Haiti Planning Continues

It is scary how fast it seems that January is going to be upon us. I have announced the mission trip on my Facebook account, but so far not too much traffic from that. I suspect no new donations have come in, but I will let it simmer for a while, before I go an check.

I have been attempting to learn Creole by tape. At points it is hard to believe that Creole has a common heritage with French. Someone made the comment to me that Creole is almost like a slang version of French. I can see that. The one thing that I like about it so far is it hasn't yet made me deal with the gender of nouns. Maybe that will come later, but it is always an aspect of language that I hated and could never get right.

I am also wondering about the best way to start spreading the word abou the mission trip at the Church. I suspect I will try to set up a small table in the coffee hour after church, but not sure yet what I would put on the table and not sure what questions I can actually answer about the trip. All I really know are the dates. I don't know where we will be staying or the location that the school will be built. I am going a bit on faith here and assume it will all work out in the end. I do wish I had some idea of what the school would look like so that maybe I could bring pictures or a mockup of some type.

Tonight I will have to spend some time praying on this. One thing that came up in last Monday's Bible study is that as Christians we are meant to pray before action. This is something I need to work on as I usually focus on the action.

Helping to Build a School in Haiti

In March 2010 I participated on a mission trip to Haiti that provided medical clinics and food distribution. This trip made quite an impact on me and I vowed to return to Haiti when I could. I had originally planned to go back to Haiti in October, then November, but as you might expect plans and Haiti sometimes do not always see eye to eye.

The trip is now firming up and it will be from January 8 to the 16th. The group will consist of 10 to 20 people and we will be helping build a school in the suburbs of Haiti. Within the Haitian culture a building, such as this, is far more than a school as it becomes a focal point for the community.

This January, it will be a year since the earthquake, but if you look at Port-au-Prince the signs of change are few. There is still rubble in the street, trash in the storm drains, and tent cities cover any open space. This is truly a people still in need.

Part of a mission trip is helping others; another part is learning to rely on others. On this mission trip I will be striving, with God's help, to help the Haitian community through friendship and construction. In order to participate on this missions trip I have to rely on others; not only while in Haiti, but while preparing to go to Haiti.

To this end, the cost of the mission trip is between $1,900 to $2,000, which is used to cover travel, housing, food, translators, cooks, drivers, vehicles, construction materials, and construction supervisors. The philosophy of the mission group with which I participate is to hire local people, so cooks, drivers, translators, and construction supervisors tend to be local Haitians so that we are not simply a group that comes in and leaves a void. The point is to start a project so that after we leave it can be continued both with future mission trips and local workers.

I would appreciate your help in funding this trip. If you would like to help you can send checks to:

Acton Congregational Church

c/o Haitian Mission Trip / David Bainbridge

12 Concord Road

Acton, MA 01720

If you have any questions please drop me an email at davidk.bainbridge@gmail.com or comment on this or any post and I will reply as best as I am able.

Haiti in January

I have not updated this blog as often as I had plan and I need to become more disciplined about that. But, I wanted to let everyone know that the mission trip to Haiti to work on construction of a school/clinic looks to be on track for January 8 to 16, 2011. The costs for this trip have greatly increased over what I expected and that of the trip to the Dominican Republic last year. The projected cost is about $1,900 to $2,000 v. the $1,400 the Dominican trip cost last year.

I have been prayerfully considering this mission trip as with a daughter now in college, another in a private high school, and our other commitments, expenses can be rather tight. An additional issues is that there is another mission trip to the Dominican in March as our church works to make the trip to the Dominican an annual event. Based on everything, I have to make a choice to participate in only a single trip as it does not seem possible to be able to afford both. Based on my prayer, I feel that I am being pulled toward Haiti and thus plan to go on this trip and not the Dominican trip. This is a hard choice because of the trip to the Dominican will have an aspect of a reunion as it will likely involve some of the same individuals that participated from last year.

Now the hard work begins. That hard work is the preparation for the mission trip. This includes the fund raising effort. In general I find fund raising hard as I have difficulty asking others for "personal" help, but that is required for the mission trip and is part of my training for mission work as it requires an individual to humble themselves and ask for and receive help.

Mahalo and God Bless,

/david

PS. The photo above is not of the actual school we will be working on, it is a photo I found on the internet, but felt a visual of some sort was needed.

There and Back Again

I was raised in the church, a Methodist church to be specific. I attended regularly, went to youth group, was an acolyte, went throughout confirmation, and all the other things one would expect of someone who was raised in a church. What I didn't do is really think about my faith, even when going through confirmation. What this meant is that despite my parent's and the church's best effort I did not have a strong grounding in my faith.

This lack of a faith grounding was set free as I entered my later years of high school and college. When you take the lack of grounding and combine it with a technical leaning and education, what you get is a agnostic who is just lazy enough at times to identify himself as an atheist. This worked out well for me for the most part. It allowed me to completely ignore faith issues and allowed me to justify it with a label. It also conveniently allowed me not to worry about ethics (not that I really did anything that was horrible) and the question of how or if I am living a life that follows God's will.

I should mention at this time that my girl friend, now my wife, had a strong faith and while I fluctuated, she did not. We tended not to talk too much about religion as it conveniently allowed us not to get in to areas of discussion that could cause conflict. But, all the while she stayed constant and ever so slowly I came to change. And when I say "ever so slowly", I mean it as it was a good 15 years after college that I would say my heart and mind truly changed.

The idea that really changed me was the concept of love and how it is applied to my children. For if there was no God then I could not love my children. I could have chemical reactions and hormones that made me want to protect them, but that is not the same as love. Either I was a machine controlled by a series of chemical and biological switches or I loved my children. And if I loved my children then there is something more than simply biology; and that, in a round about way, means God exists and can no longer be denied or ignored.

I suppose the exact logic path isn't as important as the fact that it led me to the conclusion and conviction of God and that meant I had to change. This meant going to church willing with the family as opposed to begrudgingly, praying at meals, reading scripture, etc. Often times I led with action; belief or conviction followed. But it did come and I have grown stronger in my faith over time. I still am what I consider a "baby" Christian with lots to go, but I am willing to follow that path.

God Bless

Hello, World?

It has been quite a while since I have considered blogging. In the past most my blogging has been both of a technical nature and for the most part done within the firewall of the company for which I work. This will be my first attempt to blog on something non-technical and non-work related.

What I have decided to do is blog about a quest I am under taking to continue mission work in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. This topic allows for a rather wide range of subjects as I plan to begin with how I got to this point in my life as well as cover the past mission trip to DR/Haiti and plans for future trips to DR/Haiti.

The other thing you may notice is this blog is probably being written for an audience of one, me. I say this because the blog is an attempt to get my thoughts, feelings, etc. documented in a clear fashion so that I may get a better understanding of the situation as opposed to allow people to see what is going on in my head.

This does beg the question, that if this is the purpose, why on earth would you blog as opposed to just write a diary. It is a fair question and I suspect I don't have a good answer, except that perhaps blogging about my mission quest might provide the opportunity for someone else to get in touch with their inner missionary and they could take the plunge too. I don't know much, but I am pretty sure that if you do put yourself out there and stretch your faith and comfort zone, you will be changed.

God Bless