Mission Emanuel

This week, a group of All-Star men from Winston-Salem, NC came down to the Dominican Republic to volunteer at a hospital in Jimani. They worked almost non stop serving food, transporting patients, taking X-rays (thanks to Chris the much-needed X-ray tech that came down with the group!), organizing meds and supplies, and doing carpentry. They worked hard in Jimanie, but they spent a couple days with us in Santo Domingo so we put them to work here too. On Weds, they helped us cook and serve hamburgers at the children’s feeding program. We knew that serving 32 kids was a task they could accomplish with ease after serving several hundred patients daily while in Jimani.

The kids were beyond excited when they saw that we brought some friends from the United States, but they still stood patiently in line for their lunch.

On Thursday evening, the men’s group went to the Haitian church service … the entire service was in Creole, but we all agreed that we could feel a strong presence of God in the room. After a few beautiful worship songs, we had time for prayer. We prayed by turning around and kneeling, facing our chair behind us. It was a humbling way to pray – on our knees, surrounded by others praying in a foreign tongue – but an amazing demonstration of how Great our God is and how powerfully He reigns over His kingdom of so many nations. The only thing that I understood was repeated numerous times through out the service. “Mesi Bondye. Mesi Jezi.” “Thank you God. Thank you Jesus.”
The man who preached – Joseph – told us earlier that day that he was in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit … he was with his wife, and they ran to each other crying out that they didn’t want to die alone. A young Haitian man translated the sermon for us, and Joseph delivered a message of hope to the suffering congregation – many of whom fled to Santo Domingo after they lost everything in the earthquake. That God had a plan for Israel, God had a plan for Egypt, God has a plan for Haiti. We must continue to trust in Him. These people have almost nothing. All they have is faith. And they continue to repeat “Mesi Jezi.”

The following day, we recruited the men to help pack 100 bags of dry food to distribute to Haitian families in the church who have arrived to the country since the earthquake.