Feeding programs...in a third world country

Working in a third world country, all needs are desperate. All needs are the most important. Clothing is the most important. Housing is the most important and of course, food is the most important. Did I mention having a job is the most important, also? In spite of all of this pressure, as missionaries we know that the most desperate and important need is for them to know Christ.



I want you to know that exciting things are beginning to take place in all these aspects of our ministry. We have two bus loads and a container full of items from the earthquake that will still be a huge blessing to so many of our people. Food, clothing, tarps to help cover their homes and protect them and many other items are coming in these vehicles. Praise God for all of you who have given so generously to provide these items and continue to give to help us ship them all the way to Haiti.



We are still anticipating the day that Shaina and I can be back in Haiti to help Wilckly with the daily running of the mission and its many projects which in turn supports whole communities of Haitians.



There is a lot involved to have a feeding program as you can well imagine. The main thing is to have a staff and someone to head it up and maintain it at each of our schools in order for us to start it. It is one thing to look for sources of food, it is yet another to have a trustworthy staff to cook the food and make sure that it is distributed to the children. We are constantly praying that God will bring these trustworthy Christian people into our path.

Wilckly is Haitian and it has bothered him in the past to see people start a feeding program and then at some point it just stops. It may stop because the people who were providing the food stopped, ran out of food, or left the country. He has struggled with wanting to create a program that would be able to sustain itself regardless of an outside food source.

He then started researching to find something that would provide food for the feeding program and jobs for people. This would help the people appreciate and protect it. They would get double benefits. Their children in our schools would get to eat the fish and they would have a job helping us raise the fish.

Recently, Randy Beemer of Beemer Fisheries in Bedford, Iowa, was able to travel with us to Haiti to look at the possibilities. We looked at land, water sources, he met many of the kids in our schools that we will be feeding, and he learned a lot about Haiti. He said the possibilities are amazing. We were able to visit a place where they are already set up for raising the fish.

Please keep us in your prayers as we begin to develop the fish project. Pray that it will be a huge blessing to our ministry.

Great news!

Judenel has a new leg! Praise the Lord ! He is so excited. He was getting very good at manuvering his wheelchair where ever he needed to go over rough terrain. Now he can stand and walk with the assistance of a cane. His other leg was in such bad shape that they almost amputated it also. It has been a loooong healing process and is still on going. We thank the medishare hospital for being in Haiti, for coming to our rescue and now for providing a leg for Judenel so that he can have a fairly normal life.

It has been nine months since our accident and we are still trying to get back to a hint of normal. Marc struggles every day with his new handicap. He accepts this knowing that they were definitely going to amputate both of his arms. There was so m uch flesh gone and the rest was filled with fine and coarse loose gravel. He is a fighter. It has been an amazing struggle for this young man.

The Haitians resiliance is astounding. Wilckly has been amazing also. Quietly supporting the whole situation. All the stress of driving during this accident and struggling with the huge amount of responsibility as a driver who is always extremely careful to protect his passengers, has been quite a load. He never complains about it. I am asking you to pray for strength and wisdom for him like never before and protection from the evil one who lurks about seeking to devour. It's your prayers which have fueled his every move. All of those things were compacted by us not being together as a family. I am the other half of him and he is the other half of me, so being apart gets harder and harder. Without my assistance Wilckly still took in everyone from the accident as they were released from the hospital to help them recuperate.

All of this plus losing Yoka who was so dear to us. She was a daughter to us, raised in our home since she was three. Full of love, laughter and service, a photo copy of her mother, Bioude, but gone so suddenly and unexpectedly at age 20. But still....God is good. The heartache and the hurt will never leave us but life must go on. We remember her every day, what she would be doing, how she would be helping, trouble she would be getting herself into.

Again, I ask you, I beg you to bathe us and our ministry in prayer, but especially Wilckly. Pray that we will be together with him soon, serving in Haiti together as a family.

Where is your JOY?

Could you find joy.......if everyday you had to get up at 4 am before the sun rose, to gather your goods in a wheel barrow and rush to the market place only to sit in the hot sun all day in hopes of selling your goods? Could you find joy....... if you were up before sunrise to cut all of this with a machete before the heat of the day only to carry it on your head for 3 miles to where you were making charcoal to sell with the wood it took you a week to cut, gather and arrange for the occasion?

Could you find joy..........if while working from sunrise in the blistering heat, all you had to dream about going home to, 1 year after an earthquake destroyed everything you owned, including your wife and five children....was this????

Could you find joy............if your soul task for the day was to carry your merchandise around the city, on top of your head, yelling what you have for sale in hopes someone would be interested and keep your commerce alive one more day and help you feed the 10 hungry mouths waiting at home that money doesn't even allow you to send to school yet?

Could you find joy.......after rising before the sun, walking barefoot through the muddy, swampy area where your sugar cane crop was growing, harvesting and cleaning it with a machete, piling in sky high in a wheelbarrow and pushing it to town to find a place among everyone to sell it on a busy market day?

Could you find joy.......knowing that your only mode of transportation for getting your four children to school (count their legs, I promise you there are four children on there) was to arrange them ever so carefully on your motor scooter like this?

Somewhere in the pictures above you will find people who are filled with JOY!!! The joy of the Lord oozes from them in their 4 am prayer meeting. Oh no, it's not just today, it's everyday of the week except Sunday! Yep! that is correct! They meet Monday through Saturday from 4am to 6am. The joy that eminates from their service is contagious! I can't help but feel humbled to be in the presence of God almighty. I couldn't feel more blessed than to know that in the middle of people who have nothing but that hope to cling to that God would choose me to minister to them, to suffer with them, to laugh with them, to cry with them, to teach them and to be taught by them. I long to be in two places at once. Though most of you could not imagine how I could possibly feel more at home, at ease there...it is true, Haiti is my home. It's my family's home. Please pray for us to keep His joy in our hearts as we are away from the country and the people we love so much. Let us never lose sight of His goals for ministry among the Haitian people. Please keep us and Haiti in your prayers. "The JOY of the Lord is my strength! Thanks. dee

Waiting for a new day...

Many people lose the chance to have eternal life because they have no vision. May 16th will forever be engraved in our minds as the day of our accident in Haiti. For this young man, Judenel, he feels it is also engraved in his legs as an everyday reminder. I remember as we approached the end of the drivable road and parked our truck I told everyone to get out and grab a few boxes of MRE's and start walking. I grabbed two boxes, placed them on my head and led the way, back through fields of bananas and past donkeys and goats in the path. I didn't know Judenel well but had met him a couple of times. I remember he grabbed several boxes and in a few, long, burly strides had caught up with me and was leading the way, chatting as he went.

Little did I know how well I would come to know this young man. In the accident the truck had actually landed on his legs and the leg of his friends. Both had one leg amputated below the knee. I remember his cheery disposition managed to carry through to the full, makeshift, outdoor emergency room filled with all of our accident victims. Even when I went to see him in the cool recovery area after his leg had been amputated, he greeted me with that huge smile.



You can see that his other leg was in bad shape also. It has taken a long time for it to heal. He was in the hospital the longest of anyone. He wasn't released from the hospital until September 16th, four months after the accident.

We took him first to his home. It was a real struggle for this young, active 23 year old to now be sitting in a wheel chair, waiting for people to help him. Of course, in his parents small home there was no room to roll around in a wheel chair. Going outside to get a breath of fresh air was a huge ordeal. The ground was uneven and it was a real hassle to get to where his friends were. Some of them came to see him but they only discouraged him more. Wilckly stopped by to see him taking food for the family (his mom and sister were also severely injured in the accident), and Judenel's medicine to fight infection. He knew he had to get him out of that situation.

In a couple days we went to pick him up to bring him to live with us. He hasn't stopped thanking us since. He is back to his cheerful self. He wants to learn computers. He is also handy with tools. He has enjoyed tinkering with our generator when it has problems. He is very motivated. He doesn't feel sorry for himself. While his friends are saying if God loves you so much, why did he ruin your life like this. His answer is that if God spared his life in an accident where everyone should have been dead then that is a loving and powerful God that he will serve with his life. Even his own mom was talking to him like this. He said, "Mom, when I had both legs, you didn't know where I went, what I did or what kind of trouble I was getting into. This may be God's way of keeping my life from going down the wrong path."

He was measured two months ago for a prosthesis. Wilckly called yesterday and said that he took him to Port-au-Prince and he came home with a new leg. He is a new man. He is walking with a cane or crutches until he can strengthen the other leg that was also badly injured. Judenel was smiling from ear to ear as he said, "Thank you preacher, thank you God! It's a NEW DAY! Please pray for this young man that he would gain strength and that he would be strengthened in his commitment to the Lord!

All in a day's work...

A phone call from Haiti at 4a.m. reminds me it is already 5a.m. in Haiti and there are many activities already happening. Wilckly already has a full plate that early in the morning and he calls to report some of the days activities.

Our wash lady came early this morning for his help. They were taking her grandson to the hospital because he was sick. The boy died on the way to the hospital and she came after Pasteur Kiki to come get the body and bring it back to Carries to be prepared for burial. What a way to start the day. The grandma is so close to accepting Christ. She came to church on Sunday for the first time in eight years. Her daughter is the lady witch doctor of the area and it has been very difficult for her to want and try to leave that lifestyle. Please pray for her and Wilckly as he ministers to her and her family at this time of such great loss.

Next he had to go carry a couple of loads of gravel to someone who had been helping us out in many different ways. Sharing some materials with him will show our appreciation.

Time to co-ordinate all the funds needed for the day to buy gas for the truck, gas for the backhoe, gas for the generator, food to be prepared for our household (40)+ people.

Exhausted and it is not even noon yet, people are waiting to talk to him and the phone is ringing off the hook. Somehow he found a moment to call me for a few words of encouragement and remind me that if I were there I could field some of the calls and other daily things.

I have returned to Iowa after a week in Haiti to continue to be with my mom as she heals and recuperates from open heart surgery. The kids are also here with me in Bedford and the girls are in school. Please pray for us as the cholera situation is still very real and we are praying the Lord will show us how we can be back together in Haiti again soon. Pray for me as I am here in the States that I will use that time wisely to continue getting the 2 school buses, the rollback truck with container and the pick-up ready to be driven to Riviera Beach, Florida to be put on a boat and sent to Haiti. I am available for speaking engagements as the snow and ice allow. Please email me at mdmekiki@yahoo.com or call me at 712-621-1464.