Heading to Nicaragua!!!

Dear Family and Friends;

As I leave for Nicaragua today, I was reminded of Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” After praying we decided that only I (Will) would go on this trip to Nicaragua, while Lori and the boys stay at home. We are looking forward to some huge things that God is going to be doing while I am in Nicaragua.

I’m writing you to ask you if you would keep our family in prayer over the next 7 days. Two weeks ago, one of our cars broke down. Luckily we have two cars so we have been able to drive our second car. However, last night we got a flat tire. It was one of those awesome times where you get to change the tire in the rain! So after one of our friends had come to help us, the spare donut tire got a flat 1/2 a mile down the road. Luckily he was still following us and was able to take us home. I really felt calm the whole time, which, as we all know is not the way most of us want to respond in those times. Today I have the added pleasure of getting a new tire for the car in addition to my last minute preparations before leaving for Nicaragua at 4.

So we need prayer! I will be gone from today, November 8th, until next Tuesday, November 16th. Please be praying for me and my family. Pray for safety & health as I travel to and from Nicaragua, for Lori and the boys at home that they would be safe, for Lori to have a peaceful week with the boys with extra patience, healing for Liam as he has had a cough for a few days now, and for Lori to not get to sick this week from her pregnancy (or anything else!).

Thank you for all your prayers, we know that you support us so much during these times of travel and separation.

Psalm 71:14 “But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.”

God Bless!

Will, Lori, Eli and Liam

Jesus said what?

I wonder what life would be like if we really lived the words of Jesus. I think life would probably be a whole lot better.

I've been reading articles and books on injustice issues happening around the world. It makes you really angry sometimes that there are people around the world that could take advantage of people the way they do. We showed a video at Fathers House Church a couple of weeks ago, about the wonderful people at Westboro Baptist church in Kansas.

Matthew 5:43-48 states it well. Pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

I love the way that the message says it. Matthew 5:43-47 "I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that."

I recently read an article in the Mission Frontiers Magazine titled, "Loving Bin Laden - What Does Jesus Expect Us To Do?"

What does it look like to love our enemies, to let go of bitterness, hate, those people that have said horrible things about us, done horrible things to us. What does it look like to do what it says in Luke 6:28, "bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."

How will you respond this week when; you learn someone has done something horrible, the person that cuts you off in traffic, the one that gossip's about you, that co-worker that has it out for you. How will you respond to your enemies? My challenge to you is to take a deep breath, say a prayer, and if at all possible, love them and bless them!

Pictures To Save Pictures...

A couple of weeks ago, in an attempt to quickly see what my son was up to. I tripped over a cord connected to my laptop and knocked my external hard drive off of my night stand. It only fell about a foot, onto a backpack, but it no longer works. I've taken it to several people and the only hope there is for my hard drive is to send it to San Francisco, and have these guys take it into their clean room and fix my hard drive.

The mac superstore gave me their number, I called them and after their diagnosis, the told me they had great news. Because all that was on my hard drive was jpeg's, so I qualify for the jpeg discount. "Sweet," I though to myself. Then the guy on the other end of the phone said, with your 10% referral discount and jpeg program, it will only be $950.00. Wait a second, I though he said he had good news for me.

Because this hard drive has all of Eli's baby pictures, and a ton of pictures from around the world, we've decided to do it. Well to cover the cost of the hard drive repair I've decided to try and sell some of my pictures to save my pictures. I've been trying to decide which one's i want to put online. I'm going to try and create a site, but here are some that i'm considering. If your interested in any of these photo's at all, let me know.

Love, Peace and Justice

Well here's my attempt at trying to blog again. I go through blog phases where I post alot, then not so much. So I'm going to try putting up small posts once or twice a week. We'll see how this goes. It may take me a time or two to find my voice and actually get my words out right, but here goes.

This week I'm going to start with a trailer for Hillsong United's new movie "The I Heart Revolution: We're All In This Together" and a look at Matthew 25

I've been on this journey learning about Justice issues around the world and what is God's heart for these issues, and what are we suppose to do. This video has been rocking my world the last couple weeks. So take 4 minutes and watch this trailer and then lets take a look at Matthew 25.

When we forsake the lives of others, We actually forsake our own. WOW! I think this is what Jesus is saying here;

Matthew 25:34-40

³⁴"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

³⁷"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

I think that Jesus is calling us to act. Each one of us has something that we can offer to the horrible injustices that are happening around the world. Even the ones that are happening in our own backyards. There have been several reports of human trafficking right here in the Central Coast.

• How do we help the poor in our world – Whether in our backyard or across the globe?

- If they’re hungry … we bring food.

- If they’re homeless … we provide shelter.

- If they get sick … we provide medical care.

If they get abused … we bring relief and advocacy.

It seems pretty clear...

I recently drove out of Burger King and saw a homeless guy sitting with a sign. I had just come from a meeting at our church. It was 9:00 pm and not really the time you see someone sitting with a sign at the end of a Burger King driveway. I saw him while I was waiting for my food. I thought about giving him some money, but then like the movie above, the thoughts of what if he spends it on drugs or booze. So I drove past him on the way to my friends house.

I got half way up the street and had to turn around. I drove back to the parking lot and parked my car. I had $10 in my wallet, so I walked over to the guy sitting on the curb holding his cardboard sign. For the next 30 minutes I sat and talked to the guy that so many people had driven past assuming he would spend the money on booze. While I was sitting there I got to learn that he was staying in a hotel up the street with his wife and two kids because they had just lost their home and job. I got to pray for my friend, and gave him some options for help in our area. I haven't seen my friend holding the cardboard sign again, but i've been praying for him and his family.

I'm not saying give money to every homeless person you see, but maybe we should? I know some people buy gift cards to fast food places, all good options.

I think the important thing to remember is to not just drive by/walk by and assume we are to do nothing, but we should pray and ask God what he would want us to do.

Haiti Update #3

Hello from Haiti,

Today was a great last day here for us in Haiti. We spent the day registering people into a ID card system so that they can be registered as refugees from Port Au Prince. We registered at least 150 people today. Not quite the mass numbers that we had heard yesterday but it was definitely a great day meeting people. The sad part was seeing all these people coming through that have lost everything. We got a few times today where we had some lulls in between people coming through, so I would go over to the area next to the YWAM base where we have all the people that are sick. It was so good to just sit there and play with the kids, laugh with them and attempt to speak french with them.

At the end of the day we took a walk through the local neighborhood and took some pictures of the kids and and some of the adults here. We had a parade of children behind us as we were taking pictures. Haiti is a beautiful country full of just beautiful people. Please keep praying for all of the people here in Haiti and all the teams that will be coming through.

Tomorrow we will be heading back to the Dominican Republic to catch our flight on Saturday. The time has gone by so fast here and I wish we could stay even longer, but I'm really excited to see my wife and boys.

We will be praying about ways that we can come back down to Haiti and bring more care, support and love for the people of Haiti.

Thanks for all your prayers!

See all you Central Coast people this weekend and don't forget about the Missions Evening at Fathers House, 2100 Ramona Rd in Atascadero, California on Sunday, January 24th. Please come and Join Us!

God Bless!

Will

Haiti Update #2

Hello from Haiti,

Today was definitely a crazy day. As most of you have probably heard we started the day with a 6.1 earthquake that was later downgraded to a 5.9. Where we are here in St. Marc it only lasted for about 3 seconds and definitely didn't feel like a 5.9. However waking up to a earthquake is quite an experience when your in a room with about 30 guys on the second floor. We all jumped out of of beds and ran downstairs in our boxers. I'm pretty sure it was done by the time we got out of bed, but it was a crazy way to wake up.

The hard part is that right next to where we are staying in the sports field is the temporary refugee camp with people that they can not fit at the hospital. I believe there are 56 people here that are injured. Most of these people should still be in the hospital. I'm pretty sure there are people with broken bones and cuts that are very infected. All of these people are laying on mats underneath a steel structure. So when the aftershock that was very similar in sound to the massive earthquake they went through, got up and tried running out from under the building, most of which should not even be walking. So when we got down stairs it was a mass of wailing and crying as people were hurt again from trying to get out from under the building. These people are living in so much fear of the earthquake as they have gone through so much pain and loss.

We started the day out praying for Haiti, YWAM's Rescue Net team in Port Au Prince and that God would continue to guide them to rescuing people from the rubble and give them wisdom when they come to something beyond them. We also prayed that God would miraculously heal people. We also prayed that God would give YWAM a strategy for reaching out to the country of Haiti. After our epic prayer time, we had breakfast. Then we got to enter all the peoples info next to us into computers and create ID badges for them.

***When I dropped French in ninth grade, I told myself I will never need this again. Little did I know then that I would be coming to Haiti. My French has been coming back slowly and has been a help when trying to communicate with the people here in Haiti. Most people here speak Creole, which is a mix of French and Tribal stuff, or they speak French.

This afternoon, we attempted to move about 40 of the injured people to another facility to free up room here at the YWAM base to host teams. We were told that the location was only a couple minutes away. I guess that's Haitian time because we drove for about 40 minutes through the jungle out of the city, across rivers, through very uneven road, and massive puddles, all with very injured people. When we got to the location we found out that the rooms were up about 100 yards from the road and we had to climb about a 45 degree hill to get there. So to make a long story shorter, we ended up turning the trucks around and bringing the people back here to the YWAM base to stay here again.

Tomorrow begins the massive project that some of the staff have been trying to co-ordinate, in bringing 3000 people up to St. Marc from Port Au Prince. Now that was an early number from yesterday, today that number is up to possibly 8000 refugees that will be coming to St. Marc from Port Au Prince. Please be praying that as this massive operation takes place that God's safety, patience, peace and grace would be on all involved.

To catch you up on Tuesday we spent the morning helping clean and gut out an abondoned school house/clinic building. A team from Lancaster County, PA (in my opinion the missions sending capitol of the world, every person I meet in missions from PA is from Lancaster County) fixed up half of the building today so that YWAM can start using it as a clinic.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon with the refugees next to where we are staying helping nurses clean peoples wounds...while wearing gloves :) It was a full afternoon of caring for people.

Please be praying for us tomorrow and everything that will come our way! Please also be praying for my amazing wife that is at home with my two adorable boys. Lori has been such a blessing to me as we prayed together and felt like I was to come down here this week. Pray for peace, rest, strength and patience for her as she is home with the boys. I miss them like crazy!

God Bless!

Will

HAITI UPDATE

Hello Family and Friends,

Here is a update of our last couple days of travel which I will try to write as best I can, I don't have Lori here to edit for me ;).

Friday we ran around like crazy getting the final things before we left for the Dominican Republic and Haiti. We left Pismo around 9:00 pm. We had to stop in Santa Barbara and pick up some supplies for Rescue Net a medical first responder team from YWAM. We made it to YWAM LA somewhere around 12 or 12:30 at night.

We woke up after 2 or 3 hours of sleep to leave Saturday at 4am for the airport. After a long day of traveling from LAX to Chicago, to Miami, to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic (D.R) we arrived at the YWAM base at 2 in the morning Sunday. We were planning to leave first thing on Sunday for the border on a taxi and then were going to have to figure it out from there. It turned out we ended up spending Sunday in the D.R, which was a good thing.

A team from Pennsylvania showed up with 16 people, and we were able to ride on a 50 passenger bus with them to the border on Monday. We then get on another mini bus from there to St. Marc, Haiti. ***i got a free tetnus shot at the border as well, because I couldn't remember the last time I had one. Don't worry it was all clean :)***

So crossing the border actually ended up being very easy. We were also part of a World Vision caravan that when we got to the border they just opened the gates and let us into the country. So I guess because I have no stamp in my passport I haven't officially been here. The plan was for the group that was coming here to St. Marc to go part of the way to Port Au Prince (PAP) and then take a north route to avoid the craziness of PAP. The World Vision group would continue on with our SWAT style Police escort that all teams must take from the border due to safety issues :) Somehow our van ended up driving all the way into the craziness of PAP. It was heartbreaking. There were so many buildings that had fallen and apparently we didn't even see the worst of it. We saw many refugee camps set up in parks and empty lots around town. We drove right past the Presidential Palace. It was completely destroyed. We drove by one gas station that had atleast 15 people standing around the pumps with cars lined out the driveway and down the street. It was hard to drive past all the people and see the hurt on their faces. Many of these people have lost loved ones. We pulled in to the main police headquarters and then realized we had not taken the right road. Our driver then drove very fast through the streets of PAP to get us North towards St. Marc.

Our original plan was to stay with a DTS student from last year whose family had moved just north of PAP. It now turns out our past student Philip will be staying the week with us here in St. Marc. There are many people that are fleeing from PAP and coming to the surrounding cities. Just today the local hospital who should only have 120 people but currently has 410, brought 50 people to the YWAM base to lay in their soccer field under shelter. Tomorrow it sounds like we are going to be gutting an old school and turning it into a temporary clinic.

There is so much that needs to be done here. Just today this temporary clinic here at the YWAM base gave a boy 5 stitches that he has needed since last wednesday. The hospitals and clinics have been giving people amputations if they have a compound fracture. This is just crazy that someone will not have one or more of their limbs for the rest of their life because of a compound fracture.

I will try and write more tomorrow. After we have spent the day out in the city.

Godbless and THANKS for all your prayers and support!

Will