CMI Featured on New Channel 5

Haiti Mission Discovery Med Clinic

God is Awesome!

We arrived in PAP Saturday eve after a 2 hour delay in Miami. We sat on the plane the entire time waiting on our Captain (pilot) to arrive. Anyway, as you can imagine the PAP airport was chaotic. We were missing around 9 bags of luggage of which we retrieved all but 3 of them on Sunday. Spirits are high amongst our team and we were ready to get started the following day.
Sunday was God’s day to show us His wondrous works. We attended service at Edmag Eglise de Dieu, a church near the airport in PAP. Over 500 Haitians attended service this day, led by their pastor and our new friend, Pastor Noel. The room/sanctuary was very warm, humid, and full to capacity. Everyone was sweating a lot, including the Haitian pastor who had clearly perspired through his suit. But the service itself was so moving and inspirational…clearly this house of God was filled with the Holy Spirit! The choirs (there were 2) sounded so beautiful and in perfect harmony. If they were in Nashville they would already have a recording contract! Doug Varnado, pastor at Community Church in Hendersonville and fellow team member, preached his best sermon (and longest) I’d ever heard. He was accompanied by Marie Poindejour, one of our team members and a native Haitian. Both she and Doug were passionate and convicted with their words and expressions, and the body of believers responded both timely and loudly.
Afterwards, our team provided a clinic to the church members there in the sanctuary, with over 400 members remaining in the very hot and humid room we worked in. To say the least it was potentially a chaotic mess in the making. But God is awesome and His presence in His church made yesterday a blessing for all! God is clearly at work here in Haiti and we are blessed to join him here.

Anxious and excited

Matt and I are both anxious and excited as to what awaits our team in PAP. God is certainly at work in Haiti, and we cannot wait to join Him and serve our brothers and sisters there. Attached, I hope, are pictures from our previous trip in February of this year, about 3 weeks after the earthquake. The first pic is a little girl receiving her hand made pillow case dress supplied by the sweet ladies of the Old Hickory Women’s Club. The next 2 pics show some of the devastation we saw.

Magi Boxes delivered!

Friday morning I delivered 146 Magi boxes to Healing Hands for shipping to Mission Lazarus. We will be traveling down December 13-18 to distribute them to the children of San Marcos. Thanks to all who helped by preparing boxes!

Christmas in September Magi Project

CMI is very excited to announce that this year we are partnering with Mission Lazarus on their yearly Magi Boxes project.  Many of you are familiar with this idea, it is the same as the shoe boxes you have probably prepared every Christmas for your local Church.  The bonus for us is that these boxes are designated for Honduras and more specifically for San Marcos, the town in which Mission Lazarus is located.  Our goal is 200 boxes, which is the requested number for San Marcos alone.  I know, that sounds like a lot but I know WE CAN DO IT!  Last year, Mission Lazarus distributed 11,000 boxes to children in Honduras.  Some of them had never even heard of Christmas, so imagine the opportunity to share the gift of Christ when they receive this Christmas gift.  For any who are unfamiliar with this opportunity, here are the main details:

The Magi Project consists of a plastic shoe box sized gift boxed full of simple items for the chosen sex and age group. Items that are suggested are underwear, small toys (dolls/doll clothes, silly bands, hot wheels cars), toothpaste, soap, LED Flashlights and batteries, hard candy, pens/pencils, note pad, ball cap or hat. Each box should be wrapped with the lid wrapped separately. All boxes are collected by Healing Hands International. They sort, organize, and pack the boxes into crates that are then shipped to Mission Lazarus in Honduras. A $7.00 donation is requested to help pay for shipping.

These are the important dates to remember: I will have information and girl/boy age sheets available for you to pick up  at Cross Point Dickson’s Connecting Points on September 5th.   I need to get all the boxes collected by September 26.  You can drop them off at Cross Point on Sundays in September or you can drop them by the Church office.  If you would like to arrange another location, please email me at info@cmimedicalmissions.org and we can work something out.

You can watch the YouTube Video from Mission Lazarus below.  It is a few years old but still conveys  the amazing opportunity we have been given.  If you would like the additional bonus of being able to go with me December 11-17 to hand out the boxes, please email me and I’ll get you the trip details.  It will be a great trip!

You’ll need to press the stop button on our music player, under “Our Favorite Songs” in the left sidebar, so it won’t interfere with the YouTube video.

I’m so excited to get to take part in this ministry!

Laurie

Slideshow from Duyure – Day 5

Clinic wrapup

After four days in Duyure, we treated 1,447 Hondurans in the medical, dental, and eye clinics. We dispensed 5,000 prescriptions, pulled 248 teeth, handed out 220 pairs of glasses, and even amputated a toe (she already had 10). The construction team worked at the local church and school building a stone wall and dug a hole for the latrines 12′ X 12′ and 8′ deep.  Many have gone to bed early tonight, but several of us are sitting in the Posada late tonight unwinding after a week filled with hard work that provided indescribable satisfaction. There is one group playing a cutthroat game of cards, another group listening to music, and others sitting around the fire enriching friendships that were made this week.

I don’t think I have ever been surrounded by a group of people more intent on living out the words of Christ to put others before themselves. Being a Christ Follower doesn’t promise comfort, but requires compassion. This group has endured tremendous rain so loud it was difficult to sleep, sweltering heat in the clinic, and travel each day in a school bus up and down a mountain 2 hours each way just to serve people they have never met. I haven’t heard the first complaint, only continued excitement about when we can do this again.

Finding Friends

One of the great things about trips like this is making new friends. Two of my new friends this week are Lori and Omar. They have joined our trip as translators as both are bilingual. Lori’s husband is from Panama and she teaches high school Spanish in Indianapolis. Omar came to the U.S. when he was eight years old from El Salvador.  They have both been incredible on this trip as they have a deeper understanding of the people of Central America. Omar’s parents have a Spanish speaking church in Bowling Green, Kentucky where Omar translates his father’s sermon each week for the English speaking members. He translated the message for the group on Sunday when we joined in worship with the church in Duyure.  Having the words of the Honduran pastor translated by Omar helped us all feel more like one family with the local church members.

Both Lori and Omar had their birthdays this week. Last night we had a little Bday cake in their honor. Omar then led our devotion and spoke of the compassion, sacrifice, and hard work that we brought down to Honduras. He then challenged us to take those same things back to the States and continue that work that God has started in our hearts. He then had the group join in a circle and he prayed over us. He spoke more truth and blessing in that one prayer than David Faulks and I had in our carefully prepared devotions in the two previous nights combined. I don’t think anyone present will soon forget that prayer.