Aloha family and friends,
The church is finally under construction!! After waiting five months for the church to clear customs and then another two weeks while we assembled a crew, we are now finally erecting the new National Foursquare Church for Haiti. It's beautiful and exciting. The congregation is thrilled and we anticipate that the new building will attract neighbors who might not otherwise come to visit. It's not that tall (only 30' to the peak) but it sticks up higher than anything else in the vicinity and just the structure itself will attract people. I know of one couple who came to our New Hope Diamond Head church in Honolulu just because they saw all the banners, tents, etc. that we set up every Sunday. They eventually committed their lives to Christ and are serving God faithfully in D.C. now! If God can use this building in Haiti like He used our tents in Honolulu, I am all for it!!
Work continues on various projects around the church property, the tent city and the community. Last week, we built some "cages" around the bananas we planted recently at the nearby tent city. Local goats were eating the bananas and they looked pretty bad. Already they are much better. Also went to the Girl's orphanage a couple times and the teams blessed them tremendously, as well as being blessed themselves. I am "Pastor Mark" to most of the children (even though I forget many of their names from week to week) and I love to visit with them as much as we can. One of the biggest problems at the girl's orphanage is security. It is so easy for outsiders to climb over the wall into the girl's compound and it's happened a few times already. Someone on a recent short term missionary team donated $ 1,500 for us to install razor wire on top of the ten foot wall around the girl's property and we are hoping to do that in early May. Razor wire is a common thing to use for security here - including around our own compound and the church property. Security is very important in Haiti as over 75 % of the population is unemployed and many are desperate for food, money or anything they feel will better their lives. At the girl's orphanage, outsiders know us Americans go in the compound all the time so they think the girls have something of value inside and attempt to get over the wall for that reason. Other "predators" want to climb the wall just because the girls are in there. Having the razor wire on the wall will greatly reduce that threat to their safety.
Today I am headed to Florida to visit my daughter, grand kids and mom for a week. Haiti requires that US citizens leave the country every three months - so this is my time. I will return to Haiti next week. I just left and I miss it already. (Although I also miss my friends and family outside of Haiti too - Guess I'm just sentimental !) Our next short term missionary team arrives Wednesday the 27th and the Foursquare Haiti National Convention starts on the 29th. Still lots to do to get ready for that team and the convention, but Aaron, Jara and Craig will handle it well.
God bless you all!
Mark
Some of the girl's we want to protect with the new razor wire on top of their perimeter wall. Cute huh ?! This tent is the girl's dining room, meeting room and sometimes school room for the younger children Many of you won't know this, but I was able to talk to a ton of people last Sunday at New Hope Diamond Head via skype while they were in church. What a blessing to see so many people !! Thanks to Lei Rol for setting it up and for all those who stopped by to say hello !
The Lord continues to bless the work here and we are always excited about what God is doing. Over the past couple months we have made a strong connection to the tent city close by our church. The community leader, John, has become a good friend and we are always glad to see each other. A team from Canada was here recently and one of the ladies on the team spent a lot of time talking to John about the Lord through an interpreter. Up til now John has been nice and willing to work with us, but not too open to the gospel, at least not until Canada hit Haiti ! Two Sundays ago John gave his heart to the Lord and wants to start a Bible study with Jonas (the school teacher) in the new school we built. Praise God for that !! John looked very happy after church that day and we are believing that God will use John to influence his tent city community for Christ.
This last Wednesday we had a wonderful concert in the tent city with a team here from Tacoma Washington. They sang songs, did a skit, Jonas gave his testimony to the tent city and everyone had a great time. A couple people from one of our teams did an impromptu medical clinic for a bunch of the tent city people who came to the concert. A few of the people should have been in the hospital, but often people don't go to the hospital (even though it might be free) because they can't afford the tap-tap money (bus money) to get there. One mother had put some awful looking liquid detergent on a bad wound on her child's leg in an effort to clean it. Our nurse took quite some time to properly clean and bandage it. What a great time to connect to this community that is so close to our church. We hope this will be one more step in ministering and reaching this community for Christ.
And then there are chickens !!! YEAH !!! This past week we finally got chickens to start our little chicken farm. The chickens are one of the self sufficiency projects that we want to teach to the local Haitians. Not how to raise chickens (because most Haitians have had some experience with chickens) but how to do it "right" where the chickens are producing eggs, we fertilize some and raise chicks for layers or for meat. A week ago we got 36 chickens and they laid 30 eggs the first day ! (great job "ladies" !!). Our two Haitian men are learning how to care for the chickens, collect the eggs and clean the coup. This will be a fun adventure for us as well as we learn more about chickens ourselves.
This was fun ! The small hands are from some little girls from the tent city who stuck their hands under our security door at the church. We were working on the inside and the kids stuck their hands through to play tricks with us. One of the ladies from the Canada team (Christa) happened to have finger nail polish with her so when the girls stuck their hands through again, Christa touched one of their nails with the polish. The squealed and yanked their hands back, but as soon as they realized what was happening, they all put their hands under the door to get their nails polished. What a great time !! We never saw their faces and of course we couldn't talk to them since they didn't speak English - but a connection was made nonetheless !! 
Here's the Base Camp "team" - Craig (far right) then Aaron, then Jara and me - all trying to pose serious working on the schedule for the week and another team behind us (the Canadians again !) waving their arms and making faces. It was tough to be serious with the Canadian team !
The concert we held at the tent city. This is the school we built for Jonas and his "kids" and we added a shed on the back for people to sit under - worked great for the concert. By the time the concert was over there was about 200 people hanging around. Sang and worshipped as well as prayed for many people who came up for deliverance and prayer for all kinds of needs. One of the best times we've had yet with our "Haitian family" !! 
Praying for the Haitians who came up front at the concert. These people are so open to the Lord, it's easy to talk to them and pray with them for their needs.
