Haiti Report April 2011

Who: Charlie McGee: Preacher, St. Joseph (MI) Church of Christ & Proprietor Piggin & Grinnin BBQ Joint. Matt May: Minneapolis, MN, #3 son of David May, 1^st trip to Haiti. David May: Author & Lecturer, Inver Grove, MN.

What: Mission trip to deliver four lessons on Faith, Peace, Hope, and Love and otherwise speak and help out as the opportunity arose. We delivered the four lessons twice and otherwise lost count of speaking engagements. We also reviewed an orphanage on behalf of Orphan’s Lifeline.

When: April 12 – 23, 2011

Where: Port au Prince, Cap Haitian, and Port de Paix Haiti and the roads and airways between.

The Short Story: On Tuesday we met up in Miami then flew to Port au Prince together, each with 100 pounds of frozen meat for Roberta Edwards’ children’s home (total 300 pounds). In Port we stayed in the new guest house operated by the Estes Church in Henderson TN. There were several very interesting and helpful people there. To tell their stories would take more space than I have here, but I will say that they represent a great deal of wisdom and lasting concern for Haiti that transcends the problems they encounter along the way.

Days 1-5, Wednesday- Sunday, Port au Prince: Early on Matt decided he could be of best use to Roberta helping her with maintenance and repairs at the children’s home. He went with the guys building houses for refugees about three days, then he developed his own list of things that needed doing and Roberta had one for him as well. Roberta left the country on Tuesday of the second week we were there.

Larry Waymire of Caribbean Ministries, Lexington TN, is working with Estes on the Haitian disaster relief effort. He took us to the (Home Depot style) hardware store to pick up supplies and to see a church building and some individual homes the Estes church is funding. Joe Holley, Lexington, AL, is staying long term to help Roberta with driving, repairs and in any other way he can. We went with him to a huge warehouse to pick up two large truck loads of beans and rice and unloaded them at Roberta’s. From there they will be further distributed.

We took Roberta to lunch; drove by “Cananan’s Land,” a very large refugee camp; toured the Santo School; and saw the poorest orphanage I have ever seen. We were at the orphanage courtesy of Harry Hames of Healing Hands International. I will try to raise some funds through Orphan’s Lifeline or elsewhere for the home. There will be a separate report on it.

We had a BBQ dinner one evening courtesy of Charlie and Roberta along with a large medical mission team. Charlie and I delivered our four basic lessons, one each night, for about 300 people. I spoke Sunday morning and we did an extra session of one lesson each for Fedson Gustanville at a little denominational church he is working with. It was followed by a rousing Q&A on baptism.

Days 6-8, Monday - Wednesday, Cap Haitian. Transportation within Haiti was a bit of a nightmare this trip. On our last trip (October 2010), we were able to borrow a vehicle and Brother Fatton travelled with us as tour guide and interpreter. This time we were pretty much on our own. It took two trips to the airport to get tickets to Cap and learn that catching a flight from Cap to Port de Paix was highly unlikely. Roberta said not to worry because Brother Fatton would come after us in Cap to get us to Port de Paix. He had said to me that he would try to get a truck to come get us. He did show up in Cap, but no vehicle. We went to the airport there to try to get airline tickets. No luck. They thought they might have something around four, but by that time it would be too late to get to Port de Paix any other way. In the final analysis, we caught a tap-tap, a small pick-up truck with a lot of people in the back, to ride about four hours over the rough mountain roads to Gonaives where we met Fatton’s cousin for a another long ride to Port de Paix. Along the way we encountered several Rah-Rah parades. Rah-Rah is a voodoo ritual at this time of year. The parades have some interesting music with drums and homemade horns. One of the parades asked for money to let us pass, but Fatton spoke to them and they let us through. All in all, it was the hardest day of the trip.

While we were in Cap we met the new administrators of the Cap Haitian Children’s Home, Hunter and Jillian Kittrell - neat young people with a big new job. We spent one whole afternoon and a long morning with Tabitha who runs a children’s home funded by Orphans’ Lifeline. I was asked by Orphans’ Lifeline to do a thorough update on the home. It was a delightful experience, but a lot of detailed work. Charlie took care of a lot of the detail. I had lunch with them and she sent us off with gifts.

Days 8-10, Wednesday - Friday, Port de Paix. Wednesday night after the grueling rides we went home with Fatton, his wife had prepared a dinner for us. Roberta had warned us that Madame Fatton would treat us like kings. She did indeed. She is a delightful woman and they have a very bright, English speaking, 10 year old daughter. After dinner we went to the church building where I delivered a lesson as a part of an ongoing nightly seminar. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were pretty well wiped out.

The next day, Thursday, we did the four lesson seminar we had done in Port au Prince. That afternoon we toured some mission points in Port de Paix, bought tickets back to Port au Prince, had another dinner with Madame Fatton, and Charlie did a lesson that night. Friday we toured the actual port at Port de Paix at my request. That was fascinating. Then we went to the airport (with an outdoor terminal and a waiting room under a mango tree) to catch our flight back to Port au Prince.

Friday night and Saturday morning we checked out and flew home with a stop in Miami. Our closing meeting was in a food court in the Miami airport with a drink from Starbucks and a pizza from California Pizza Kitchen. A fitting ending to a good trip.

PHOTOS (FROM THE TOP)

1. Charlie in the tap tap

2. Charlie reviewing his lesson at the hotel in Port de Paix

3. A man unloading a boat at the port in Port de Paix

4.Matt, Kerlange, and the garden Matt Weeded.

5. One of the houses Estes is building for refugees.

6. Rice and beans at the warehouse.

7. Charlie unloading 100 pound bags of beans (I waited for the 55 pound bags of rice).

8. Charlie and the toilet for the little new orphanage Harry Hames showed us.

9. Matt and Magalie.

10. David at the plane to Cap.

11. Tabitha jumping rope with her kids.

12. David preaching at Santo.

The Eagan Church's recent outing to Feed my Starving Children

Adam preparing boxes for the workers to use in making bags of food for the children:

Sealing the bags:

Filling the bags:

Tom McNamara working the warehouse:

All ages filling bags

Labeling bags:

It was great fun and we filled 50 boxes of food for hungry kids.

The Minnesota May Family

You may know a lot of this, but it is time to do a family update.

Charlene was in Haiti in February. I am putting a picture at the bottom of this post of her speaking to about 200 ladies at the Santo church. Charlie Mcgee (our brother from St. Joseph, Michigan), Matt May (our #3 son), and I are headed back there in April. We have planned three seminars in different places and a review of an

orphanage for Orphan's Lifeline. That will involve considerable in-country travel.

That's good because this is Matt's first trip. BTW, if you don't understand how Charlie can be "our brother" we will be glad to answer your individual inquiry.

Alex May (#1 grandson) lives with us and is finishing high school. He has been accepted to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, and to their Honors College. He plans to attend. Rick May is home from school for awhile to catch up on some debts. He is working two jobs. So there are four of us living here again.

Without going into all the detail, there are 17 relatives of various ilk plus the two of us plus several honorary relatives and friends who show up here for birthdays. We are doing two birthday celebrations in April - one for three people toward the beginning of the month and another for Charlene toward the end (after the Haiti trip).

I spoke at the Northern Light church last Sunday and just finished a series on Malachi for the Eagan men. The book signing was a lot of fun. I interviewed for a little community TV program about my books a couple of weeks ago. Haven't seen the results yet - will try to get them posted when they are done.

Hope you all are well and are excited about your work for the Lord.

Passports and Haiti trips and birthdays

Matt and I got his passport application submitted today, hopefully in plenty of time to get here before our April trip. He and I and brother Charlie are planning to go do three seminars for churches (two in the south and one in the north) and visit an orphanage on behalf of Orphan's Lifeline. It will be a busy two weeks. We have a lot of planning to do.

Talked to Charlene this afternoon, only the 3rd time since she got to Haiti Thursday. Her fibromyalgia kicked in yesterday and put her down. She countered with prednisone this morning and is feeling much better now. That should last at least until she gets home Thursday night late - hopefully through Alex's 18th birthday party Saturday.

Harding University sent Alex a BD present today - notice that he has been accepted into their Honors College.

If you will give me a few minutes, I plan to post an update on my next book on Dead to My Flesh. I had encountered a deal killer of a problem with it and a solution hit me in the shower this morning. There is a direct connection to the spirit of God from my shower.

Hanging fliers and selling cookies

I spent most of yesterday hanging fliers around the neighborhood for my upcoming book signing. I am excited about the book signing; it was what I call "a God thing." My friend George would say, "God told me..." I was in the local Caribou Coffee Shop with a friend and noticed their community bulletin board when it hit me. Maybe I could do a book signing somewhere like the coffee shop and hang fliers about it on community bulletin boards. It sounded like a lot of free publicity.

Before I left there I asked to speak to the manager, but she was not there. I verified that I would have to connect with her to get permission for the signing, so I took the number and left. The following week I called a couple of times without making contact, but eventually got her on the phone. She sounded gruff, but she was there and willing to see me. I rushed up the street and started to tell my story: "I am a local Christian author and am wondering whether..." "God is in this place," she interrupted.

So, I booked it and another friend helped me post it on facebook as an event and a lot of people wished me the best and yesterday I went out to hang fliers. I have done some church related door knocking before, but this seemed different. It wasn't nearly as scary. My first stop was a bank with a policy that only non-profits could post on thier board - understandable, but discouraging. But I only ran into one other place with a policy like that. Most places had day care announcements and all kind of local small business ads. I got fliers posted at the bowling alley, banks, grocery stores, exercise centers, senior living facilities, the staff lounge at a government office building, and churches. The "old folks homes" were the most excited about it. Two of them wanted my phone number so they could follow up. At one of the churches the pastor invited me in to sit and chat a bit and quized me on several controversial religious issues. He said he would be at the signing and would post the notice in the church building.

I am not finished, have covered less than half the area I want to post in, but it was a great day. I thought it must be like selling girl scout cookies. Everybody buys girl scout cookies, right? At least we do. What I was selling was an idea. And it was truly exciting to see the receptiveness that exists in the neighborhood - just like selling trefoils and thin mints.

Taking e-mail to the cloud

I have taken my email to the cloud. For years I have used Outlook and later Windows Mail to download my email to my computer and have worked with it and filed it there. There was always a certain comfort in having it all stored right here in my lap.

But I became uneasy about local data storage a few years ago when I had a computer hard drive crash on me. Lost a lot of pictures in that one and all my saved emails and other documents. Interestingly I had recently bought an external hard drive to store data in case of a computer crash. It didn't work either. Somewhere in the fruitless search for someone who could get my pictures off the external hard drive an expert told me that since a hard drive is a mechanical instrument they will all eventually fail.

About a year ago I started backing up my data on-line (i.e. on "the cloud"), primarily so I don't lose my photos, but since I haven't had to use it to retrieve my data, I still am uneasy about it. I am not especially concerned about someone else getting into it, because one of my principals is transparency. I don't have any secrets other than social security number and the like, and they are not out there.

I have held off to the last on going on'line with my email, but have recently made the change. I am still a little uncomfortable not having it stored right here with me, but am gradually building confidence in the cloud. Wish me luck.

Last Year's Resolutions

It's frustrating. I wrote this once, then lost it. So I'm going to try again.

In a way it's a metaphor for last year's resolutions. I tried, I failed, I have a decision to make. Do I try again? Or do I trash the idea?

One thing I enjoy about the new year is revisiting last years resolutions. Though in recent years I have come to call them "goals." It seems less threatening somehow.

I can revisit them because I have them inscribed at the bottom of my "To Do" list. So as I finish the year I am confronted with the chore of rewriting last years goals. Last year I had four. I know I will reveal something of myself, by talking about them, but that is in keeping with my (unwritten) goal of transparency (maybe more about that in a later post).

Last year's goals tend to fall into three groups: 1. Sucessfully completed, Hallelujah, Amen! 2) Missed it completely, try again this year. Ugh! and 3) Missed it completely, drop it, forget it, Whew! It is that third category that prompted me to write this little piece. It makes me smile.

You see, for years I have compulsively carried over all of last year's unmet goals into the coming year. They constituted a huge collection of difficult expectations with which to confront the new year. Instead of fresh opportunities, the coming year looked rather bleak against the back drop of old failures. Maybe at 69 it is the approaching decade of the 70's that has prompted me to start dropping goals from the list, but it has proved to be an exciting prospect, rather than the bitter nostalgia you might expect.

In 2010 I met two of my four goals - both causes for celebration. I failed to meet two others. One of the two unmet ones goes to the top of the new list with excitement for early work on it in the coming year. The other one goes into the trash can, with a certain glee. It's not that the fourth goal was not worthy. It is just that I have carried it over for far too many years. It was at least as unlikely to be met in 2011 as it was in 2010 and 2009 and...

Goal 1 was to finish the third book: "Relax Christian: God Still has Your Back." I didn't get that done, but it goes back on top for 2011. Goal 2 was to rework my web site (an important step in marketing the ideas that have become an big part of who I am). Got that one done! It didn't take as long as I thought it would. I could have done it sooner. But it is done! It will need to be an ongoing project, but doesn't need to go back on the goals list. Goal 3 was to learn 300 new Haitian Creole phrases by the end of the year. I flunked that one. I don't do well with things that require daily drill. I took some delight in not repeating that one for 2011. I still would like to be able to converse with the Haitian people, but I will have to continue my search for a method other than the "phrase a day" method I had devised. Goal 4 was to clarify for myself my focus on Haiti. I did that one. It took a good deal of time (both mine and that of a large number of other people) and some money, but I got it done. I am not sure anyone but me will benefit from it but I feel a lot better about my interactions with the Haitian people.

So I crossed two off as successfully completed, eliminated one as failed, and carried over one that I want to continue work on. Maybe I'm just old and easily distracted, but it was an interesting and exciting time for me.. I hope the new year brought new joys for you as well.