We’re Moving!

After 18 months of managing three of our Christ The Rock blogs (Life @ Christ The Rock, Community and Global), we’re packing up all of the cool stories, trip reports, church happenings and prayers and heading over to a brand new home.

If you are looking for all your favorite posts from the past, you’ll find them here! We’ve decided on a simple title: the CTR Blog. It may not be the most creative name, but it communicates exactly what you’ll find on this new site.

And with this launch of the CTR Blog, we’re renewing our commitment to come together as one Body of believers to share what God is doing in the lives of people everywhere.

Head on over and tell us what you think!

Another cool idea for Haiti

Saw this today from a very innovative young woman who thought up a great way to send utility tarps over to Haiti.  Ruby’s tarps are homemade, out of grocery bags!

Greetings from India!

Posted by Regina Knickelbein

(Note: Regina is one of Christ The Rock’s Mission House students. Read more about the program here.)

Regina Knickelbein on her mission trip to India

I thank you again for all of the encouragement and support that you have given me. It is so wonderful to know that our team and time here in India is lifted up daily – that we are covered in prayer. I thank you so much, so sincerely.

Last night I got to pray, share the Word, and sing worship to the children. The children had never heard Amazing Grace so, with my embarrassing voice, I sat before 28 people and sang Amazing Grace, solo. And no one laughed! A couple of the children asked me to write the words in their notebook so they could remember. Then, all the children copied the words. This morning, six girls ran up to me and said, “Regina Auntie, Regina Auntie, we know the song!” And they sang it to me and it was beautiful.

Some of the children who sing with Regina!

Last week I gave 24 haircuts in six days. Of all the things I thought I would do in India, giving haircuts never crossed my mind. In May I will cut the hair of all the 22 children in the other home as well.

Here’s what a normal day looks like for me: After breakfast, I tutor for a few hours and then have lunch. Then I usually study or prepare for the Bible study. I tutor some more in the afternoon and have also taken up teaching Sunday school. These things are good and I know they help but I really feel God directing me to support some of the “Aunties” on staff here.

There are six Aunties who are in their early twenties and God has put it on my heart just to be a friend with them and be a support – be someone they can laugh with, someone they can confide in, someone they can trust, someone to help with the kids. The highlight of my time here

Flight Chaos and a way home…

Posted by Eileen Nickols, CTR Global Team
My husband Don and I were in Romania this past week to help transition our Mission House Students from one place to another. We spent time with our field workers, Don shared at two churches and Haley and I joined up with a women’s group as well as attended a Romanian wedding.

Even though our flight home (along with so many other
flights) was canceled due to the volcano in Iceland, God made a way for us
and ours was one of a handful of flights that was able to get rerouted and we made it home last night!

We are amazed and so grateful to our God who made a way for us
when there seemed to be no way. He works in ways we can not see…(A
song I was singing when in line wondering how we would get home.)

Back from Haiti, the Schneiders share on local TV news

Kris and Lori Schneider are settling back in to a life in Wisconsin, doing the day-to-day things that we all take for granted and wondering how to even begin sharing the multitude of experiences and stories from their three-month stay in Haiti. They’re making a great start! This weekend Kris Schneider wrote some thoughts in a story for the Weekend Bulletin titled Suffering In The Midst of Haiti. And there is this wonderful video from local TV station WBAY:

Fasting and prayer in Haiti with huge results

Here’s a great video making the rounds. On February 12, 2010, President Préval of Haiti called his nation to 3 days of fasting and prayer in place of the regular Mardi Gras celebration.

Why Haitians are singing in the streets

Posted by Pastor John Kieffer

As we experience our 40 Day Challenge in the Word, I’ve just come from a place where the concept of faith that is “ALIVE” is a beautiful reality! I have never seen a nation so alive with the faith of God as I did on my recent trip to Haiti with Christ The Rock’s Haiti Medical Team.

As the doctors and nurses provided medical care for those injured in the January 12 earthquake, I got to pray with the team, the patients and local pastors.  We went into many villages, and we’d wake every morning to singing and worship. The people were gathering before sunrise each morning to pray! Imagine what would that be like in our neighborhoods, to be awakened by singing? And in the evenings when we were having our meal time and debriefing, we heard people chanting in the streets, “God is King of Haiti!”

Even as aid is pouring in, everywhere we went we saw people reaching their hands out to us and patting their bellies, indicating they were hungry. And yet I saw that their greatest need is for God.  It was evident in the patients our team saw, like the six-year old boy who lost is parents and siblings in the quake. It was clear that the traumatic stress he was experience was taking a much worse toll than his physical suffering. I prayed with the little boy and with his aunt, who had tears of gratefulness in her eyes.

One of our interpreters, a 4^th year linguistics student at a local university, suffered tremendous loss. He told us that on the day of the quake he was supposed to be in class but felt he needed to skip that day to help a friend in crisis. When the university building collapsed, all his classmates, half of his senior class and all of the freshmen class perished. We asked where he will go from here, and he said, “I don’t know.”

But there he was, serving his people and helping our medical team.

We also had the incredible opportunity to work through a local Lutheran church in Jacmel, where refugees poured in from all over for a place to sleep and eat. When we arrived there on a Friday evening, the pastor asked if I would preach to the congregation.  So many people showed up to hear God’s word that night that the building could not hold them all.  In spite of the heavy grief and loss, we could tell that the joy of the Lord captivated their hearts as they sang and worshipped with such a powerful passion and aliveness.

My part of the message was to share a greeting from us to them, and to let them know that many of us in the U.S. are joining them in fasting and prayer. When I shared Psalm 121 (“The Lord is my help”), people shouted very loud Amens.  Then the pastor held an altar call and about 25 people came and gave their lives to Christ. The service ended with the most lively worship I’ve ever experienced. Even when everyone was dismissed people were singing and dancing in overwhelming, unspeakable joy. I prayed then and there that our church could experience that kind of exuberance in praise and worship as we end our weekend services.

It was so clear that the hope for Haiti is not in government or foreign aid but in God and His people.   It took a major tragedy and hundreds of thousands of lives lost for many of those people to come to a place of brokenness and surrender that they would experience God’s joy like that. I hope and pray that it would not come to a crisis of this magnitude for us to experience that same desperation and joy in Him.

Our Haiti experience: Learning to Listen

Posted by Dr. Joe lamb, CTR Haiti Medical Team leader

“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mt Zion which cannot be shaken but endures forever.” Psalm 125:1

Dr. Joe lamb treats a small Hatian patient.

We have all seen the pictures and images from television. They remain ingrained in our minds and hearts. The reality of the destruction of Port Au Prince and the surrounding communities is overwhelming. Buildings are rubble and pan-caked, streets are fractured, mountain roads are covered by landslides and most disturbing tens of thousands buried still in their houses and businesses.

Everyone is this area is without safe housing and all are living in the streets covered at times by tents but more often by thin sheets and small pieces of tin. People are living in the medians between streets or sandwiched into 6×6 living areas, baking under the hot sun but praying that it does not rain. People are waiting in long lines for food and water often going hungry or most often drinking dirty river water. What was really surprising to me however was that life goes on for a very resilient people. It is a country used to adversity that is shaken to the core.

We were privileged to be able to go and minister and listen to the stories that each person could tell. We learned to listen closely.

One of my patients complained of fevers and chills at night. After initially thinking of a variety of infectious diseases such as malaria I asked further questions and I discovered that this woman was sleeping her yard with her kids and husband due to the loss of her home. Her chills were shaking with cold each night with no covering or blankets.

Another pregnant woman had not felt her baby move since the earthquake and had a lot of pain in her abdomen. This woman needed more testing but when trying to arrange this she explained that her husband had died in the earthquake leaving her and her three children who she could not afford to care for. Unfortunately this was a everyday story with over 200,000 dead in the country.

When our team met one night early in the trip two of our interpreters whom we had just met shared. One had lost his business and 15 employees in Port Au Prince and he had carried out his dying best friend from beneath the concrete. The other was a college senior and 90% of his class and all 200 of his freshman class perished! Our small concerns that night suddenly became insignificant and trivial.

In all the despair, however, hope is rising. People are shaken but turning to Christ in a tremendous revival. During a short week of services we saw over 100 converts in a small church. There was standing-room-only at services that lasted over three hours and ended with dancing and singing and praising as people left to return to their “dwellings”. I have never seen the light of Christ burn so brightly in a people as they prayed and worshiped together. Eyes were intent on the message and hearts open even after so much tragedy. We were so privileged to play a part as Pastor John preached one evening and Jocelyn our interpreter and friend helped lead worship. I believe that the hope for Haiti lies not with all the donations and aid but with the spiritual revival that is beginning. During one night of team sharing a great commotion was heard on the streets, so loud that we could not hear each other share. I was mildly irritated at this disruption until this irritation turned to shame when we asked Jocelyn what was being shouted. He replied that they are chanting “God is King over Haiti!”

Our group was incredible. We had four doctors and 10 nurses and assistants and a pastor on our team. It was an experienced group, full of leaders with great skills and most importantly individuals with a tremendous heart for the Haitian people. Enduring many challenges with no electricity, a shortage of drinking water, limited bucket showers, 95 degree heat, roach filled outhouses, tents laid on rocky ground and infested with fire ants, the group responded with laughter and compassion. I have never heard so much laughter as we rated our MREs (military meals ready to eat) or as we filled a truck with 23 people and luggage, ducking when we blew two flat tires, thinking we were under fire. I saw great compassion with many tears for the people as we listened to stories we could not change. I saw the skills as members resuscitated a newborn, sutured and stabilized and 14-year-old with an unstable jaw fracture and cleansed many wounds. We provided care to a community that few teams have ever reached, in an area where to receive surgery a resident would have to travel at least three hours over the mountains if they could even find transportation.

This was a team that ministered to each other and truly ministered to the Haitian people. A team that pointed us towards Christ and a team that was similar to what we saw in a young Haitian boy. He was given a small sack of fruit snacks by our team and despite his hunger and the great treat, he took them out one by one and shared them with everyone in the room. This was a team that really personified Christ.

We thank all of you for your prayers and financial support. We pray that Haiti is not forgotten with the next disaster. We pray that we do not stop giving because we feel we have done enough. We pray for more tents, more food and a long term plan for the country. And most of all we pray for revival for a new Spiritual awakening for this people that has been oppressed in darkness.

Dr. Joe lamb treats a small Hatian patient.

Senye

Ala nou kontan

Se pa nou k’ap kenbe ou

Men se ou k’ap kenbe nou

Lord

How glad we are

That we don’t hold you,

But that you hold us

(Haitian prayer “God is no Stranger”)

Missions House students share their passion for the world

Check out the video the Missions House students put together, and you’ll see why this exciting journey they’re on is inspiring other young adults to pray about signing up. The Missions House is located in Appleton, and is home to a dozen students and their “house parents” who are preparing to travel to other countries for a long-term assignment to serve. Read more about them here.

Angeline

By Lori Schneider

Angeline's suffering is ended

I wanted to tell you of a young girl I met on Friday for the first time.  Angeline is 15 and has end-stage AIDS which she has had since birth. Angeline has been very sick since Christmas and in the hospital. She is very tiny and thin at 15 years old.

When I visited on Friday, she was very weak and spoke just a few times. Her mother, Monique, who stays at the hospital would take water and rub it on her arms and face to cool her.

Rachel Lamb, who is staying here in Haiti with us, has known Angeline and her family and has been visiting her at the hospital once or twice a week.  My daughter Mickala and Rachel spent many visits painting her nails, coloring and playing with her 3 yr old little sister, Christine.

Mickala doing Angeline's nails.

Angeline asked us to bring her some pictures of her sister, Raphael, who is adopted and lives in the US. Sadly, we were unable to fulfill her wish as Angeline passed away a few days ago. Her tiny little body is an empty shell and, I believe, she is sitting in Jesus’ arms now.

It’s sad that we have diseases which take young lives like Angeline, but I’m so glad that there is hope in a God who can give us eternal life (and there is no AIDS there).

Here are some pictures of our visits if you would like to meet her too. Pray for her family as they grieve for her.