Merci Jesus

When I was leaving church today my pastor stopped me and asked if I wanted to go back to Haiti in December. I told him I would not be able to raise the money in time…..BUT guess what? Someone at the church donated the money for me to go back down. If that is not a sign I’m supposed to go back down there, then idk what is!!!!

My God is Good!!!

Hey Everyone!!!!!

First we want to thank everyone for all their love, prayers and thoughts for us through out our journey and last week especially. We could not have done any of this without your love and support, but most importantly without God.

Last week in Haiti was definitely more than either one of us thought it was going to be. It started out as a long day of planes rides and followed by a long bumpy uncomfortable bus ride to Goniaves. That first night was very overwhelming, but we slept well in our hot sticky beds lol. Monday brought on a new set of emotions neither one of us expected. We got off the bus in Jubilee and we were greeted by all the beautiful, loving and caring kids of Jubilee. We both soon had a child in our arms and several hanging on our arms, legs, shirts, shorts. Any where and every where a child could be attached to us they were. These children changed our lives. They way they love and care for total strangers was amazing to us and we will never forget the way they made us feel.  Tuesday we went to an orphanage and AJ had lots of fun arm wrestling with all the boys, and one actually gave him a run for his money! It was so great to listen to all the kids singing songs they had practiced for us. Later that day we went to Pastor Ganada’s. He is such an amazing person and has a wonderful story of how he came to God and Haiti. He is from the Philippians and moved his family to Haiti 14 years ago. He started a church, an orphanage, a water treatment station where Haitians can buy clean water, and he also has started a school and a deaf ministry which has given many deaf people jobs in a country that doesn’t give them any opportunities at all.  Wednesday we headed back to Jubilee for more of the amazing children, we could have stayed there all day and be happy with the kids. It was amazing how much everyone in Jubilee loved and believed in God and Jesus and what they have done for all of us. What was even more amazing was how the believe in them with all of their hearts, while most of the country worships the devil and practices voodoo. The way they trust and love God made us take a look at how we trust God. We realized that we say how much we trust him, but in all reality we don’t trust him enough. We really learned how to trust God this week, which was such an amazing experience!! It free’s your heart and makes you grateful for God and what he has given you.  Thursday we spilt up. Caitlin and most of the girls in our group went to Jan’s orphanage while AJ and the rest of the group went back to Jubilee. AJ and the guys got to help the men of Jubilee make ramps up the houses of the older people. He worked hard was exhausted after that. Caitlin and the girls went and hung out with about 15 boys and girls at Jan’s. It was so cool to see how much the leaders of the house made it a home instead of an orphanage. They loved these kids with all of their hearts and treated them like they were their own. The kids showed us a dance they made for us and they sang several songs for us. Haitian’s all have AMAZING voices and it captures all of your attention when they sing. After Jubilee and the orphanage, we went to a restaurant in the market in Goniaves. AJ was brave enough to eat the food there, but not Caitlin! After the restaurants we got to take the rest of the day to rest and collect our thoughts from the week. It was nice and relaxing! Friday was our last day in Jubilee and we also went up the prayer mountain. After we ate breakfast we hiked up the mountain and on our way up a little girl about half Caitlin’s size started to help her up the mountain. She was so little but strong and caring. Her little brother helped AJ up the mountain and he couldn’t have been older than 3 years old. When we were to the point that we needed to be we sat down with the kids and the little girl asked us for some water, we had been told not to share water or food with any of the kids in Jubilee since you would need enough for everyone, but we weren’t in Jubilee and these were the only kids around so we gave them some water. Caitlin started looking through her bag and found a granola bar and split it between them. She started feeling like it wasn’t enough and she gave the kids all the food she had in her bag. AJ wrote a note to them telling them how much we appreciate their help and How Jesus loved them. It was a very powerful half hour on the mountain. IT made us appreciate what we have much, much more. Later we went and hung out with the kids and helped with the feeding station, and the little girl who was hanging on Caitlin all week introduced us to her mom and brother. It was amazing to see how important family was to them, Nika was so excited to introduce us and we loved it. It was a little difficult since we didn’t have a translator, but we could communicate enough.

We learned so much this week and we still haven’t even processed all of what we saw and heard yet. AJ plans on going back and soon, but as for Caitlin probably not. We have decided that part of the reason God wanted us down there was to open our eyes to adoption. We have prayed about it and looked at the pros and cons and we have decided that we are going to some day adopt a little girl from Haiti. When AJ goes back down he wants to start looking into how adoption works down there, and also he wants to start doing micro-loans with some of the Haitians in Jubilee.  A micro-loan is giving them the money they need to start a business and then when they earn the money back they give it back so we can help another Haitian start their business and we can continue to do this until we decide we don’t want to any more. These Haitian men and women have such amazing things that they make and are so creative and smart. We are very optimistic about this opportunity and can’t wait to get this started!

Once again we want to thank EVERYONE who prayed and gave us support through out our journey, we could not have done it with out you and God. You are all so very important to us and we love you all!!!!

Thank you and God Bless!!!!

AJ and Caitlin

3 more days!!

Hey guys! Hope everyone is doing well and you have not been affected by the flood!! We are praying every day for the safety and well being for those affected by the flooding in Iowa and some of Nebraska.

The good news is Eppley as of right now is not flooding!! We have been so worried about the flooding and we know God has answered our prayers! We will be leaving Sunday the 26th at 6:00 a.m. and we will return July 2nd around 11:00 p.m. We are asking everyone to keep our safety, health and well being in their prayers as we travel. Also we are asking everyone to pray for all the people in Jubilee every chance you get, as they need the prayers more than we do on a daily basis. Pray that God will take this country in his hands and bless them with his love and grace.

We have been talking about Haiti for so long that we can’t believe it’s finally here! We want to thank EVERYONE for all of your prayers and support through this journey so far. We are so very blessed to have all of you in our lives and we can’t thank you enough! We will try to update the blog if we have the chance, but internet down there is not nearly as fast as it is here. If we can’t do an update while we are down there we will do one with pictures when we get back.

Thanks again for your love and support and God Bless!!

Caitlin and AJ

Worries

Hey guys,

Were not sure who out there knows about all the flooding going on around the Midwest, but we are worried Epply Airport (where we fly out of and back too) is going to get flooded out soon. We just want to make everyone aware of this so maybe you could pray for us. First most pray for the people who have lost their homes and farms because of the flooding, then pray Epply will be dry for our departure and arrival. This is a time of uncertainty for us and we hope to find comfort about it.

Thank you,

AJ and Caitlin

1 More Month!

In one moth we will be on our way to Haiti!! We are getting very excited and somewhat nervous for the trip to be here! Last week we had our last meeting which was mostly reminders of what to bring and what to expect on the way down. The first high school group is leaving this Saturday so keep them all in your prayers! Our group will be getting together at some point in the next week to pray for them.

We have been asked to find a few people to keep us in their prayers throughout the week that we are in Haiti so if you feel God telling you to pray for us, let us know, and the more people the better!! It helps us to know that there are people back home thinking and praying for us while we are gone!

Not a whole lot more to add, so we hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial day and enjoy the long weekend!

Fundraiser…

So we are excited to announce we made $600 at our fundraiser on Friday night. We are thrilled that so many people showed up and thought what we are doing is worth donating time and money to. We had so much fun meeting everyone and we want to thank you so much for coming out. We have made around half of what we need so far.

We have sent out the Haiti Houses at the daycare and our Boss Dawn sent out an email of the letter we wrote to the parents. I have talked with several parents who think what we are doing is amazing and wished us well in out travels. I have a good feeling all our friends and the families at the daycare will help support us! June 25th is coming fast and we are getting so anxious and excited to go.

So tetanus shots hurt…

Just an update…..

So today I had a check up at the doctors office and they gave me a tetanus shot. It didn’t hurt going in, but it does now…

Anyways…. Tomorrow is another Haiti meeting with the pastors and high school kids. These meetings are always exciting and we have really been getting to know each other better…Except I still don’t know peoples names 😦

As far as fund raising goes, we are at $800 total. We still need around $1,500. We have our wine and cheese mixer on Friday the 6th at Professor Medlar’s house in Elkhorn. We are hoping and praying and hoping and praying some more that we can knock out a large chunk of our remaining balance. We are running out of time and resources. Please pray that this night turns out well for us.

Also, we both got our passports the other day and our birth certificates back. I have never had a passport, so it is exciting for me haha. Was I supposed to smile in it, because I did haha…..

Thanks for your time

Bonding times with the High School kids!

Over the past few weeks we have been meeting with our high school group. The meetings have been going great! Last time we met, we broke into small groups and shared our testimonies with each other. It was a good bonding moment for our groups. We got to see how each of us has become the Christians we are today. I really enjoyed sharing my story with them, because my testimony is very different from any of theirs. I had a very rough start on my faith journey, but I have overcome that part of my life. I hope it helped show the kids Christ works in powerful ways.

On another note, we are all going to ZAPPPP lazer tag tomorrow night and getting pizza afterwords. I hope these kids are ready to get destroyed haha! I hope we can do more outings like this with our groups to help us grow together and make connections before the big trip. If they can trust us and know we are there for them, it will make for an amazing time over in Haiti.

Our fund raising took a good turn on Monday when we got the ok to put a letter in the parent newsletter at Trinity Early Childhood Center (the daycare we both work at). We also got the ok to send home little “Haiti houses” with the children (piggy banks). We are going to work on them this week and next. It will show them the importance of helping other. We know this will not bring in a substantial amount of money, but it will teach the kids a valuable lesson, which is more important anyways.

We have our wine and cheese mixer Friday the 6th at Professor Medlar’s house. We are praying there will be a good turnout and that his friends will see the importance of this trip and help us out financially.

It feels kind of selfish to ask people for money like this. We would pay for the trip on our own if we could. We feel so blessed when ever we get a donation. It makes us feel like other people believe in us and believe this is the right thing for us to be doing. The trip is getting closer and our anticipation is building!

Update

Things are going fairly smoothly right now for us. We have been meeting with our group of pastors and high school kids every other Wednesday. This has allowed us to have questions answered by the “pro’s”, and gives us time to bond with our high school group. If you did not know, Caitlin and I will be co leaders of a group of 6 high school students on this trip. I am so excited for that. It will be a great opportunity to learn and grow with kids who are in a similar place in their faith journeys as we are. We can’t wait to get more involved with these kids.

We have our passport apps in and we are working on finding the cheapest way to get our shots. After our fundraiser dinner in early May hosted by Professor Medlar, we should have enough money to make a big deposit on our plane tickets as well. Hopefully things start falling in pace with Midland and we can maybe find some more support through them, which would be a huge blessing. We still have a long way to go in our fund-raising mission, but we are optimistic about finding the money and we are very grateful for what we have received so far.

Thank you to all that have supported us with prayer and donations. We would have absolutely no chance to go to Haiti without all of you.

Progress and costs

Hey everyone,

Today AJ is going to meet with Professor Medlar about the wine and cheese mixer he is putting on for us. Also, he is going to get his passport taken care of this afternoon. It is going to be $151…..Wow… So basically after we both have ours done it will be a $300 increase in what we need to raise. To date, we have raised $320 through support from family and friends alone. The next step is help from Professor Medlar. After that, hopefully Dr.Hults will have a connection to the College for us to use to raise more money. We are getting a little worried that we will not come up with the total we need and we are going to have to put the rest on AJ’s credit card. Here is a break down of the costs that we know of.

$300 Passports

$2,000 Tickets

$420 Housing in Haiti

$???? Shots at the Doctors office

Wednesday night we have an informational meeting with Journey church about the Haiti trip. We think the meeting will have a great deal of new information on what we will be doing and general information like that.

We also found out that we need to get a $300 deposit in for out plane tickets to be purchased. If we do not get more money raised soon, we are going to have to pay for the tickets out of our pockets until we can raise the money.

We hope that if you are reading this or have read our blog before, that you are keeping us in your prayers. We need all the support we can get and prayer is defiantly support to us.