Blog Post 7-20-16

Darrin Vant Hoff

For starters I was trying to get all the students to blog this week but as the week has progressed no one wants to continue to blog.  To be fair it has been hot here and we are very tired at the end of the day.  So I will try my best to share what we are experiencing. 

Stomach Issues

This week has been interesting for our team.  Callie mentioned this in her post yesterday but many of us have had stomach issues on one day or more of the trip.  The stories from this trip will bond us forever.  We are not the only team dealing with this issue.  Many here have experienced this same thing this week.  The MOH staff has said this is uncommon for this many people to be experiencing stomach issues and that we just happened to pick the perfect week!  As of now everyone is feeling better though.   

VBS

This was our last day of helping at Vacation Bible School.  The kids just crave attention from the blah (white people).  Many times kids will fight over one of us and more often there will be two or three kids attached to each blah.  As we have every other day we did a time of worship together then split into groups of 100 or so to do 4 stations.  We started with the education station today.  So far this week we have learned about hand washing and agriculture.  Today we were taught about the importance of brushing our teeth.  Many of the kids have never seen a dentist so they have not been taught how important brushing our teeth is.  They were taught today the importance of brushing their teeth.  Each student was also given a tooth brush and toothpaste just like the dentist does in the states.  We then finished our time going to eat, Bible questions and exercise time.  Today in exercise time Nathan and I jumped rope with the kids and they laughed at us as we were jumping together. 

Strategic Village Time

Today was our last Strategic Village Time.  We went back to Cabaret; the city our church is going to be investing in as we continue to partner with MOH in the future.  Each team went to 3 different houses and shared the Gospel and collected data.  We met some great people.  Our group got to share the Gospel with someone who didn’t believe in God today.  He said that after our conversation he did believe.  To be honest our translator, Johnny, made a great argument.  It is really awesome to see Johnny’s passion for sharing the Gospel. 

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is our last work day.  We will be going up into the mountains tomorrow to tour a farm that MOH is investing in.  In the afternoon we will be packing meals that Rooted funds purchased.  We are really excited to be going into the mountains and also being a part of what MOH is doing through the farm to table project. 

More Pictures and a Video

Linnea slightly scared of the goat from yesterday.  They made fast friends thoughh.  

The kids love to take pictures with our phones.  

This was worship time this morning at VBS.  

Exercise time with some of the boys playing soccer.  

Noah and his buddy James.

Minnie and Lauren with two of the coolest kids around.  

I am not sure what George our translator is doing here.  

 This was at one of the houses we had Strategic Village Time at.  We loved sharing with them.  

Callie Archer 7-19-16

Callie Archer-

Johnny’s Testimony

Johnny is one of our translators.  He gave me his testimony this morning at breakfast.  He shared that both his parents were voodoo priests.  When he was young he followed voodoo too but a missionary shared the Gospel with Johnny but he was unsure.  He went to church one time and heard about Jesus and wanted to follow that God.  He became a Christian and his life turned around.  He was doing bad things but after becoming a Christian he became a “good man.”  His mother saw the change in him and when he shared the Gospel with her, she gave up voodoo and started to follow Jesus.  His father practiced voodoo for some time after but recently after seeing Johnny’s changed life, he too became a Christian.  That is a powerful story of how Jesus changed not only Johnny but his whole family. 

Vacation Bible School

VBS is the same every morning, the kids come and we greet them with lots of cheering and a huge tunnel. We sing and dance and listen to a bible story, and then they break up into grades and do rotations through sports, education, bible questions, and the cafeteria. Yesterday, the Haitian teacher in education taught the children about cleanliness and today taught them about the importance of trees. I thought this was an interesting topic and I was very curious if the tree population in Haiti was a problem… to be continued with that answer.

Strategic Village Time

Many church groups here are fairly large, one had sixty people, so they clumped some of the smaller groups together, like DCC(12), Elmbrook(2), A&M(2), and Kathy who came to MOH after doing research on the internet and wanted to be a part of a week here. The two gals from A&M bought a water filter and a pair of goats to give to families during SVT. It was great that they let us be a part of giving the filter and the goats away.

Water Filter

The water filter attaches to a bucket and cleans the water. If the family cleans the filter once a week, they can clean 150 gallons of water a day and the filter is good for 10 years. WOW! That’s a lot of water. What is great is, that in the villages in Haiti, everyone is very close. We will walk into a house and ask them if the children standing around us are their kids and they always say no, it is almost always neighbor kids. It is good to know that they will use the water filter with those around them as well. The family was very grateful and the mom and dad were both Christians. We talked about how just like the filter, Christ makes us new and pure.

Emmitt and Britania (Bri) #Bremmitt

Just like the goats, the people we gave them to did not know the Lord. They said they attended the Catholic church, but in Haiti, Catholicism is not the same as in the states. History shows us that the French and the slaves that first came to Haiti, combined Catholicism and voodoo, so today Haitians still believe that you can practice both. It was discouraging when we asked if we could share what we believe with them and they said no, but when we prayed for them, Darin snuck the gospel into his prayer, classic pastor.

Translators

Our translators obviously have grown up in Haiti, so lots of what I have learned about the culture, the norms, and Mission of Hope, has been through conversation with them on the long bus rides.   

For Funnzies

1.     We have all pooped..HORRAY! However for some, it has been in the form of diarrhea. But like the Word says, “this too shall pass.”

2.     People from Texas are rude and did not know Wisconsin was in the U.S….did you even take geography?

3.     People from Oklahoma love Wisconsin,

Them: “when was the last time you saw rain?” “you are very peppy for a northerner.”

Me: “ummm, you’re from Oklahoma.”

Foo Blah: is Creole for crazy white (person)  I was called that by one of our translators.  

Some Pictures from Haiti

Here are a few pictures from our first and second day in Haiti.  We hope you enjoy them.  

The kids love to be held, even by Darrin

These homes were meant to be temporary shelters after the earthquake in 2010.  Some are still in use today 6 years later.  

Callie found a friend at Leveque

This was the bus we road in from the airport to our campus.  Seeing this did not instil confidence but it got us there with no problems.  

The kids love to play with our watches, sunglasses and phones. 

Nathan was having a blast with one of the kids.  

Darrin Vant Hoff 7-18-16

Darrin Vant Hoff

Strategic Village Time Day 1

This afternoon we went out on our first strategic village time.  This is a time where Mission of Hope Haitian staff takes out groups to go out into the villages to get data about village families, share the Gospel, and get GPS locations of each house because houses do not have addresses like we do in the states.  Our team split up into two teams each with a MOH person and a translator.  Our group visited two houses and at my group's first house we met two sisters who lived in the same house.  They did not have any kids of their own but had a couple of boys from the village they were raising.  We asked where they got their water from and if they knew how to treat it, water needs to be treated in Haiti to be safe to drink. We also talked about their family and they asked questions about us as well.  After about 45 minutes of talking with them we were able to share the Gospel with them.  Our MOH staff person helped us along.  We found out that while the sisters knew about God and even had a favorite Bible story, they were not following Him.  One sister said that she wanted to turn back to Jesus and follow Him like she should.  It was an awesome site to see God working through us.   It was a great day visiting the Haitian people and seeing how God is working in Haiti. 

Evening Time

When we got back to our campus from Strategic Village Time, we had a little down time before eating dinner but it was just enough to change and take a short break. Dinner was a Haitian meal of rice, chicken and some wonderful Haitian sauce.  A couple of our team members went back for seconds they liked it so much.  After dinner we had free time where most of our group decided to play a game of Mafia.  It is a camp game if you didn’t know what that was.  We also had a few people play Yahtzee after Mafia was done.  Once again it rained tonight.  It is almost on cue that around dinner time the clouds get dark and the rain starts.  We enjoy it because the first night it didn’t rain and it was very hot and almost unbearable to sleep. Now it is almost perfect sleeping weather. 

Thank you for following our blog and please continue to pray for our team.  Tomorrow we go back to Vacation Bible School in the morning and in the afternoon we go out into the village again but this time we get to give a pair of goats and a water filter away as well as visiting some people.  Thank you for your prayers and support. 

Here are a couple more pictures from yesterday and today.  


A Yahtzee game from tonight.  

 The beach looks beautiful but there is trash all over and the MOH staff says there is glass and needles as well.  We took their word for it.  

Linnea with one of the kids from the village.