Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 10/25/2011
Seth posted this two days ago, on the 22nd, and we've all been thanking God incessantly for it. Please keep signing this second petition to get the government of Haiti to launch an investigation into the IBESR to help keep this from happening elsewhere. Here's the post:
Today, the Associated Press, ABC News, Washington Post, and other news organizations released an article announcing the closure of the Son of God Orphanage in Carrefour, Haiti. The children were removed by UNICEF and taken to new homes.
All of this happened, because you raised your voices.
This kind of action is a rare occurrence in the developing world, and the timing of it is nothing short of miraculous. In recent years, only one other orphanage has been shut down by the Haitian government.
The director of the orphanage was arrested in June on charges of trafficking after he was caught trying to sell a child to an aid worker. His wife has been running the orphanage ever since. She denies charges of neglect, while malnourished children wander the premises. Along with several other organizations, we began investigating this case a year ago when first suspecting foul play. And today we have people in Haiti helping ensure that the orphans continued to be cared for.
And today, justice is served. Thank you for your prayers, blogs, petitions, and all the other ways you got the word out.
Everyone we talk to says this shouldn't have happened. Not in a week. Not even in month. Five days and twelve thousand signatures later, the lives of 46 innocent children are saved. I am in awe of our God.
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Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 10/19/2011
This press release just went live yesterday (re-posted from www.sethbarnes.com), and Amber Lyon of CNN has posted on Twitter today that she has seen our petition and will forward the story to her producers, so we're gaining traction. Feel free to share everything with your networks and/or post it on your own blog. In addition, we've started a second petition directed at the president of Haiti himself, please sign this as well (the link is at the bottom of the page) and keep praying:
Haitian orphanage accused of abuse & trafficking children
 After continued visits to the Son of God Orphanage in Carrefour, Haiti, six charitable organizations (Adventures in Missions, Bridgeway Church, Timberline Church, Children's HopeChest, Journey Community Church, and Respire Haiti) have challenged the global community to force the hands of international leaders in the closure and investigation of the facility.
According to eye-witness accounts, the children at SOG are alleged to have suffered severe human rights abuses at the hands of the director of the orphanage, Maccene (Max) Hyppolite and his family. Despite consistent delivery of relief for each child, including food, clothes, and medicine, the children have continued to suffer from malnourishment, curable diseases and parasites, as well as complete neglect of acute medical conditions. A recent account included a one-year old baby who was severely burned and not treated until almost two weeks later.
Police conducted a successful sting operation after numerous individuals had been solicited by Hyppolite to purchase children. In July of 2011, Max Hyppolite was arrested while attempting to sell one of the orphans and he is currently in prison for child trafficking in Port au Prince.
Despite the arrest, continued accounts from as recent as October 13th, 2011 indicate that the situation has only become worse, and to date there are 53 children who have disappeared and are unaccounted for. The orphanage is currently being run by Hyppolite's wife, who not only continues to say she does not know the whereabouts of the children, but has allegedly threatened the lives of the relief workers who have sought assistance in from the Haitian government organization, IBESR (Institut du Bien Etre et de Recherches). Given the sharing of information from IBESR to the Hyppolite family, cause for speculation has arisen regarding the government's involvement in the trafficking of the children.
The six organizations have worked together with change.org <http://change.org> to bring this issue to light. They have asked the global community to give these children the voice that has been stolen from them in hopes of world leaders recognizing the human rights violations occurring and the immediate call for the closure and investigation of the Son of God Orphanage in Haiti.
Ways to get involved:
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Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 10/17/2011
 Last year in Haiti I shared a story or two from Son of God Orphanage in Haiti. Somehow I didn't tell more, even though I went there all the time with teams and staff, and had what I thought was a very good relationship with the director and his family there. I loved the kids, and this year even though I wasn't visiting the orphanage itself (you'll understand why in a moment), I loved it when they'd see me in the street and call out to me or run to me and start talking excitedly. Most people I talked to in person about my time there definitely heard about it, and about Wendy, the boy that could pray like a prophet. I started referring to the children there as 'my kids' without noticing it. What I've been unable to share until now though is that over the last year it became clear that something wasn't right. The resources that would be brought there would disappear quickly and the horrible health conditions and bottomed out level of nourishment in the kids went on unchanged. This led to questions, investigations, even a sting operation and until now we've not, for reasons of not wanting to tip anyone off we didn't want tipped off, sought any form of media attention. Bottom line though is this:
They're selling my kids. People are buying them, sometimes in pieces, for a lot of horrible purposes.
The orphanage was a front for child trafficking.
A few months ago the director of the orphanage was arrested and we thought that was the beginning of the end, and that the kids would finally be removed to safe locations. Last night I received an email outlining the latest goings on though, and while he will be in prison for a very long time, there are others carrying on his work. My kids aren't safe yet - they're still at the orphanage. They're still being starved, abused, and when they get sick they're not cared for. They're still going missing, and it's likely that the latest girl to go missing, Katia, is dead. This is as urgent as anything gets.
I can't do anything about it on my own, I'd just make a mess of things if I could get anywhere near the people responsible right now, but there are people that have been fighting for these kids with everything they have, good friends of mine, and there's something you can do to help them. In order go over the heads of the corrupt officials protecting these people, we need media outlet pressure, and for that we need 10 000 signatures on a petition.
Pray for my kids. I can't beg for this loud enough on here, so if you want to hear how desperate I am for them, call me.
Tell everyone. EVERYONE. Email this to them, facebook them, tweet, text, whatever you can do, get this out there now.
Seth Barnes has the most complete information posted, and will continue to update on this, so please follow him here: www.sethbarnes.com | |
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Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 7/12/2011
We live in a fallen, unfair, lost and dying world, just in case you weren't already aware. The good news is we're being invaded by a kingdom of eternal life, justice, hope, and love (and I'm a part of that invasion). The bad news (or at least the hard to take news) is we're not there yet. There are still people that live in hopeless situations that will die in those same hopeless situations years from now, or maybe tomorrow. Things aren't getting easier, and time and time again I see teams come through here and see the tent communities and the broken system and the injustice and, in some way or another, usually solidify in themselves the recognition of one fact: this world can not be fixed by this world. The poverty and despair they see are the result of this world trying to fix itself, hopelessness bringing more hopelessness. Handing out houses where there are needs for houses somehow brings more poverty. Giving food to the hungry somehow creates more hunger. We can not fix this with our money or time, our great ideas or our brand of justice. Trying to bring those things here is, for Haiti, what caused a culture and a system in which the hopeless situations have only gotten bigger. And Haiti is not the only place this has happened. So if we're truly being invaded by a Kingdom where these things don't exist, how come our intentions of providing in accordance with the values of that same Kingdom have resulted in a further break down?
No one can live in one of these communities, facing death and despair and find pure joy (not simply laughter but an all pervasive joy) or some way of thinking, some trick of the mind that brings them hope. Yet hope and joy are here, often in greater abundance than what we see at home. Seeing that, knowing that these people are hurting as they watch their children starve and can still say they'd rather we come to pray with them than bring food because food will fade but prayer is where true riches are, THAT is when we're opened to the fact that ONLY God can redeem this. I've watched, time and time again, as the promise of hope we have in Christ is passed not from foreigner to Haitian, but from Haitian to foreigner. The Haitian people get to have the blessing of passing that promise, that legacy of hope, to a people that need it more than anyone else in the world. To a people that want their hope to be in Christ but have really, largely, placed our hope in predictability, security, retirement, salary, government systems, education - and have done so without even noticing. We've not noticed so bad that we actually think bringing our version of those things to another nation is the answer, when for us these things have alleviated physical struggle at the cost of impoverishing our spirituality. Does God desire to provide many of those things for His people? Yes. Does His way look like our system? Heck no.
We have to be broken of the thinking that our ways can help, that we can bring hope, even when it's well intended on our part. We need to get so broken of that mentality that we have no where left to turn for what to do next but straight to God almighty, Jehovah-jireh, seeking His hope, His justice, His presence and ONLY Him. THEN we get to be used by Him. THEN we are willing and humble. THEN we are less as He becomes greater. THEN His hope, His plan, His ways, His kingdom (His system) all take over and we see how differently and infinitely better He achieves what we wanted to see in the first place. But it has to come from Him. The legacy and promise of hope that our brothers and sisters here in Haiti pass on to our teams is exactly that - straight from Him.
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Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 7/11/2011
A few weeks ago I led a youth team here in Haiti that came to do construction on a clinic. We stayed in the mountains behind Port au Prince, and did the construction an hour from the Dominican border. Which means we had to go at least 3 hours each way every day. Yes, that means at least 6 hours a day were spent with 30 people crammed into a bus that fits maybe 20 and has almost no seats in it. Yes, we spent as many hours a day on the bus as we did doing construction. Yes, I lost much of my sleep as a result that week. And we were blessed by it.
It wasn't just because we got to do work with our hands (though that is a rewarding feeling). It wasn't just because this town needed their clinic finished (though they did). It wasn't the knowledge of how many would be helped by this clinic for years to come (though many will). We were blessed because we were given a place within a legacy (which encompasses all those other things too). For years Pastor Vragne (Va-ron-yay) has been trusting in the vision God gave him to start a church, a clinic, and one day a school in this remote town of Blanket (blon-ket) - and when I say trusting I mean with no means what so ever in his pocket to begin these monumental tasks he has been praying and believing that they would come to pass because the Lord told him they would. The church was started and God provided a way for the building to be built. The clinic has been slowly coming together for the last 4 years, and now it has 3 offices and a brand new waiting/reception area so people don't have to stand in the sun for hours to see a doctor. The day Pastor Vragne stood with us watching the roof go on, he was so happy he threw himself at me in a full body hug. Yeah, picture 5'7" me with a 6'2" shouting, smiling Haitian pastor, with as many grey hairs as he has black ones, wrapped around me like a winter coat. He took the promise he'd been trusting the Lord to fulfill - and not just sitting back waiting for it but actively seeking it in faith all that time - and passed that promise on to us. In being a part of that promise, we have been drawn into a legacy that reaches long before and long after our time here. Pastor Vragne could never have done this on his own, but in passing the promise God made him to others he has passed on a blessing, a legacy, that is further reaching than he himself could ever be.
All of us saw the fulfillment of a decade of prayer - we didn't just see it, we got to be part of the answer. We pass those stories on to others and they too are strengthened. How far our God takes a single promise, a single story, in glorifying Him and bringing His kingdom.
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Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 7/10/2011
After writing a little about legacy a few weeks ago, God has continually brought me back to that same idea through different situations, scriptures, conversations and events. Being down here in Haiti I've seen a lot of ministries and relationships that were started last year - some of them have flourished, others have changed dramatically, and some have moved on to something different. Constantly I'm reminded of beginnings, promises, legacies that God began or carried on last year. Much more than that I'm seeing legacies that pastors here have carried for years get passed on to teams and individuals to carry on, either for the time they are here or for much longer. It's putting parts of myself in new light too.
I started reading a book called Follow me to Freedom by Shane Claiborne and John Perkins. In the first chapter they talk about Romans 10:17 - Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ - and how it's our responsibility to pass on the word of God, to pass on the promise of life abundant. By remembering what He has done, we know who He is and what He will continue to do. Passing on those promises is a way of remembering, and in remembering we are strengthened, at the same time as we strengthen the body around us. John Perkins puts it like this: (talking about how God's promise to Abraham to bless the world through him is still being fulfilled)
When God blesses, the blessing is not stagnant: it moves and multiplies. The idea is to plant a seed, then water it and grow it - and then give it to the next generation....That's the real purpose of ministry. Abraham blessed Isaac. Isaac blessed Jacob. Jacob blessed his 12 sons, which became the tribes of Israel. The blessing followed each person's faithfulness....
Follow me closely here. This passing on of the promise is the blessing, and the act of passing the blessing along is therefore as important as the promise, because it becomes the fulfillment of the promise. If a blessing is complete or finished, there is nothing to pass along except a memory. A blessing supersedes individual achievement and movements. It goes beyond a particular moment in time or spot on the map. A blessing is like a living organism, not some kind of plaque we hang on a wall or meal we eat at the end of the day. The promise contains hope, but there is always an element of it that goes unfulfilled. Sure, we might make progress and see some of the promise come about, but what we pass along is hope and a vision that can be carried forth, and a little bit more of it will be fulfilled by the next generation, and then the next.
I love that because I've always been a project starter. I get it from my dad. I find a new interesting thing to collect, try, or build, and I'll do it for awhile, but finishing something before the next interest comes along and inevitably takes over is always a challenge. I've become a jack of all trades, master of none. Now, there is a large part of that where I just need to work on some self-discipline, I know, but in the last months of thinking about these things, and comparing to how I naturally am, I also recognize that I've been built to pass things on and at least part of that project starting tendency comes from the drive to start something someone else can continue. I've known part of that gifting in me for awhile, but I don't think I recognized how big a part of God's way that is - to carry or start something almost specifically to and pass the vision and promise to others. I've felt the blessing of doing that, but am only now seeing that it's not just something I enjoy, it's truly a blessing from God to be able to pass on His promises, hopes, and visions. So I'm going to try to articulate just a few of the legacies I've been seeing getting passed along down here in my next few blogs. Enjoy!
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Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 6/4/2011
Last Friday I walked out of the airport in Port au Prince to a plethora of sensations. I was running on almost no sleep, practically a zombie stumbling through the airport and just wanting a bed. I was welcomed by a wall of heat and humidity that has few equals in the world. Loud abrasive music was yelling at me from somewhere. A dozen bag handlers were accosting me to hire them and explaining their dire situation and why I should help. I could smell garbage, urine, and I think a burning tire. Honking horns, loud revving engines, shouting in Creole, and scared looking foreigners rounded out the scene for my senses to take in. And I was smiling. I couldn't stop smiling.
Sitting in the Miami airport last year after leaving Haiti I wrote down my thoughts on leaving Haiti, and I think it's time to share them:
I think I look like the kid that can't find their mom at the carnival, but feels like it's something they did that got them into that situation. Sad, shell-shocked, arms in tight to keep from shivering, and staring deeply at a wooden globe with disproportionate continents and mislabeled cities that I'm slowly rotating back and forth in my hand. This is me walking through the Miami airport. People are passing me as I move at my un-rushed pace while they try to beat customs line ups and impending flight times. I find myself, looking as I described above, questioning the purpose and existence of hallways. Yeah, that's right, hallways. I fly into a post earthquake city struggling to recover when it wasn't in a recovered state before the earthquake, where dead bodies are ignored in the streets for hours on end, where trash and rubble line every street, where people haul the frames of wrecked cars on wooden hand carts through traffic and weld things together without goggles on the sides of the streets, where 124 orphans share a single long drop toilet, where electricity is an unreliable and sporadic thing, where tent communities are everywhere you look - all that and I don't remember ever being shocked in all the months I've been in Haiti.
And a hallway in the Miami airport breaks my brain.
I think about how many people could make a home out of this one corridor and be 1000 times safer than in the tents they live in now. It's currently used to keep people inside while walking over a km between our gate and customs...over a kilometer of moving walkways, concrete, carpet, lights (with electricity running them), glass and steel. And I know there are many more just in this building. All serving...what purpose? How much work and money went into this...hallway? This probably won't make ANY sense to anyone else reading this, but that's ok, because that's how mind numbing it is - I just feel lost. I feel like if I could see someone from the base I'd be ok with feeling this way, maybe even shed a tear, but the idea that I won't see them pushes me that extra bit into literal shock. Images and moments from my time in Haiti keep coming to mind. I want to turn and run, for the plane to take me back to my home in Fantamara, Port au Prince, in time for community feedback time tonight. My insides shrink with grief at the fact that I keep moving forwards, one foot in front of the other, on to the rest of the airport. I know it will pass, but for now, man do I wish I hadn't left Haiti.
Those were my thoughts after leaving Haiti last year, unsure if I'd ever return. Coming back, though, has had the opposite effect. There are good friends here, things I've missed, things I'd forgotten I loved. I don't know why there are places in this world that do this to me, where I feel more complete, more at home than when surrounded by what's most familiar and easy, but I do, and I don't often get to return to them as new and structureless things always seem to be part of my calling. Despite the hard things going on here, possibly because of those things, I can't imagine being anywhere else.
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Posted in Haiti 2.0 by Mark Newland on 5/25/2011
And we're back. Welcome. It's been an interesting season these last months, a lot has happened, and in some ways not a lot has changed. Mostly it's a long drawn out boring story, so for those that haven't already heard it all, I'll just summarize what's up now and coming soon: for the last 3 weeks I've been in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee for a wedding, Haiti staff reunion, tornado relief set up, and training camp, it's been awesome, awesome, hard but good, and more awesome. Friday I fly back to Haiti for a few months. September I start at University for an International Development degree at UFV (in Abbotsford BC). On to current thoughts.
I'm at training camp for short term missions leaders with my new team for Haiti this summer, and training at the same time are three new squads of world racers. Amidst all the blessings God is pouring out on us this weekend, I've had this word stirring in my heart as I watch these new racers prepare to get their life wrecked for the kingdom: Legacy. My first night here I watched as over two hundred people flooded these camp grounds and packed into a hall for their first session of worshiping as a body. The first joining of their voices for the King, the first of many. Somewhere in there legacy was mentioned and I couldn't help my heart swelling up with humble joy at what I got to be - what I still am - a part of, almost right from the beginning. To be a part of a bunch of people that God has literally changed the world with and continues to do so through, to have words of wisdom and experience to share with those world changers and, sometimes, to be looked at as 'one who has gone before' by these anointed children of God...it blows me away.
Earlier today I listened to several people, all on separate occasions and from separate experiences from one another, talk about this children's village in South Africa. The idea behind it is that, on this large piece of land, there are several houses. Each of these houses contains a set of house parents (mom and dad) and about 12 orphans. The multiple houses form a community in which there can be schooling, farming, and many other provisions. In a nutshell, the model is to have the resources of a larger orphanage and even a small village at the disposal of a family modeled care unit with strong community roots all rolled into one. My new friend Jenny hopes to return there to carry on the relationships she began with some of the children. When Teri was there God told her to take that idea to other places around the world, including Haiti. Squads of world racers have gone through there, blessing and being blessed by the work being done, not to mention what it has meant to the children that call it home. And every time I hear about it, I remember a man from England named Bob. He sat in South Africa, on the edge of a piece of land with a few dilapidated homes on it, explaining an idea for a children's village that he and others he worked with wanted to start. He explained that this land would be perfect for it, but that the price and what they could offer were very far apart. He turned to a team of world racers and earnestly asked if they would pray for God's favor, and for a blessing on the property. And so we did.
I was there when it was little more than a vision, just a dream for a corner of The Kingdom. I was handed the privilege of praying for that dream, and today that dream lives, inspires, grows, loves, provides, teaches, and disciples. I am humbled by that privilege, and rejoice in my heart at what has come to pass. What we got to witness and be a small part of at the beginning, other racers, other missionaries, and other groups have all helped carry on. I have a dozen other similar stories, both of things I saw begin, and things I got to continue for others. That's what I think of when I look at a new world race squad. They are picking up the spirit of what God started in others and carrying it on. They will see the start of new legacies God puts in their path, they will carry on legacies started by those that went before, and most importantly, they are fulfilling God's legacy itself. They ARE God's legacy, as are you. The authority to bring fulfillment of the promises he has laid out for every generation, promises of redemption, restoration, freedom, healing, and life in dead places to name a few, are in us the day we receive Him. These racers, they get that, at least a little, and often they get it a lot. They live it on and off the missions field. Those that have gone before them have seen the sick healed, the lame walk, and even the dead rise. They have changed the world, and will keep doing it. That's the legacy being carried out in God's royal priesthood, the legacy He offers us a place in. A legacy of the kingdom coming. A legacy of life abundant.
I get to be a part of that. It's awesome.
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Posted in Haiti by Mark Newland on 10/26/2010
This list was compiled over the summer by the staff in Haiti (I've made the occasional edit to make it more understandable to those that weren't there). Hope it can give you a little insight into some of the things that become normal in Haiti that...well....aren't in other places. Enjoy!
You know you've been in Haiti too long when...
Marcio - When you know how to convert between both Haitian currencies (yes, there are 2) and US dollars better than the Haitians in the grocery line
Steph C - When wood shavings look like Ramen Noodles
Ben - When you have rice and beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Mark - and like it!
Marcio - When you find yourself at the airport telling Americans to move in French
Mark - When you've seen road construction actually progress.
Cristianna - When you subconsciously compare, and take pride in, your
chaco tan. (except for Ben Valentine, who has a rockin' sock tan.)
When you know the electricity is off because it got quiet all of a sudden.
Katie: 1) a mouse runs across your feet while washing dishes and
you just laugh. 2) getting ready for bed involves bug spray, deodorant,
a fan battery check and earplugs.
3) when it doesn't surprise or phase you to see unflushed poop in the toilet.
WHEN THE J.C. is betta then A.C!!!!!! ('cuz "prayer conditioning' is better than 'air conditioning')
When 100% deet is only 20% effective
When you know to check your camp towel for ants before drying off.
When you're not concerned about how many bugs are in your food, but how much food is in the bugs
When you get to see Marcio, Ben, and Mark leave Haiti
When you start dancing to our neighbors music (we lived behind a night club. There are no noise bylaws. Eventually hating it takes too much energy. Then you find yourself dancing)
When you wash your hands with 409 without second thought when you're out of soap.
Megan - When your last cleanest shirt becomes your last clean shirt. Therefore, you never run out of clean shirts.
Carrie - When you brush your teeth with your water bottle even if there is gatorade still in it.
Sarah - When you stop brushing your teeth with the water from your water bottle (and just use tap water).
Or when you've never brushed your teeth with water from your bottle.
Katie and Megan - When you think its funny to catch a cockroach and mail it to somebody, as a friendly memory (as an add on...yeah, that was me they mailed it to. I got a Haitian cockroach mailed to Abby)
- When Carrie and Matt start writing diarrhea songs too. (There were a lot of those. For the reasons you can imagine)
- When you see the generator finally die......and as a result the
only use for the kingcab chevy silverado becomes to power a computer printer.
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Posted in Haiti by Mark Newland on 10/14/2010
This is Carl, one of the translators for our teams in Haiti, and a good friend to me. He lives in a tent city now, with his wife, son, and new born baby (who hadn't been born yet when I came home). I'll be sharing a couple of his stories on here thanks to some videos by Katie Rowland, and thought I'd start at the beginning with his story from January 12th.
Carl's Story: [one man's earthquake experience] from katie rowland on Vimeo.
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