I have been a little busy over the past week and a half and so I have not had any time to post a blog but I received a day off yesterday (Wednesday) and have decided to post my second blog. A lot has been going on in Haiti (and the Dominican Republic) since I last wrote. This second blog is going to be focused on the day to day work that I and the AIM groups are doing. Also I am going to highlight some things that the Lord has done.
My main two responsibilities at this point have been to oversee the group leaders and the groups themselves along with handling all the finances. Last week I also was handling the responsibility of buying supplies for the groups and ministry materials. Every day the groups wake up between 6:30 and 7:00 am. The groups will start the day with quiet times. Then we will do some worship and devotions. Then we do listening prayer to ask the Lord what he desires us to do for the day. Then we go and do morning ministry and come back for lunch around 12:30. We will then go out again to do more ministry around 1:30. The groups will come back around five and have dinner at 6:00. Then we will talk about the day and how God used us or how we saw God work. We will have a time of prayer and be finished around 8:00. Then there’s a leader meeting that last until around 9. I will then have to tie up loose ends for the next hour and go to bed around 10 or 10:30. So for now I have been putting in 14 to 15 hour days. We have had about two hours of electricity every night which is provided by a gasoline generator. We have been staying in tents in the pastor’s yard. The yard is gravel but thank the Lord I brought a pad to sleep on.
Nearly every morning last week I had to go out and buy supplies and try to get money out of the bank. The banks in Haiti are packed with customers. They will have lines outside the banks anywhere from 50 to 300 people. The banks also have a limit on the amount of money that a person can take out. The limit is $500 and on some days the amount is lower. So getting money out is rather difficult. One of our translators named Obed has some friends in the banking industry and so he is able to get me to the front of the line when I go. Obed and I went to buy supplies several times last week and we bought tarps for the Haitian people along with tools and rope and several other items. We have been buying these items from venders on street corners. The traffic in Port au Prince is horrible. It can take us sometimes five hours to run to the bank and then buy supplies. In the afternoons I will help the leaders in taking groups to ministry sites. Right now we have two groups that stay at different sites. One group stays at a house where a Pastor named Christian lives. Pastor Christian’s house is on the out skirts of Port au Prince. The other group is staying at Pastor Jean Claude house which is nearer to the center of Port au Prince. Pastor Claude’s house is right across the street from the ocean. We are still early in the ministry process but most of the stuff that we are doing right now is building relationships with the people in several different communities along with helping put up tarps for homes before rainy season comes. We have also been doing prayer walks, a little medical, evangelism, and some sports ministry. We plan to start doing VBS along with teaching English to the Haitians as well.
I had to go back to the DR to drop off one of the groups at the airport. It can be anywhere from an 8 to 10 hour drive to the DR airport. So we left Friday morning at 8:00 and got into Santo Domingo at 5:30pm. During the drive we stopped by a bank and got some money. We dropped off the group Saturday morning at the airport and then picked a guy up at the airport at 12:30 am on Sunday morning. We left Santo Domingo at 7:00 and got to the border at 3:30 pm. At the border we had to exchange pesos for Haitian dollars. The money exchange takes place outside and there are about 15 to 20 guys that come right up to the window of the vehicle and do the exchange. One of the money exchangers spoke English. His name was Dialecte and he told me he was a Christian. During the money exchange I had about 12 people exchanging money with me. I felt led to tell them about Christ. So I asked Dialecte to translate for me and he said he would. So I told them about the “Good New”. None of them accepted the Lord but the seed was planted.
This week started out rough and I was constantly under spiritual warfare. Knowing how much of a struggle I was having I should have realized that something great was going to happen. On Tuesday the group started out the day with listening prayer and five or six people felt strongly that the Lord was wanting them to minister to children. So we went to a community of Haitian people that had a lot of children and a soccer field. Most of the group started playing soccer and a few were just hanging out and talking to the Haitian people. One girl named Amanda started playing games with the children. Within 15 minutes Amanda had almost all the kids playing with her. The kids were having such a fun time that it drew the whole village as spectators. Myself and one of our translators named John felt the Lord telling us to preach the gospel to the whole crowd. So I got two of the college guys named Joe and Tyler to preach the gospel and then I finished it up. Around 10 kids accepted the Lord and were saved.
In the afternoon we went out and went to a different ministry site where a church had fallen due to the earth quake. Most of the group began to help remove the rocks and rubble. Amanda and another girl named Trish started playing games with the kids in the area. Again tons of kids started playing games with the two girls. The kids were having such a great time that it drew a large crowd of people and I felt led to share the gospel with the crowd. John again translated for me and again around 10 kids received the Lord. Right after the kids received the Lord they went and started helping the rest of the group remove the rubble from the church. It was awesome to see God draw the kids to himself. So over 20 kids received the Lord and nearly 100 people heard the gospel. The day reminded me of Matthew 19:13-15 where Jesus receives the little children. It was an incredible day of ministry.
Thanks again for all the prayers and support. Please pray for strength for me and the other three leaders. Their names are Branden, Stephanie, and Angela. We are working long hours and not having much time to take breaks. Pray for us as we are constantly under spiritual attack. Also pray for more leaders to come down to Haiti to help lead groups and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.
In Christ,
Ben Valentine
The Electricity came on for the first time this morning since the earth quake on January 12th. It lasted half the day.
