraiser in Herrick, SD, and the decision of Inwood CRC to support us as missionaries. Though we will continue to seek new sources of support from individuals and churches for personal and ministry expenses in the coming year, we feel that our current level of support is a very solid start. In just two months we will complete our second year with Mission Haiti, and your prayers and financial support have helped us so much to make this possible.

In the next post we will talk about some of the planning and fund raising we will be doing for the Bible School in the coming year as well. Below are the numbers for financial giving for this year so far:

               1^st quarter 2011-                      $15,794

               2^nd quarter 2011-                       $5,090
               3^rd quarter 2011-                      $14,902

                               TOTAL                   $35,786

                (after 3^rd quarter 2010)          ($34,500)

God Bless,

The Grimms

Recent Pictures

Family and Friends,

We're getting a strong internet signal today and thought it would be good to attempt to load a few recent pictures of what we have been up to...

Dad and the kids went for a hike...stopping for a break and overlooking the bay with the mountains behind and the clouds above...breathtaking

Posing for a photo on the trail

A distant view of the Bible School property...the beach in the middle of the photo is right in front of the 2 acres on which we are building

Lucy's 10th birthday party!

Each kid gave Lucy a gift and received a piece of candy and a hug in return

10 Adventures in 10 Days: #10- SANTIA

Family and Friends,

For the final installment of our 10 Adventures in 10 Days series, I wanted to write a little bit about what Lynn has been up to this fall. She has been mentoring and tutoring Santia, a troubled young woman (age 18) who lives in Ti-Rivier (not to be confused with the 7-year old orphan also named Santia who formerly lived in the Mission Haiti compound). She is an orphan who has bounced around from home to home for many years and hasn't been able to succeed in school. She has a bad reputation in the community and has been abused in many ways. Pam asked Lynn to work with her and see if she is capable of learning. If so the plan is for Pam to relocate her to another community where she can start over and take one more chance at finishing school. Lynn works with her each weekday afternoon. The following is Cory interviewing Lynn about this work she has done with Santia (Lynn says this reminds her of when Cory interviewed her for the High School newspaper almost 20 years ago)...

C: What was your first reaction when Pam asked you to work with Santia?

L: I was excited and happy about the opportunity, because I enjoy the 1-on-1 setting for helping people.

C: What was your first impression of Santia?

L: She is small for an 18-year-old, and appeared relationally immature for her age, but there was something about her that was endearing.

C: What did Pam ask you to do during these sessions?

L:  Basically she wanted me to find out if Santia could learn. She has only gotten up to 2^nd grade. We needed to work on math and reading and see if she had some kind of developmental problem or if she really could grasp these concepts with some extra help. It was also an opportunity to pray with her and help her in her spiritual journey.

C: What is your current assessment of Santia's abilities?

L: I'm pretty sure she has dyslexia. I did some research online and the descriptions of that condition seem to fit her very well. I wish I was better trained in how to teach someone with that disability. She is learning how to read, but the math isn't going well.

C: What are the sessions like? What do you do each afternoon?

L: We have some of the books from the schools here, written for the earliest levels of study. We work through those together. I am teaching her how to read Psalm 23 in Creole, but she is also learning to read in French. At the end of our meeting we read the Bible together and pray.

C: Do you give her homework?

L: At first I did, but I found out she was just getting other people to do her work for her. After I told her not to do that anymore, she continued to do it, but before she came she erased the answers her helpers had written, leaving just enough on the page to be able to still see what they wrote and trace over the answer herself during our lesson. Her little scheme was pretty obvious. Now we do all the work here. She can practice reading at home, but we do the math here to make sure she is doing it herself. I encourage her to work on the things she learns at home for extra practice.

C: How is she responding to the sessions? Has she matured at all?

L: It is hard to say, because she seems to be a different person here than she is out on the streets. Her reputation outside our property is that she picks fights, argues, and gets in trouble a lot with her mouth. I haven't heard from anyone that her life has changed much outside of our sessions. She doesn't like anyone else watching when we work together. If they try to listen in, she tells people to go away.

C: What have you learned about her personal life?

L: Supposedly her mother was crazy and dropped her off when she was a baby to some other family. They adopted her and treated her well. However, at some point she took her things and just left them. Since that time she has bounced around from house to house. She says they kick her out, but we don't know if that is exactly true. She has requested to live in the Mission Haiti orphanage, and has told people on the streets that this is her plan, but that is not an option for her and we let her know that. She does seem grateful for our time together.

C: Do you know where she is staying now?

L: Judlyn's house, from what I hear. (a girl in the youth group with a pretty good family)

C: Do you think that could be a good situation for her?

L: From what I know of Judlyn and that family, it could be helpful for her.

C: What do you know about her relationship with God?

L: She says she believes in God and goes to church, but everybody in the community seems to think her behavior indicates otherwise. She sometimes acts crazy to get attention.

C: What have you learned through this opportunity?

L: Santia is helping me learn Creole. It is a challenge to try to teach someone basic skills in another language. I look forward to seeing her every day, and she is special to me already. I hope this will bear fruit in her life and somehow draw her closer to God, helping her blossom. It is hard to know what her future holds. If she does see significant change it might work to put her in a different community to get a fresh start. It might be too hard to overcome her reputation here.

C: How has this impacted your personal walk with God?

L: I'm thankful to God for bringing her into my life. Everything down here improves my prayer life. I constantly pray for Santia. I pray for God to help me overcome my own weaknesses, which become evident when I try to teach others. I ask God to equip me for this work.

Lynn and Santia

Enjoy the Adventure of Helping Someone Less Fortunate!

-The Grimm Family Adventurers

10 Adventures in 10 Days: #9- RAINY SEASON

Family and Friends,

Rainy season hit last Thursday or Friday, and the timing was perfect! It was truly a God thing. As you are probably aware if you read this blog regularly, we have begun the building of new facilities for the Bible and Ministry Training School we are opening next fall. We hired Boss Wilner, an up-and-coming contractor in the area who seems to be honest and fairly skilled, to do the first building, a small dormitory. Around September 20th or so Pam, Boss Wilner, and myself sketched out a plan for this building, and he came back with an estimate. We knew the estimate was way too high, based on way too many materials, and at first I overreacted and thought we should look for someone else. But Pam had more experience with this process and thought we could work with it. We struck up an agreement to buy the materials ourselves and save money. He agreed. Pam gave him some money to get started.

His crew wasted no time and got right to work. In just a few days they had the land cleared and leveled for the foundation. The building is built parallel to the slope of the hill, or perpendicular to the ocean, so on one side it is cut into the hill, and on the other side it was to be built up with a rock/cement platform. Pretty cool, really. The workers cut into the hill, dug bigger pits for the pillars, and mapped everything out for the foundation to be laid. After that they began piling in the rocks, cement, and rebar in a furious frenzy of activity. Everyday I would stop by and watch, at a different time each day, and I was very impressed to rarely find them sitting around or calling it quits too early in the day, especially since they get paid per day of work. As we have probably mentioned before, all cement here is made by hand. No cement truck or mixer of any kind can be found here. The workers just open several 94 lb. sacks of mix, combine the necessary amounts of sand and water, and shovel the mixture into buckets to be carried by hand to the next spot that needs it.

So around October 5^th they were completely finished with the foundation, with the necessary rebar pointing up to the sky and indicating where the walls would soon be built. The building will be only one level now, but should be set up nicely to add a 2^nd level in the future. The completion of the foundation was a very nice stopping point, and sure enough, that very night the rainy season kicked in with full force. It was perfect timing, because Pam had only given them enough money to complete the foundation, and we didn't have the money in Haiti to buy the necessary supplies to continue after that point. We never imagined they would finish all of this before the rainy season kicked in. It was more like we figured they would work at it a day or so each week in October, working during the few rare dry patches, and maybe be close to finishing when Pam returned on November 2^nd. But this is perfect. They can just take a break during the next few weeks of rain, and we'll pick it up after that. Praise God for perfect timing!

Rainy season is something to behold here. I don't think we were hit too hard this spring. It was nothing like it has been the last four or five days. It just rains and rains and rains. Bruce and I did some work on the roof in September, which has helped a lot to keep the house dry on the inside. There are still a few drips here and there, but it is much better. Everything shuts down in the community when it is raining, so you need to have a comfortable home to enjoy as you sit around playing cards, reading books, etc... My heart goes out to those who are sitting in wet homes all over the community even as I am sitting here typing this blog...especially those with dirt floors. How miserable.

The air is much cooler when it is raining. It is very refreshing. Heaven forbid the Sun comes out right after a downpour, though. Humid! Another interesting thing following rains is to go out with the motorcycle and drive down our dirt/gravel roads in Ti-Rivier. It feels like you are driving on them for the first time. When you drive here you subconsciously catalog all of the big potholes and ruts and other obstacles you need to avoid. Right after it rains the road is completely different. You are forced to relearn the best route to take on the road, because there is a whole new topography to account for.

It probably won't be too long before a little bit of cabin-fever sets in, but we'll do our best to get by. Pam remembers times when it didn't stop raining for over 20 days here, so we'll see if that scenario repeats itself this October. We'll take advantage of this time to rest, enjoy family time, and get a lot of planning and writing done for the Blog, the Bible School, the Youth Group, and other ministries. Again, God's timing is perfect...so let it rain!

The first half of this blog was written on Monday morning. The following was added on Tuesday afternoon...

What a difference 24 hours makes when you are talking about the effects of rain! Over the past day we have been completely saturated with a constant downpour, and everything has changed. I kept telling Sue, “I wish we had a rain gauge, because it has got to be somewhere in the 10-15 inch range, easily. The first half of this blog almost makes it seem like rainy season is a cute little hiccup in your day, a little tiny inconvenience to deal with and move on. However, last night and into today we have witnessed the raw power of what water can do.

Last night the staff in the orphanage compound came over at about 9 o'clock to get tools out of the tool shed. They told us some water was coming in to one of the houses. I volunteered to go over and help out. I wasn't prepared for what I would see. The whole property was covered with water, and part of the wall highest up the hill had cracked and water was gushing through. At the bottom of the compound, especially by the gate, a small lake was forming. Lubin and Renand's house was taking on water. It was coming in between the wall and the floor, reminding me of basements after big rains back in the region we come from. The toilets were filled with water as well, and the retaining wall was cracked in several places and bulging.

We poked a little hole in the retaining wall by the flooded house, and that relieved the pressure and cleared up that problem. We opened the gate and let all of that lake go down the path out front. Hopefully it didn't end up in the house of someone farther down the hill. Next we all took flashlights and went outside the compound to take a look at the other side of the wall. The compound is at the bottom of a fairly large hill, and the wall actually gets lower toward the middle. I was afraid of what we might see. I imagined the wall holding back a lake of water, like a damn just waiting to burst and cause who-knows-what to happen

There was a lot of laughing as we made our way behind the wall. None of us knew quite how jungle-like it had gotten back there! We took a good look, didn't find any standing water, and then suddenly we all began dancing around and yelling out, “Foumi! Foumi!” (Ants! Ants!) I don't know how they do it, exactly, but they all start biting you at one time. It is like some leader ant gives a signal...”Wait, boys! Don't bite until we all get on their legs and pick a tender spot. Okay, on the count of three. One....two...three...BITE!!!!!” We ran back into the compound, concluding the water situations was relatively safe for now.

This morning we began considering plans for how to deal with the problem before we get another big rain. Meanwhile, Adrien, Sue, and myself decided to try to squeeze in a “bulk run”, which is a trip to the city to get all of the big bags of cornmeal, beans, oil, sugar, seasonings, and other food items needed to keep the meals flowing for everyone who lives here. Adrien had already made the trip to Cayes in the middle of the night to take Dan Elliot, another local American missionary, to the bus station. This morning he went to Port-au-Prince to meet his wife and kids and bring them back to Ti-Rivier. Patchouko went along with Dan to help out.

The bulk run went alright. We found most of the items despite the fact that most o the shops weren't open. Les Cayes is a very low city, near the ocean, and the streets were flooded pretty badly. Driving there was relatively uneventful, and the deepest water we drove through was probably 18 inches or so, and it wasn't moving too fast. We finished up and left town around noon. About that time we got a phone call from Dan saying they, too, were in Cayes and had stopped beside the road because of flooding. The van driver they had hired from Port didn't want to try to continue.

Soon we caught up with the Elliots, and many cars, motorcycles, and pedestrians were stopped at that point. It was unclear whether we could pass any further. We took Dan's wife, Kari, and their two kids in the vehicle with us, and their visitor from Sioux Falls named Todd, and we decided to go for it. Little did we know how big the adventure was about to get!

That first little stretch was probably the scariest. Water was almost up to the headlights of the SUV, and it was flowing across pretty fast in places. I asked Adrien, “Are you concerned about the car stalling out?” He just stared ahead and said, “No.” Later he told me he knew how high the carburetor was, and we were good to go as long as it didn't go that high. People in the car were pretty anxious about the whole thing. Water was pushing hard on the side of the car and coming in through the doors, and spontaneous, audible prayers broke out from more than a couple mouths.

We made it through that test and several more, finally arriving back in Ti-Rivier almost 2 hours later. At one point the few cars making this journey stopped. I walked ahead in about a foot of water to see what was going on. Huge chunks of earth had washed across the road, and the traffic was waiting for some men to try to break down the barrier. Others were carrying motorcycles across by hand.

Finally it opened up and we were able to continue on our journey. At that time, as I trudged back to the car and glance up at the mountains about five miles away, it dawned on me what had happened. I was wondering how the water could get so much higher in the few hours since we had passed there in the morning. I suddenly remembered that we were in a huge plain, filled with rice paddies and sugarcane fields, gradually sloping down to the sea, and it was only at this time that the huge rains from the night before were finally arriving from the mountains. The sheer volume of water was no longer able to soak into the earth. In a way were driving through a gigantic river that stretched about 6-8 miles wide.

We survived the ordeal, and about an hour later Dan and Patchouko showed up in town as well. I still haven't heard how they got a ride through the mess. The real tragedy in this adventure was the countless homes in the flood plain completely inundated with water. We could see the water gushing straight into the front doors of many homes. Adrien had already heard of some people drowning the night before. I wondered to myself, “Does this always happen during rainy season.” Right on cue, as if he was reading my thoughts, Adrien answered my question, “I've never seen it quite this bad.”

Thank you God for bringing us safely through this adventure!  Please protect us for the remainder of this rainy season.


ENJOY YOUR ADVENTURE TODAY!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

10 Adventures in 10 Days: #8- OUR NEW CHURCH

Family and Friends,

Our church has undergone a lot of changes recently, and we thought you might find it interesting to read a little bit about these new developments. To get some background on where we have come from, check out the post from February 27, 2011 called “Adventures at Our Church.”

Let's pick up where the earlier story about church left off. The church finally did split. The people had enough of the owner taking the offerings and not keeping the building up, and they finally left. For awhile they met in the high school down the street, but there is no room there big enough for more than about twenty people. We went to church with one of the mission teams, and half the people had nowhere to sit. It was clear the situation wasn't a long-term solution.

Meanwhile the owner of Ebenezer (the little pink church) approached Pam to try to sell his church building to Mission Haiti. We had some interest in the building, because it is smack in the middle of Ti-Rivier, and last spring we weren't sure where the Bible School would be located or hold classes when it opened. There was some thought of renovating that building and the two houses on the property and starting there. However, they came back with an offer of $200,000 US for the property and we just laughed. Pam counter-offered $30,000 and they just laughed. It was clear no sale was going to occur.

In a sense I feel bad for this guy. He is totally convinced that somehow he is going to get rich off of this building passed down to him from his grandfather and father, even though that was probably never the intent of building it in the first place. Pretty sad. Now he lost his chance to sell it at a decent price, and there are and probably never will be any other interested or qualified buyers for this property. We probably wouldn't even take it for free at this point now that we have moved on with plans for the Bible School. In a last ditch effort he did finally fix the roof and try to restart worship services there, but from what we hear no one really attends anymore.

Anyway, the church needed somewhere to meet, and we have a nice little cement pad and canvas meeting tent in the Mission Haiti compound, with several benches and chairs, so it made sense to relocate there. Then Bruce (a guy on the Mission Haiti board) had a vision and some ideas about doing church here, and Torrey Babb (the family who was here all summer) helped to get the whole thing off the ground, too. The idea was that we would never give handouts from this church, never steal members from other local churches, and do everything we can to invite non-Christians and new Christians to an environment that was non-threatening and non-judgmental.

So far it seems to be working pretty well. Pastor Delva is still involved. I am very impressed with him. He was genuinely concerned when people from the old Ebeneezer congregation were staying home on Sundays for awhile and not getting fed spiritually. Though he basically worked for free for the last three years, traveling here each week from Les Cayes and paying his own gas, he has stuck with this whole thing and held on to a calling he felt from God to serve and minister here. He and others share the preaching duties each month. We also have a youth Sunday once a month and incorporate the talents of the youth group and the children. The children's program each Sunday morning, led by Patchouko, usually has 20-30 kids, so that is fun to see. He is a gifted leader.

In the future the Mission Haiti Church (for lack of a better name) will be a great place for Bible School students to practice preaching and other church leadership functions. It is also a good place for us to invite people who give their lives to Christ during outreaches we do. They can come here in any clothes they have, which takes a lot of pressure off. Many still come in nice dresses and suits, so that is welcome, too. Yesterday we were happy to see Esperancia and her sisters, as well as Zoot and his family, two groups of people who were deeply touched by American mission teams and those who donated so generously to the Mission Haiti medical fund.

Our church is not perfect and never will be. We still get started late like any Haitian church, and then we go over the normal finishing time. Those things are hard to change, but they really don't matter so much either. We also aren't sure exactly how we will handle requests for weddings and funerals. We may have to defer to the more established churches when those moments occur. Without a full-time pastor we probably don't do as much pastoral care (visiting elders, sick, grieving, and spiritually struggling people in the church) as we should, but again, that could change when we have the extra help of the Bible School students at our disposal. We just hope our model of church will inspire other churches to be less judgmental (mainly based on clothes) and accepting of seekers and new Christians.

We do the best we can to “do church” in a way that is glorifying and pleasing to God in the setting in which we currently find ourselves. Isn't this what we are all called to do? Wherever you find yourself, in whatever situation, it is good to stop once a week, rest, worship, hear the preaching of the Word, and allow God to refresh and restart your soul for another week. As my uncle Michael often says, “If you ever find the perfect church, please don't start attending there because you will ruin it.” You just go to the church where God leads you and humbly play your part in making the church better day by day. The same is true in Haiti.

Enjoy the Adventure of Serving in Your Local Church!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers