Saturday, March 17, 2012

IV HOPE Team March 17


Saturday, March 17, 2012

We made it to Haiti, finally, praise the Lord!  It has been a loooong day.  It’s after midnight in Haiti (we are 3 hours ahead) and we have been traveling since yesterday at 1:00 pm.  We have a wonderful team of 20 people here: Bob & Linda Stovall arrived two days ago and have been on La Gonave Island with their son, Jeremiah, helping Pastor Benis with his buildings – they will meet up with us tomorrow morning.  Ryan Rothfleisch, Corey Clayton, Doug Westmoreland and his 17 year old daughter, Brittany, Nichole Grijalva, Ernie Manriquez, Pastor Tommy Rogers and myself all travelled together from El Centro yesterday.  Gary & Kathy Rinkenberger came for a second time from Atascadero.  Bill & Delores Van Leeuwan, Joseph Albrecght and his 17 year old daughter Victoria, Larry Horton, Greg Scott, Steve Koppes and Brett Gibson all travelled from Corona, CA.  Pastor Moore was supposed to come but his health has not been good and so he decided last minute not to go – please pray for him. 
Getting here was difficult.  I am expecting God to do great things with this team because there sure were a lot of obstacles that arose in getting here. I had a strange prompting to pray for Pastor Tommy since he was separated from us on a different flight and he told me that the reason he got delayed from Florida was because they wouldn’t let a certain lady board, who he called a “terrorist,” and they had to unload all the luggage just to get hers off.  We were very thankful that God intervened and did not allow this woman on the flight, so he finally arrived at about 10:30. Every flight was delayed quite a bit, but the worst was the Corona group.  My flight arrived at about 8:30 this morning and I was expecting theirs to arrive at 11:30, which changed to 1:55, then 4:30, then 6:20.  By the time we left the airport it was dark in the city so they didn’t get to see much.  But we did kill some time for a while with the first half of the team and took them to lunch, to the collapsed palace, to the wood market to buy souvenirs, etc.  The rest of the time we waited and rested at the airport.  The Lord was good to us because the majority of the time in the afternoon it was cloudy with a breeze so people just took little naps on the bus while they waited.
Ryan went to the hardware store and bought supplies and our personal chef, Ernie, finally got to experience the grocery store.  (BTW, he already prepped everything for a Sunday morning feast of huevos rancheros – woo hoo!)  Ryan and Gary returned in our truck to Lifeline with all the supplies to get plans ready for the team while the rest of us stayed in Port-au-Prince all day.
This is the very first mission trip for the majority of this team.  They were quite surprised at the chaos and poverty of the city, they weren’t expecting it to be that bad.  But they are enjoying experiencing everything.  When we finally arrived at Lifeline there was a Haitian feast waiting for us – an eggplant, onion, cabbage concoction, Haitian rice with beans, spicy Haitian coleslaw (pickly), freshly baked bread and about 5 kinds of fruit.  Then we got Larry to fix the hot water heater (my new hero) and we all settled in for the night.  I am listening to the now-familiar night sounds of bleating goats, dogs barking and bugs chirping as I get ready to turn in for the night, the last one up as usual.  J
Please join us in thanking our mighty God for bringing this amazing, large team together and for getting us here safely.  Pray that we will all stay focused on Jesus and the reason we are here doing this, that we will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that we will be lights in this community and a blessing to all, as we represent Christ.  Pray against what the enemy might want to do to deter us from our mission.

Thank you all.
Blessings,
Nikki Rothfleisch
Secretary

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