Vibrio Cholerae

Water.

Brown. Stagnant.

Contaminated with bacteria. Vibrio Cholerae.

Once ingested the bacteria ruthlessly attacks the small intestine by releasing toxins which cause watery diarrhea. This essentially drains the body of fluid and causes severe dehydration. The excreted fluids are loaded with the highly infectious bacterium. The faeces drain into the water system and the cycle continues.

What was trusted and expected to bring health and life becomes the cause of disease and death.

If it's completely preventable and easily cured...why are over 300 dead and over 3000 infected? Welcome to Haiti.

It started off on Wednesday morning when we recieved word that the area we have been working in for the past few weeks had been experiencing a abnormal number of deaths within the last 24 hours. An unknown disease. This area is commonly known as the 5th Section and is the poorest, most destitute area near St Marc. We began praying and interceding 24/7 for the people we have come to love. By the time Thursday rolled around it was confirmed as an outbreak of cholera with the number of reported deaths and infections dramatically rising into the hundreds. The St Marc YWAM base immediately switched into emergency relief mode and we started off going out the the villages installing water filtration systems and cleaning out water tanks with bleach to fill up with clean water. The YWAM ambulance was mobilised and nurses on our team and on the base began going out and picking people up who would otherwise have died. Some people did die on the way to the hospital. It messes with your mind when you have to clean the back of a pickup truck in which someone had just passed away. The hospital here quickly became overwhelmed with patients dying of cholera. Some people on our team went into the hospital and the chaos and confusion was awful. People lying everywhere, all over the floor, sitting outside holding their IV's. Every room packed. One second a person is alive, and when they turn around they are being covered with a sheet and taken out of the room. The few doctors left after the earthquake working until they are burnt out.

Huge trucks of water started arriving at the base and we spent hours unloading them (it's a good work out I tell ya!). On Saturday we filled up a big van and two pickup trucks with water and headed out to the 5th Section. In the first days of hearing the news we had done a couple of water drop offs to the villages and it was already very uneasy. They just threw the water out and drove away because it was getting violent. So when we drove in on Saturday we weren't sure what to expect but were quite wary. The whole way down the road almost every person we passed would chase after the trucks. In order to get to the most remote and affected villages we would have to drive through many other villages along the river. The roads are not worthy to be called roads - they are just mud tracks all flooded over and covered with massive pot holes. We made one run to one of the villages further down the road and dropped off the water without too much chaos. We had to speed through crowds of people on our way through the other villages so that they couldn't mob the trucks. We drove back to the pick up spot to fill up with more water.

It got very interesting rather quickly as we were driving out the second time. This time the villagers knew we were coming and were prepared. They had barricaded the road with a palm tree and luckily we were able to turn around just before the barricade but not before our trucks were completely mobbed by violent and desperate crowds. We had to fang it back to the pick up spot, trying to keep people off the trucks the whole way back. We waited a few hours for the police to come and accompany us before we went out again. Apart from a few hiccups with blocked roads, we were fine as no one wanted to mess with the big guns. We managed to make it through to a more remote village and started handing out the water but it got ugly pretty quickly as people became wild and violent. We couldn't get out to the most affected village though because the roads are completely impassable. One of our trucks broke down which was fun! We had to pull it most of the way back through the awful roads. We were also able to pick up a few very sick people on the way back and we had the ambulance waiting for them at the pick up spot.

So...what an adventure this has turned out to be! No one expected this at all but I don't think it's a coincidence that we are here at this time in the very area that is affected. My whole perspective on God and life and people has undergone some serious work and I feel very different to how I felt even one week ago. This blog has been pretty much just the facts. A lot more has been happening in my heart and mind that I would love to write about soon.

This week the DTS will be going to Port Au Prince and us Fire and Fragrance peeps will be staying serving on base, helping run the operation while emergency relief teams come in and out. Hopefully we will be able to go out more and give some practical hands on help as well. Please continue to pray and intercede for this nation and these precious people as well as our team. There were many times on the road that we were desperately crying out to God for help and to call people to intercede for us. If anything, God has revealed to me the truth that this is not a battle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers in the spiritual realms. For real. More on that in my next blog.

But that's the low-down right there!

I love you all with all my heart and every day I grow more thankful for friends and family like you.

Keep praying!

Love

Kerri

Would you like some fish bread with that?

Korean people. Korean food. Korean language. Korean culture. Take off your shoes before you come into the building. Cross your legs when you sit down. Show respect to your elders. Efficiency. Cleanliness. Kamsahamnida. 감사합니다

So we went to Korea for a week, just in case you were wondering. Well, technically we were still in Haiti but I was very locationally confused for a while. We stayed at a Korean Methodist missionary base in Port Au Prince where they make bread...bread shaped like fish mind you. Very random. Very Korean. It was very interesting communicating at times as one conversation was often a combination of English, Korean, Spanish and Creole as people spoke all the different words they knew in different languages to try and understand one another. Rather funny! We also spent some time with the Korean UN which was interesting!

So the city of Port Au Prince is a totally different animal to smaller town of Saint Marc. Insanely colourful and wildly designed buses packed to the brim and overflowing with passengers careering down the pot-holed roads...well more like a continuous set of potholes with little bits of road in between. Collapsed or badly damaged buildings still line the roads with very little of the rubble having been cleaned up even almost 10 months since the earthquake. Tent cities cover the hillsides and fill every park and open space with blue and white tarpaulin. Pigs and goats roam the city streets. Roosters BEGIN welcoming the dawn at 11pm and intensify until 6am which means sleep is sometimes hard to come by. When you do sleep you have weird dreams of teammates singing in strange, high-pitched, gargled tones. Our whole team now has a pronounced loathing of roosters and we all eat chicken with bloodthirsty glee.

We went into two tent cities during our week and half the team sweated profusely making fish bread while the other half preoccupied the children and anyone else interested with skits, songs, games, testimonies and teachings. Tears filled our eyes as we shared our testimonies with the people, desperate for them to have revelation of the wonderful love of God. Desperate for love and attention the children attach themselves to you and have to be touching you the whole time. One child on the back, one on the front and five on each limb. We also visited two orphanages and I fell in love again. I talked to several of the teenagers there and most of them have grown up their whole lives in the orphanage. I asked them what their dreams were for their lives and their answer was that they couldn't dream because they can't possibly fulfill their dreams. We take for granted even the ability to have a dream, let alone the opportunities to fulfill it.

After a 3 hour drive up a mountain to an orphanage we stood at a lookout point almost breathless at the beauty that poured into our wide eyes. Pink, orange and purple strokes brushed the sky and poured their golden tones down the mountains and into the city resting in the valley. The mountains and oceans faded into a soft haze in the distance. It was hard to believe the mania, devastation and heartache that filled the seemingly peaceful valley below us. But God says that though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we need not fear any evil, for he is with us. He says blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the Kingdom of God.

This next week ahead we will be living in a tent city running a mini-DTS with the people there. The 200 hour burn is gaining momentum. For more info check out my leaders blog www.jasenchung.com. It's insane.

Please keep praying for health, protection, wisdom, love and for the Prayer burn.

Love you guys!

Kerri

A Girl Called Lovely

I stood under the grass shack and blue tarpaulin. Eyes wide and heart bursting.

She was the tiniest little girl I have ever seen. Milky light brown skin and tight black curls on her delicate head. Tiny little limbs. I didn't want to touch her in case I broke her. Resting in the loving arms of her mother. Next to her mother stood her big brother - a 2 year old by the name of Kevin (that's my Dad's name I thought)

"Koumon ou rele?"

"What is your name?" I asked the mother. Lovely. Her name was Lovely. Perfect description.

"Kil ouj ou?"

"How old are you?" She was 22...I'm almost 22...

I looked at the precious delicate life her arms was overwhelmed. Her baby was only 8 days old. But this little girl, Kristen, is 2 months premature. 2 MONTHS. My thoughts: Oh Jesus! How is this beautiful scrap of life going to survive here!

Unbearable heat and humidity. Plastic tent. One room. No electricity. No running water. No nutrition.

Lovely, her husband and little Kevin were in Port au Prince when the earthquake hit...everything was destroyed. All gone in a moment. They have been in this tent for 7 months.

I looked in her eyes and was surprised to see something very rare here - hope. She said that she was excited because next week her family would be moving into a house. This house is the first one of many that YWAM Saint Marc are building for the families from this tent city.

Today, my heart was broken. She's my age...how are our lives so different!? Lovely is just one of the people we met in this tent city. This is only one of the stories I heard. All of them leave me at a loss for words.

In a weeks time we will be living in this tent city running a week long Discipleship Training School and just building relationships and loving. I can't wait!

Keep praying for our team. The 200 hour burn is turning out to be much greater than us - it's so much bigger than a good idea. This is a heaven sent strategy. VERY very exciting! Meeting with 200 pastors on Wednesday to present it to them. Our leader presented it to a presidential candidate today as well which is awesome.

I have so many stories...will wait for another time.

Love love love
Kerri

Bon Bagay "Good Things"

I sat there on top of the mountain this morning, my eyes greedily taking in the exquisite tropical Caribbean waters glowing and sparkling in blues and turquoise far below the steep green slopes, my lungs eagerly sucking in the fresh breeze, my nose sniffing up the wonderful scent of...cow dung? YES! I thought...I'm in Haiti and there's no place in the world I'd rather be! As I looked down over the town of St Marc with my Danish, German, Canadian and American friends surrounded by our recently aquired Haitian brothers and sisters my mind was filled with one word. This word has been overwhelming me since I arrived...HOPE. Hope hope hope. This hope is anchored deep in Heaven and it's this sure hope that leads me to confident faith that this nation will be transformed in one generation. And this is the generation of reformation.

Coming down the mountain, the ocean water that once seemed so appealing now made me want to gag slightly as rubbish and sewerage floated and bobbed on the gentle waves. The air that was so fresh at the top now choked me with heat, sweat, dust and pollution. The bleating of fat goats, clucking of scraggly chickens and whining of skinny dogs mingled with the unrelenting horns of overloaded trucks and mopeds as we manouvered our way down the pot-holed dirt road towards the YWAM base. Worn out yellow school buses from the States tore by at frightening speeds with people packed inside and ON TOP! Beautiful, bright eyed children yell "blanc blanc blanc" at us and burst into fits of excited giggles when we laugh and wave. Rusty tin sheets, grey concrete bricks and miscellaneous findings make up most of the buildings - one half of which are falling down and the other half are only half built. Women walk down the streets skillfully balancing HUGE baskets of their wares on their heads, children do the same carrying buckets of clean(er) water. People just sit everywhere on the side of the road...just sitting and talking, chewing on sugar cane. Waiting on the world to change.

The poverty is beyond any other country I have experienced. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. It's also known as a black hole for NGO's. It's known as a cursed land. People say it will never change. But I'm not listening to what people say - I'm listening to what God says. He says there is a hope and a future, he says he hears the cries of the oppressed and the fatherless, he says he will rise up with righteous indignation and holy zeal. He is the only salvation, the only solution, the only way, truth and life for this nation. He's moving, he's working, he's stirring, he's calling this nation to repentance. Haiti was once known as the Pearl of the Caribbean - Satan has stolen, killed and destroyed in this land for long enough. It is time for the treasures of this nation to be reclaimed and restored. Haiti will no longer be known as a black hole. It will be known as the LIGHT of the world revealing the glory of it's Creator.

In just one week we have been overwhelmed with opportunities. Our main purpose for the first two weeks is serving the YWAM base here in St Marc. They have served and loved and trained Haitians for 20 years and have had an especially draining year with the earthquake relief. So we have pulled out our machetes, paint brushes, mops and gatorade and got to work chopped vines out of sewerage drains, cleaned and painted on the base. We also worked all week with a medical team in a clinic out in one of the poorest villages - this included getting covered head to toe in clay mud as we pulled and pushed two trucks and an ambulance through a couple hundred meters of thick clay mud. We took over wards in the hospital going from bed to bed, loving on people and praying for healing. A few people spent some time at an orphanage. The most impacting time was at the prison on our second day here - but that will have to wait for the next blog...

Prayer requests:

- Health...couple people with minor colds and stuff. Gotta put our foot down now.
- Protection over our minds from spirit of poverty, hopelessness, etc
- Financial blessing for the prayer burn in November
- Right contacts for organising the prayer event as well as other activities
- Blessings for the base and leadership here
- Power and anointing for preaching, healing, deliverance, etc
- Faith and courage

I love you all and I thank you deeply for sowing into this in prayer and support. You're incredible.

xoxoxox
Kerri!