Passion and Need (blog repost)

Blog repost from The Ayars Affairs.

passion and need

This post comes from both overwhelming passion and overwhelming need.

Spending the last two weekends out with students and alumni in the crazy places God has called them to has been so eye-opening, so humbling, so inspiring.

Their stories, the little glimpses that I have lived and attempted to help you live are so God-soaked that it is all Matt and I can do but to be passionately excited about the future of Haiti in His hands.  We are excited about the future and we are excited about the NOW of Haiti.  We are excited every time we see glimpses of how God is using Emmaus, the classroom, our staff, our students, to transform.

And man alive, we need help.  I hate asking for help.  You probably hate me asking for help.  You probably don't need someone else asking for help.

But it's where we're at.  Despite the overwhelming passion, EBS is at a place of overwhelming need to carry on. 

We could not believe more in what we see God doing through Emmaus Biblical Seminary.  As we've given Him our lives, our girls, our youth, our gifts, our talents, our all, He has continually called us to and poured us out at EBS. 

We have men and women going through EBS right now who daily bless, humble, and inspire Matt and I.  Their hearts are right.  Their efforts are tireless.  They are not only studying the Word...they are working in their churches.  They are not just working tirelessly in their churches, but are working sacrificially in their communities.  

They're not focused on them.  They're not focused on Haiti.  They are focused on Him, and called and passionate about what He's doing and wanting deeply to be part of it.  They're giving it all to Him, and He's brought them here.

Just like last year, the funds raised over the summer for Emmaus made us until the end of February...but we need HELP getting through the rest of this school year.  We need HELP feeding and teaching and equipping and sending our students. 

I can't lie...realizing last month that Emmaus badly needed financial help came as a big discouragement to Matt and I.  When we are seeing and experiencing all the things we are seeing and experiencing, you'd think we could be feeding 70 people a day on passion-fumes alone!    

But the reality?  We need help.

We try to freely share our stories because they aren't OUR stories...they are His to do with what He will.  We try to freely share our gifts because they aren't OUR gifts...His, to do with what He will.  And we want to freely share the chance to be INVOLVED at Emmaus because it's not ours.  It's His.

We have 12 students in this year's first year class (all students with one semester or less under their belts), and not ONE of them has one penny of sponsorship.  An entirely unsponsored first year class means that our funding runs out the end of February.  Ran out the end of February.

Most devastatingly, this means that there are NO families or churches or small groups outside of Haiti committed to praying for and daily lifting up each of these young men and women as they work and live and minister.

There is no one writing them encouragement.  There is no one helping us care for them and support them and teach them and SEND them out.  

I can't stand it.  It can't be like that.  

My little family represents the prayers and help and support and love of so many.  And THESE men and women are my family, too.  And as badly as we have needed and appreciated and been blessed by the partnership of many, Jorgia and Aldy need it, too.  

So, I'm taking our blog hostage :)

We HAVE to get these men and women partnered.  If you're new here, this is what that means:

It costs Emmaus $2600 a year to feed, house, teach, train, and send out each students at Emmaus.  Each student raises their own funds of $600 from their families and churches and communities.  

 Then, we work to find the supplemental $2000 for each student.  "Sponsoring a student" means selecting, committing to pray for, writing to, receiving letters from, and supporting that student for that $2000 a year.  For one year, for four years, whatever.

Some of our other students are adopted by a Sunday School class.  Some of our churches "have" a student.  Some families have committed to a student.  However, whatever.

Every single Tuesday, until we have this class fully adopted, supported and prayed for, we will be featuring one student on our blog, on EBS's website, on FB, on other people's blogs...everywhere we know how, until we have that student covered.  Once he or she is, we will move on to the next.

I know $2000 is a lot of money.  And Matt and I would personally support every single one of these men and women if we could.  

We can't.  And I truly believe that that would be robbing YOU of a chance to be in an ongoing relationship with these brothers and sisters.  To have Joane on your fridge.  To write Roudeline a family letter.  To pray for Moliere during your devotional time.  To share what God is doing through Telemarque with your children.  To lift up Louis-Jaque with your small group.

To be a part of what God is doing here in Haiti.

If your church sent a team and Haiti is close to your heart, commit to growing that heart through a relationship with one of these family.  

If your Sunday School class prays for Haiti, grab a jar and make a student your outreach project this year.

If your family is looking for a way to gain His global perspective, I'll mail you a photo of a man or woman you can write to, hear from, grow with.

If despite everything else in your life right now, you pray for Emmaus, for our students, for us, for Haiti, and feel led to do something, please DO.

Because we Trust Him.  Because stepping out on that trust brings such sweetness.

And because our dear family here needs more family!

To help EBS generally now...

 Give here today through EBS

  Give here today through OMS

(with 300300 EBS Haiti as your project)

To support a specific student in the first year class, Bernard is up tomorrow.  I can't wait to introduce him to you...

Pray for each student with me, will you?  

Sponsor a Student

Emmaus Biblical Seminary is in serious need of help to sponsor our students. 

As missionaries of EBS who have countless families praying over us and supporting us to be here, we are asking to spread the word about financial support so that our first year students are able to continue their Biblical education here and be sent out from EBS.

The seminary  is running out has run out of funds and there are many students who are in desperate need of a sponsor. They need sponsors who are not only willing to financially support them throughout their educational time at EBS, but also sponsors who will be praying for them, communicating with them, lifting them up, encouraging them, and sharing with others about the great things they are doing in God's name right now here in Haiti.

I am going to be reposting Stacey Ayars' weekly blog posts about each student. She will be write one sponsorship post for each student and post them once a week until every first year student is fully funded for next year's tuition (which is a sponsorship total of $2000). You can read more about her family's missionary life, EBS and the students on her blog: The Ayars Affairs.

We hate to use these personal blogs as a way to ask for support, but we pray that by doing so the men and women here at Emmaus Biblical Seminary will be blessed with the opportunity to continue their education here.

Be sure to read Stacey's following posts concerning the sponsorship of each student:

1. passion and need

Please help these students out by sharing Stacey's blog posts each week! And if you feel led to help sponsor the students in general or if you feel led to sponsor a specific student you can:

Give HERE today through EBS

Give HERE today through OMS

(with 300300 EBS Haiti as your project)

more of Him

This my friends, is a short story about a bull.

This (was) a bull that wasn’t very happy to get shocked by an electric fence as soon as it arrived last week. And this (was) a bull who, because of that electric shock, ran around the seminary campus chasing a few guys with the intent to get some payback with his horns. [[Luckily he wasn’t successful!]]

This (was) a bull who I’m sure didn’t know that he only had a few short days left of life after his arrival…

This (was) a bull who was slaughtered with a machete under a shady tree right 50 feet from our apartment.

And, lastly, this (was) a bull that served as a not-so-gentle reminder that we don’t have the ability to hop in a car and drive to the closest butcher (or Sam’s Club) to buy beef in bulk.

Nope, both the bull and butchers come to us, at the cost of a pretty penny. However, the butchers don’t have guns or electrical prongs – they come to do their job simply with machetes and hammers (and wheelbarrows?), which makes the process seem even more ugly than it already is.

This bull was a not-so-gentle reminder that:

• Ø  one cup of butter costs $4
• Ø  one tub of Crisco costs $10
• Ø  one small bottle of parmesan cheese costs $7
• Ø  one dinky roll of paper towels costs $4
• Ø  one box of noodles costs $6
• Ø  one large box of crummy toilet paper costs $75
• Ø  one large can of powdered milk costs $30
• Ø  one gallons of gas costs $5
• Ø  the list goes on for outrageously priced conveniences…

Buying things here take effort and they are definitely not cheap! Items have to get shipped here which results in an enormous mark up on the price.

I haven’t been here for long but there are already a lot of new (old) ways of doing things that I am getting used to. (I’m sure some of these might make some people laugh… especially those of you who grew up doing these things!)

Things like:

• Ø  drinking powdered milk
• Ø  making everything from scratch - my own bread and cereal and sauces and… well, basically everything
• Ø  starting dinner hours before you hope for it to be ready
• Ø  defrosting a 50-pound chunk of icy chicken legs (which thankfully will last us a long time!)
• Ø  trying to do laundry on a cloudy day, resulting in still-damp, soggy clothes
• Ø  going into the street markets, hunting for what you need and then bargaining for the right price (Pure craziness! It’s going to take a while to get used to that one!)

I must admit there are moments where I wonder how it can possibly feel like I’m going so far back in time when it is the year 2014!

And then I quickly remember that a large proportion of the beautiful people living in this country don’t even have clean water. They don’t have sewer systems. They don’t have trashcans and special trash days where guys in big fancy dump trucks drive around and pick up their trash along the curb of a smooth, paved, pothole free road. Some might not have enough food to feed their entire family for the day. Many are living in huts or crumbling buildings without roofs. My heart aches for those people, in particular, when a big storm hits. Where do they go to hide from the rain? Where do they find shelter?

And yet in the midst of what looks to me (visually) like there is so much that is lacking here, when I look around I see friendly faces with happy smiles. I see moms and dads who are trying to provide for their families. I see brothers and sisters and school friends who are joyfully playing together without the need for a Nintendo DS or iPhone to keep them entertained.

I see people worshiping the same God of our bible and praising Him for the little things in life. Things that I take for granted or things that (let’s be honest) I don’t even appreciate.

I see people edifying one another and praying for each other, that God would give them each the ability to carry out His mission. That He would fill them with the Holy Spirit and guide them and be with them as they share the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout Haiti.

What fills me up even more is that I see people not only praying for these things… I see them DOING these things! I see this especially in the students here at Emmaus!

When they hear the good news, believe and repent from their old ways, they are ready to LIVE the Christian life, and a huge part of that is simply sharing about who Christ is. That is a simple (yet very important) commandment that so many people have a hard time doing (the Lord knows that I am included in this generalization!). So many come to Christ and then want to keep Him to themselves or are just too nervous to tell others about him. But we aren’t commanded to keep Him to ourselves – we are commanded to spread the good news! And part of that good news for us is that Christ is there in our hearts and beside us, helping us calm our nerves. And we are also called to live in community with other Christians so that we can build one another up and keep one another accountable.

These are all things that I see in the body of Christ here in Haiti.

These are beautiful things.

So seeing a bull slaughtered right outside of my door was not the best way to start out my morning. It was rather “inconvenient.” I would prefer to go to a store and pick up a prepackaged case of meat that doesn’t resemble a cow anymore. But while I’m here, I don’t have the luxury of doing that. And that’s okay.

Things like the bull (or a $7 block of butter) make me realize that even though the people of Haiti might not have the materialistic things [or even simple conveniences] I tend to think of as normal, those who follow Christ do not seem to be lacking spiritually.

I am thankful for my ability to see how greatly God is working in the lives of his followers here; without it, I think my ability to live here would diminish. Even though Haiti isn’t a developed country, if the followers of Christ continue to multiply, Haiti would have something that other developed countries don’t: fullness. Haiti would have fullness of the Holy Spirit, unclouded by the seemingly omnipresent materialism of our so-called ways of American life.

And that, my friends, is [one of the many] things that I think we could take away from the Haitian culture and integrate into our own. We could use a little less convenience and a little more a lot more of Him.

Relax.

Woah, I just realized how long its been since I last posted! I haven't even share a post about the OMS retreat to the Dominican. It’s been a little crazy around here since then, to say the least!

 At the beginning of March, the entire OMS Haiti team got to spend a few days of rest and relaxation in the DR with sand in our toes and delicious food in our bellies.

Since we got back (on March 4^th or 5^th? – I can hardly remember!) everyone at EBS has been working hard to catch up on the things we left behind and get back into the swing of daily life here at Emmaus. It seems that this last week has been especially exhausting for all of us. By the time Friday came, we were all ready for some down time and needed some rest, time to clear our minds, and time to allow God to refill our cups, so to speak, which seemed a little drained of the Holy Spirit.

It’s crazy to think that tomorrow marks 5 weeks since we arrived. In those 5 weeks we have been blessed by so many and now that we are moved into the loft (apartment) we really feel at home. What an amazing feeling! It’s been a long time coming and I am praising God daily for placing His call for us to come to Haiti.

I’ve really gotten into the swing of things in the finance office and it didn’t take me long to realize that this “finance office” really should be renamed to the “smorgasbord office” – or something along those lines. :) We are involved with so much more than bookkeeping! Basically everything on the entire campus that has to do with money (everything – errands, mail, food, bills - and everyone – including missionaries, staff and students!) makes their way to our office. Which is great practice for my creole, although things would go much smoother if I already knew the language fluently and knew all of everything I need to know concerning the office.

I cannot even count on both hands how many times people have come into the office and handed me money (or asked for some) and rattled off what its for in Creole and I just sit there with a funny, confused look on my face. Thankfully I understand enough of the language and most of the students know enough English for me to get by and figure things out!

But the thing that really gets me is wondering how on earth Stacey managed to balance the finance office with teaching and homeschooling and being a mommy and everything else she has going on! The only conclusion I have come to is that it is by God’s grace (and Him discreetly giving her more hours in the day than the rest of us) that she has been able to do it all without going off the deep end. Is that your secret, Stace? :)

On another note about language, I have some exciting news! Ryan is teaching his class in CREOLE on Tuesday, for the first time! I think he is a little nervous and he has been preparing for it this weekend, but I’m so excited to see how it goes. So you can definitely be praying for that situation, that he will find the words he needs to say and that the class will go well.

The weather has been BEAUTIFUL lately! Haiti has gotten some much-needed rain; the grass is green and the gardens are soaking it up. The rain has brought some cloudy, breezy skies, which has made the weather not only bearable but nearly perfect. If only it could stay like this all year round. :) All of Haiti has been praying for rain for months and everyone is now praising God for sending rain the last few weeks.

Last weekend we went to Dhaloo Beach with a large team of visitors. It was my first time there and I loved it! First, you have to ride on these awesome boats to get to the beach:

 Which I loved every minute of, of course!

Then we ate lunch there and I ordered pwasson gros-sel and it looked very unappetizing yet it was quite DELICIOUS. :)

These last few days have been fantastic, too. We have all been resting and are regaining the strength needed to start a new week of crazy. Saturday morning the OMS ladies held a bible study and it was refreshing to sit together over breakfast and talk with one another, praise the Lord and lift up our prayers for one another.

Then this morning we went to Abel’s church (he is staff here are EBS) within walking distance of Emmaus. It was a great experience and I can’t help but gladly notice that each week I am understanding more and more at the church services. As first time visitors, Abel asked us to introduce ourselves, which led to an embarrassingly funny story of Ryan’s introduction of us. He stood up and in Creole he introduced himself and said that we were happy to be there to worship our Heavenly Father with them.

Then he proceeded to introduce me by telling them, “You can call her my wife…. or Cheyenne.” This doesn’t really make as much sense in our English language or our American culture, but here it is culturally acceptable and is definitely the norm to call a woman “________’s wife” – such as Ryan’s wife. But it was pretty hysterical (and embarrassing) because instead of saying that they could call me “Ryan’s wife,” he was saying everyone could call me “my wife” (aka their wife) – and everyone was cracking up. Ryan assures me that it was a planned joke all along and everyone else seemed to take it as a joke and laughed. I was trying to laugh along with everyone else, and it made me feel better that they thought it was just a funny joke by a foreigner, but that didn’t keep my from turning beet red from having so many people staring at me! All in all, it was pretty funny and I can only imagine that every time we go there from now on everyone will have forgotten my actual name but will surely remember that introduction. :)

It’s safe to say there have been a lot of language funnies since we arrived. I am thankful that we are surrounded by our many brothers and sisters in Christ who are just happy that we are taking Creole seriously, even if we do make funny and embarrassing mistakes! Our new friends seem to be much more confident in our language abilities than we are, which is encouraging and makes us excited to continue our learning.

Definitely keep our language acquisition in your prayers! That is our biggest concern for now, especially since Ryan is going to begin teaching in Creole. I have been feeling so thankful that God blesses us with the desire and ability to learn different languages so that we can reach out to different nations, all for His glory.

And for those of you wondering how we are settling in, we are finally completely unpacked and I figured I would show a few pictures of our apartment! There are a few minor things that still need done (like doorknobs and screen doors) and the guys are working on the porch, but it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and after a few months of feeling like nomads it feels so much like home!

Below is the current progress of the porch, which you get to through those glass doors in the kitchen. Doesn't it have such a beautiful view?!

 Here's the closet organizer that was just built a few days ago. I love it and as of yesterday we are completely unpacked and no longer living out of our suitcases. It's official. :)

 Below is the spare bedroom/office/drying room. Haha - yesterday I decided to do laundry but since it was cool and cloudy all day our clothes didn't dry before the rain hit! So I turned that room into the laundry drying room. :)

We are BEYOND happy to be moved in! 

Speaking of moving in, there are some other critters who call this place their home as well. The frogs and lizards I don't mind and actually smile when I find them hopping around and climbing the walls. But these on the other hand......

These are not cute and I do NOT welcome them in here. This HUGE, scary thing greeted me by jumping off of a pineapple that I picked up to cut. I nearly grabbed onto the thing!

I spent the rest of the afternoon worrying about this thing jumping on me or imagining myself finding it under the bed sheets. But thankfully these two guys came to the rescue... bug vacuums and all.

That day, Ryan and Ethan were my super heros. I told Ethan that if he ever hears me scream from across the campus it means to come QUICK with the bug-sucker-vacuum-thing because a spider is most likely trying to attack me!!! 

So, that's life for us the past few weeks. I am so happy that I was able to get in contact with some family and friends this weekend over Skype. I feel like I am so behind on all of the news back in Nebraska and Kansas but it is so wonderful to have the ability to talk to everyone and see how they are doing! I can assure you that our silence for the past few weeks means that things are going smoothly for us and we are very content! We miss you guys and we thank you all for keeping us in your prayers!