Where He leads...: June 2013

I often find it difficult to truly capture a moment in Haiti that I can share with each of you or keep as a visual souvenir for myself. The lens of even the best camera is too limited to contain the breathtaking views, though I do try to snap as much as I can! I find the same struggle trying to portray the beauty of the people, but thankfully they at least fit a little better into the frame.

Last week up in the mountains of Chevrine I had a few minutes to play around with a volunteer's super nice beast of a camera. Here are a few shots I got before I (sadly) had to return it. He had told one of the guys on the hike up that he had insurance in case it fell off the side of the mountain--he would just have to go collect the pieces. I asked him if he had insurance to cover theft. Then I remembered that I'm a good Christian girl and the verses reminding me that I shalt not steal or covet came to mind! :)

Thanks, Jeremy (on the right), for letting me play with your camera!

Marie Ange is a mother of 5—yes 5!—and her life and the lives of her children were transformed after learning about the Children's Nutrition Program of Haiti.

During her last pregnancy in 2012, Marie Ange found out about CNP’s Supplementary Food Program for Woman (“PNS Fanm”). She had heard about mothers in her community taking their children to our nutrition program, but this is the first she had heard of a program for pregnant women. Her friend told her that all pregnant women should go to our clinic for a general check-up and nutrition screening. Although she assumed her health was fine, she decided to go by our clinic as her friend suggested. To her surprise, her blood pressure was low and her weight was substandard. She was identified as moderately malnourished and immediately entered into the PNS Fanm program.

On the first day of eating Plumpy ‘Sup she recalls an immediate change in her energy level. Over the next few weeks she started gaining weight at a healthy rate and was better able to care for her other four children. On December 23, 2012 she was discharged from our program six days before giving birth to her beautiful baby boy.

While in our program she recalls learning a great deal. She learned what foods contained what nutritional content and how to prepare meals that kept her body nourished. Another fact that our nutrition worker drilled into her was the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of her baby’s life. “I had heard this before but I had never given it any weight. It wasn’t until I kept hearing it from Kore Timoun again and again that I started to believe it.” Up until this point, she had never really understood the message of exclusive breastfeeding. She never thought her body produced enough breast milk to solely feed her other children in this manner so she would buy extra food and water for them. She recalls the difficulty of being able to afford feeding her children during those first crucial months. For her fifth child, thanks to the education provided by CNP, she finally realized and put into practice exclusive breastfeeding and indeed, she had plenty of milk for her baby. This was also helped by the fact that she herself had been healthy throughout the second half of her pregnancy from the treatment she received in our PNS Fanm program.

To her delight, her newborn is the healthiest of all her children. She says she can see a big difference between this baby and the rest of her children. She continues to have enough milk and realizes how economical exclusive breastfeeding has turned out to be.

In February she attended a Ti Fwaye (Hearth session) and has learned even more about cooking nutritional and affordable meals for her family and the importance of maintaining a sanitary home.

We are thankful, encouraged, and motivated to continue because of stories like Marie Ange’s!

Here is my latest update letter from Haiti. If you would like to receive these by email (I send them out a few times a year) write me at hannahsterling@live.com and I will add you to the list.

It's exciting to be a part of all God is doing in Haiti and I'm happy to share ways that you can get involved. Thank you for following along with my journey! And thank you most of all for your prayers! I couldn't do this without each of you!!

(It can take a few seconds to load the PDF below. Right-click and choose "Save As" to save and/or print or click here.)

On Sunday nights I have the privilege of worshiping the Lord with a group of believers who have brought such refreshment to my soul. They are a mission team from the organization Acts of Mercy International, a ministry of Antioch Community Church. (www.haititransformed.org)

A neat connection is that a sweet family I knew from Namibia are also missionaries with Antioch. We went to church together in Windhoek and I remember a delicious Thanksgiving feast at their house in 2010. I got to meet up with them again during my visit last Fall. Small world!

I look forward to my time each week worshiping with this special group of people. Right now it mostly consists of two single ladies and two families. My neighbor Michael also joins us. There are 6 kids between the two families. Sometimes by the time Sunday night rolls around, I'm just plain exhausted from a busy week and equally busy weekend. But I know that my time spent in the Word and through worship and prayer with this fellowship of believers is what I need and the perfect way to end one week and begin another.

It's always interesting to occasionally be around American kids when you're living in a country like Haiti. These kids are especially cute and hilarious. I'm also inspired by their hearts of worship. They sing and dance for the Lord and don't care who's watching.

Last night we focused on worship and prayer. Before the kids went to children's church we spent a few minutes praying over each of them and then some of the older ones prayed individually for some of us. Veronica, who will be 6 next month, came over to me and said she wanted to pray with me. I didn't even know she remembered my name since I haven't spent much time with the kids. But she said, "I want to pray with you, Hannah". And then she proceeded to say the sweetest and most precious prayer for me. "Father, I pray that you will give Hannah a spirit of grace. Fill her with joy."

Wow and AMEN! That girl is connected to the Holy Spirit and she couldn't have prayed a more appropriate prayer for me. My name means "grace" and when I think of my precious Lord and Savior I think of how gracious He is. My dear Granddaddy always talks about the grace of God and what that means to Him and how that truth changed his life forever. If it weren't for the grace of God, well... we could all write a book about what that would mean for our lives. God made us in His image so when I think about His image I think of looking into a mirror and asking myself if I am living up to that. Am I being gracious? When I'm living in Haiti and I'm hot and frustrated and overwhelmed, am I able to extend grace to my neighbor? To a stranger? Some days I do better than others. There's room for improvement.

As for joy... that has been a constant prayer of mine throughout the years. I consider myself a happy person, but that deep, unspeakable, indescribable joy is something that cannot be faked. I want God to continually fill me with that abundant, overflowing joy that can't be shaken by the worries and troubles of this world. Nehemiah 8:10 says, "... the joy of the Lord is my strength." Goodness knows I need strength daily for the tasks before me. Nehemiah reminds me where I can find it. And sweet little Veronica prayed for that crucial ingredient. Joy. Of the Lord. In the Lord. For the Lord.

I'm so thankful for all the blessings, big and small, that God brings into my life. I'm thankful for the prayer of a 5 year old child and the way the Holy Spirit immediately filled my soul with peace and refreshment as she prayed over me.

That night Jessica played a song for us to open up our time of worship. This song is the echo of my heart right now. I hope it will bless you as much as it blessed me. And I hope that as you listen to it, you will use it not only as a prayer but as a time of reflection to ask whether or not you truly are looking to God for what you need right now in your life. Are you overwhelmed? Do you need help? Vision? Wisdom? Is the Lord your strength, your shield, your rock? If He's not, He wants to be. He can be. And He is. But we have to put Him in that place in our lives. He will not force His way in but He is waiting to be our everything. He is waiting to reign in our lives. Let Him. You won't regret it. That is one promise I can make.

God I look to You, I won’t be overwhelmed
Give me vision to see things like You do
God I look to You, You’re where my help comes from

Give me wisdom; You know just what to do

I will love You Lord my strength
I will love You Lord my shield
I will love You Lord my rock forever
All my days I will love You God

Hallelujah our God reigns

I recently posted the following "status update" on my Facebook. Since it's a bit lengthy and really speaks a lot of what's on my heart right now, I thought I would put it here as well. It's a link to a favorite blog of mine with my comments.

Concerning this blog post by The Apparent Project...

I always love the challenging and thought-provoking messages that come from those serving in Haiti with The Apparent Project. They've been on an incredible journey to help orphans and vulnerable children AND their families in Haiti. This latest blog is a good read for anyone interested in diving into James 1:27. What I can't get out of my mind is a question I've never asked before... If I were a mother who has fallen on hard times for whatever reason. I'm struggling to feed my kids much less give them an opportunity to go to school, what would I want to happen? What kind of help would be the biggest blessing to me? At the top of my list would not be someone sweeping in and taking my child to a foreign country or even to some nice compound in another town. I would, however, love for someone to come alongside of me, and help me get back on my feet so I could do what a mother is supposed to do--care for her children. And I'm thankful for The Apparent Project and their recognition and mission that caring for families and widows is a critical part of caring for orphans and vulnerable children.

With that said, I'm supportive of adoption--both domestic and foreign--and I don't actually believe the church is doing enough in this area (especially domestically). And I have many friends who have adopted or are in the process of adopting. I'm also of course supportive of caring for orphans, though the way we do that needs to be reevaluated (i.e. "orphanages" may not be the best way) and the term "orphan" is often used very loosely. And no, I don't know what it's like to be at the lowest of lows, with my children seemingly suffering the most. But from what I know and what I've seen, we are doing a disservice to this world and to the dignified people we are trying to help, when our first instinct is to take children away from families. Final disclaimer, obviously cases of abuse and neglect are a separate issue. In my 8 years of serving on the mission field, those cases are the exception to what I've typically observed. You can read about my own personal journey with these subjects here.

And here is another great blog entry from them. I love how she says, "... we can all have different solutions to the same problem and be in harmony--and should be in harmony." The point is: This is a COMPLEX issue and should be treated as such and there is not one right answer. Stop, think, pray, listen, and then... if led, act, with wisdom, discernment, accountability, and a supportive group who are also doing all of those first steps as well.

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