Trip Reports/Pictures

Malawi

A team of 18 from Westbrook and Meadowbrook Churches in Wisconsin volunteered in Malawi this past June with World Relief. When the team arrived, they traveled to the community of Chididi where they worked for two weeks. While there the team began the building of a new grain storage facility. Alongside members of the community, each day would begin with morning devotions before the construction project was tackled. In the afternoons when it was the warmest, they made home visits with people living with HIV/AIDS and orphans. One team member said, "these visits may have been the single most significant activity we were involved with because it took most of us out of our comfort zones and brought us into direct contact with individual people."

Some afternoons the team was involved in teaching and craft-making for teenagers. Team members were also able to teach ESL to two levels of English speakers and work with about 180 pre-kindergarten age children who have been orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS. Over the weekends, the teams participated and preached in two local churches. Near the end of their trip they also participated in a two-day conference and led seminars on discipleship. Sixty local church and lay leaders from World Relief partnership churches attended this conference. They also found time to scrimmage several games of soccer.

While in Malawi, the team’s goal was to facilitate and encourage World Relief staff members who serve the local church. Activities included discipling men and women in these churches and helping World Relief staff with its discipleship ministry.

Another team member shared "our short-termers from both churches appreciated World Relief Malawi staff allowing us to work alongside them. We appreciate their labor of love very much."

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Haiti

In June, four members of Elmbrook Church in Wisconsin traveled to Haiti, where they were able to visit and participate in many of World Relief’s programs.

One team member writes:
The very first images that I saw in Haiti were those of life and survival in a land of extreme poverty. There were many people milling about in the hot dark night, crowding the sides of the streets and overflowing the brightly colored Tap Taps (or taxi trucks). The air was often filled with dust and black clouds of exhaust, mixing with trails of smoke from piles of trash burning on the side of the road. As we traveled to our destinations, we wove through the sand and rock filled roads, dodging potholes too deep to drive through, and playing a game of “who’s first?” in the intersections without stop signs. Through my open window, I saw many piles of stone and sand rubble that were once walls of protection, now broken down, leaving vulnerable homes exposed.

I found myself daily searching for beauty that would balance out the dusty crowded scenery all around me and, I found it!

I found beauty in a flowering tree, brightly crowning a cement block wall. There was beauty in the displays of the street vendors, with their many-colored produce overflowing baskets or piled carefully on small tables on the edge of the road. There was beauty in the slender women balancing items to sell in the market in large round wash pans on their heads as they walked carefully along.

I saw beauty in the children as they offered us a quiet “Bonjour” when we climbed up the mountain path that led us through a tangle of cement blockhouses and narrow walkways. There was also beauty (with a touch of rascal) in the twinkling eyes of the boys walking by our van who asked us, ”Do you speak English?”
We commented to each other about the beauty that we saw in the women at the Mother and Child Health and Immunization Center. They proudly held their wide-eyed babies; each with glowing, beautiful, smooth brown skin and high rounded cheekbones and dressed in their Sunday best.

I rejoiced in the beauty of God’s provision through World Relief that was so evident in the stories told by women at the Micro Enterprise meeting. One woman had started with the purchase of a little gasoline and some charcoal to sell for income; another had begun with a few chickens. They had both worked hard and saved whatever money they could, and now the first was selling gasoline by the drum, and the second had 20 dozen chickens for various food products. Both spoke quiet words of advice to the other women; how each could do the same and provide a better life for her family.

The most beautiful things that I saw on my trip were the expressions on the faces of the Christian women and men, with hope in their eyes and warm welcoming smiles. They surprised us with cold Coca Colas and bursts of laughter as they shared solutions to marriage problems in the marriage workshops that our team led.

I came home with a mind full of thoughts and treasured memories. I will never forget our evenings spent sitting in the dim house lights, listening to Dr. Morquette tell us stories of his life and teaching us much about Haiti. I will not forget Nadia, a young girl who tucked herself inside my heart. I will also forever see the look of deep sadness and despair in the eyes of a handsome young man who tried to sell me a painting at the market. Those sad eyes pierced deeply into my heart. How I wish that I could have communicated the love and freedom of Jesus to him.

I find myself wondering what God would have me do with all that I have seen and learned. It would be easy to glance about and say that there is not much hope for Haiti, but looking deeper, I see the beauty of God at work in His people.

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El Salvador

A team from the Seattle area spent a week in El Salvador this past April volunteering their time with World Relief and our partner A-Brazo. While there the team worked in the community of La Panama, where World Relief and A-Brazo have a partnership with Presbyterian Church USA to rebuild over 200 homes. While in La Panama the team assisted a single mother and her two young boys with rebuilding their home. The team was also able to get to know people in the community and play with the children.

One team member shared the following about her experience: "We had a great trip. I loved the people, the community we worked in, the accommodations… everything went really well. We were able to help with felt needs where we could and they (World Relief staff members) were able to give us a great education on El Salvador as well as really share with us their hearts for what the Lord is doing in El Salvador."

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Haiti

In March, ten students from Nyack College in New York spent their spring break in Haiti as volunteers with World Relief. While in Haiti, they worked alongside church members in one of the poorest sections of Port-Au-Prince, providing the resources to paint the inside of the church’s building. The team members were amazed to see the difference their paint job made and how excited the church community was at the completion of the project!

Another highlight from the week was the team’s participation in World Relief’s HIV/AIDS awareness program. Team members visited a local high school to share their personal stories on choosing abstinence in today’s world. Later in the week, the team visited a church and joined Haitian students as they celebrated their own commitments to remain pure until their marriages.

While in Haiti, the team also painted the exterior front of King’s Hospital. There, members were given the opportunities to spend time with World Relief’s Maternal and Child Health program staff members, as well as with the many children in each of the areas they visited.

In the words of one team member: "One of the most rewarding experiences about this trip was to be able to see how the simple things I gave meant so much to people there."

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