I thought I was getting used to the poverty here in Haiti (which of course isn't a good thing). The this afternoon we went out to the mountains to the north east of Port au Prince. There we saw poverty on a completely different level to what we have seen so far.
In a small town in the moutains is Pastor Nahum who oversees a church and a small school of about 100 children. He and a guy called Timothy run the 'Back to Life' project in this small town. Here, as well as educating the children of the school, they also feed hundreds of malnourished children in the area and provide a home for 18 orphans. The home is actually the Pastors house, where he lives with his wife and six children. the building they live in is tiny for the 26 of them, but the Pastor and his wife do this without any regret. Instead we saw just the joy of being able to serve the Lord in this way. He didn't ask us for money to help build the new orphange he and Timothy are planning. He didn't ask us to provide food for the children. He just asked that we remember them in prayer.
Each day has been more shocking than the one before for Andreas and I. Tomorrow we fly out to the largest island around Haiti. It is called Lagonave and we will visit an orphange and the site where Compassion and others are looking to rebuild a hospital. We expect to see even greater poverty than we have seen so far.
The question going through my mind is that with so much need and poverty what can I do. That is where I think Compassion's idea of changing the world one child at a time comes into it's own. There are so many needs out here that it could be so hard to know what to do that paralysis sets in and nothing get's done at all. But something needs to be done and sponsoring a child is, at the very least, a great way of changing just one life. What I have seen so far tells me that sponsoring a child transforms the life of the whole family.
"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." Gal. 2:10.

It's Wednesday morning here in Haiti. Yesterday was such a full on day that I didn't have time to do a blog and was too exhausted by the the time we got in the room to go to bed. We travelled out of the city to a place call Leogane which had been badly affected by the earthquake. As we drove through the city and then out through some of the country we really got a chance to see both the devestating effects of the earthquake but, more shockingly, the devestating effects of poverty here in this country.
Whereever we go here there are people living in the worst possible conditions you can imagine. Hundreds of thousands of people still living in makeshift tents, either in large groups our simply dotted throughout devasted buildings. Many of the people still fortunate enough to still have a home that is standing are living in just the smallest, dirties buildings. Unemployment here is ridiculously high. Everywhere we go there are either groups of men gathered with nothing to do or people trying to make a living by setting up stalls inbetween the rubble on the pavements selling anything they can.
Yet the Haitian people have such tremendous heart and courage. We spent the day with Pastor Menard and the school he runs which caters for 800 children of all ages. All around the school there is nothing but tents and makeshift homes. Compassion pays for the most disadvantaged (it's all relative isn't it!!) children to attend his school. The other parents pay $120 a year for their children to go. Its is the most highly respected school in the area. These children are living in such abject poverty but sang songs to us about the goodness of God with huge smiles on their faces. They, and their teachers, meant every word. Pastor Menard is anothe extraordinary church leader. He told us about the day his church fell down in the quake and about how he felt when he couldn't reach church members stuck under the rubble of buildings they were living in. He told us that in the days after the quake he wore a baseball cap with the word's 'Jesus is my Boss' on it to remind everyone he met that there was someone greater than any earthquake. He told us that his passion to reach the lost and the broken is greater than ever. His church too has grown, more than doubled in the last year. And as we stood in the large makeshift tent that now functions as his church he told us ablout his hopes for the future. Jesus said "blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God". I've seen that today.

Blogging doesn't come naturally for me, but for the next week I have a reason to do so. Andrea and I are in Haiti with an organisation called Compassion who are showing us around some of the projects they have set up in partnership with local churches. It is our first time into one of the poorest countries in the world. Each day I will give a brief idea of what we've been up to.

Today was surprising. We met Pastor Ivan (I don't know how his name is spelt!) who leads a church in an area called Delmas in Port-au-Prince. An amazing pioneer who has grown a huge church that is seeking to radically transform its community through child sponsorship. They work with 500 children as part of their child development program all chosen from the poorest families in their area. Their main building was intact after the earthquake but some of the others they had collapsed. They have temporary 'buildings' (walls with tarpaulin sheets for the roof) that double as classrooms during the week and a worship space on sunday.

Every sunday they have three services, at each service they have some people meeting for worship on the ground floor, some on the second and others on the third floor. Each service is three hours long. the pastor said his church loves to worship! All together there are 8000 people in his church. At every service they will see 50-70 people come to Jesus and the church has grown by 3000 since the earthquake. Pastor Ivan said that when the earthquake came people thought it was jesus coming back and that has made them reconsider what they think about Jesus. This humble, visionary Pastor is looking to raise $3million to build a worship space for 25,000 people and he has already bought some of the land around his current church to enable growth to happen.

Today was surprising because I thought I would be talking about kids and poverty and despair. Instead I'm talking about hope and vision. Amidst the rubble and dire poverty God is moving powerfully. That really shouldn't be a surpise should it!