Day 4 | Eric Campbell

Today we continued to remove the siding from our house. This house needs a lot of work to get it to where it needs to be. Our original plan to place OSB board on the house was thrown off when we found termites throughout the foundation of the house. We removed everything that we safely could after that. Headed to bed soon. We will share more updates on Facebook tomorrow - our final day of working here in Texas before we head home on Saturday.

Day 3 | Eric Campbell

Today was another hot one. I checked the temp once - 98 degrees / Heat Index of 115F. We started a new job today working for Juanita. She lives with her granddaughter who has autism. Her house was in pretty rough shape, and honestly, it was likely in rough shape prior to the storm. If there is someone here though that could really use a helping had - it is her. You can tell she is doing everything she can to try and take the best care of her granddaughter and she also told us stories of how she took care of her neighbors on a regular basis. She worked alongside us today as we tore apart her back porch that had a crumbling floor and roof. We tore out siding that had nothing behind it - no insulation and in some places - not even drywall. We won’t see this one completed this week - but she will be receiving all new siding and all new windows for her entire home. I can’t imagine how happy she will be to see that improvement to her home. Even then that happiness pales in comparison to the joy that we have in our salvation through Jesus Christ. I hope through the sweat and heat of the day, we were able to share some of that with her as she worked alongside us today on her own home. Looking forward to heading back to her home tomorrow.

Day 2 | Eric Campbell

Today our group worked extremely hard and I was very proud of my team. We finished the dirt work around the house and build a couple of flower beds. Becka and Tracy worked inside to finish cleanup inside. It has been a little difficult not getting to meet our homeowner…but under the circumstances , it is very understanding. Mrs. Garcia suffered a stroke 5 years ago and currently lives in Corpus Christi - about 45 mins south of our current location. I have really enjoyed working alongside of our team. It is extremely encouraging to see this many young people give up a week of their summer vacation to serve God and serve others. It makes me realize how blessed we are as a church and cherish the people that make up the body of Christ even more. Time for me to get some rest! Watch Facebook and this blog for updates…

Day 13 | Eric Campbell

The work is completed at both the house and the church. The best blessing of all comes in knowing that 23 Haitian children that I can't have a conversation with here on Earth will be celebrating with me in heaven one day when language will not be an obstacle. Twenty-three children accepted Christ as their savior during 6 days of VBS over the past couple of weeks. There is nothing greater that we could have witnessed God doing over the past 2 weeks, and I am blessed to have been apart of His plan. Today has been a struggle for me on the technology end. My hard drive keeping all of the video of the trip is not cooperating at all, making editing the video pretty difficult. Hopefully it holds up for a couple more days. We will try and Periscope the house dedication ceremony around 8:30 am tomorrow (Wednesday). Becka - I will see you and the boys on Friday. I love you.

Day 10 | Eric Campbell

So today I went to the house site for the first time since I have been in Haiti (other than for the house dedication service). When you watch the video, the site is on the side of a mountain with absolutely no shade. I roasted today. The house walls are going up and more importantly we had the chance to talk to the family that will be moving in. The parents did speak some English which helped. The mom went to learn English at a school in Jamaica when she was younger. They have a 6 year old daughter and a 4 month old son. Seeing him did make me miss my 4 month olds at home - Carter & Ethan. Becka, I miss you and the boys a ton and I do look forward to seeing you next week. Phyllis thank you, Sam, & Courtney for making the trip from Michigan to spend time with Becka and the boys. I hope you all have enjoyed the videos and the Periscope opportunities that we have had. It gives you a glimpse into the trip but it is very hard to tell the full story 10 minutes at a time. It is a blessing to be here and share the word of God with kids through VBS and see the youth of our church go through the experience here. Each day is a reminder of how blessed we are as a nation and how thankless we are for it.

Day 5 | Eric Campbell

Today I went to the church site again. We had 7 children accept Christ as their Savior today. What a blessing... To see 112 kids or so show up for VBS, knowing that some of them have walked for an hour plus to be there is humbling. They have a very simple life and they are completely content and happy. You rarely see a child without a smile on their face. Internet access on this mission trip has been the best yet in Haiti and I hope that you are enjoying a little more interactive mission trip with us by following on Periscope and Twitter. Tomorrow morning we will try to Periscope the dump truck ride to the church site. At some point we will lose cell phone service so you won't be able to watch the entire 90 minute journey live but hopefully you can appreciate the experience of riding in the back of the dump truck. Becka I love you and miss you and the boys. Sam thanks for helping Becka take care of the twins.

Day 3 | Eric Campbell

Sorry I haven't written down my thoughts on the trip to this point. To say the days leading up to this trip were a challenge would have been an understatement. I lost my grandmother unexpectedly this past Monday. On Sunday, I was at her house and left after giving her a hug and telling her that I would see her in August when I returned from this trip. I know she would want me here doing what God led me to do, so here I am. Again Haiti has brought perspective and has helped me realize how blessed I am to have spent the length of time that I have with both of my grandparents. The life expectancy in Haiti is 62. My grandparents were married for 66 years and I was able to be blessed with a Christian grandmother for 31 awesome years. Anyone my age in this country doesn't stand a chance of having anything remotely close to that experience. Yes I left a wife and 2 three month old boys at home. I know I made the comment to Becka multiple times "I don't know how we would do this in the townhouse we lived in before we moved into the house." The family that we are building a home for has 3 kids, one of which is 3 months old and they are currently living in a tent because their home burned down. Welcome to your reality check. So far so good on the videos and blog postings. We have a reliable internet connection after a couple of days. Follow us on the website at gassawaybaptist.com. Follow a couple of twitter accounts @gassawaybaptist and @gbcbill for updates and pictures throughout the day. Love you Becka and I miss you and the boys. Sam and Courtney - thank you for coming in to help Becka take care of the boys while I'm away so that I can be here.

Haiti 2015

Just wanted to post a quick update. We made it safely to our hotel in Florida today. Our plan is to be at the airport at 6am in the morning. From there we will divide up among two flights going to Haiti and plan to be there late tomorrow afternoon. Updates will be quickest on Twitter @gassawaybaptist. We will also post here and the daily journal entries from our team will begin tomorrow night. Please be in prayer for our team here and the people working with us from Baptist Haiti Mission. Thanks for following and we look forward to sharing the word of Jesus with the people of Haiti and sharing our experience with you.

Videos

Sorry everyone for the delay in getting the videos posted. Both Day 8 and 9 videos have been completed. The problem is getting them uploaded. We have ran into some problems with the internet services here. Hopefully we can get a couple videos online and posted tomorrow and start to get caught up. Some things to look forward to in the coming videos...First, we have the testimony from Shawn in the Day 10 video coming up. What a blessing to hear her tell her story. For those that have read about the "hike". We have some amazing footage to show of that trip in the Day 11 video. Becka wore the hat cam today, while I took the regular camcorder. The equipment for the most part survived, save one plastic mount. Again sorry for the delay, we will get them up as soon as we can. Please continue to post comments on the blog posts, share links on twitter and Facebook, and spread the word about the trip. God is truly being glorified here in Haiti through these adults and youth.

Day 3 | Playground taking shape

Wanted to share a picture of the progress. Here's a look at the two story playground we are building. If you live near Gassaway, make sure to attend church on Sunday Night. We will have a live phone call with the group. 

Please continue to pray for our group. Becka is still feeling under the weather and could use your prayers as she recovers from an ear infection.

All of your comments are read to our group each night. We continue to work on better Internet access and we may have a video or two up later.

Driving through Florida

We should be arriving at our hotel by 4:30 this afternoon. No problems at all so far on the drive. Thanks for your prayers. 

Haiti Countdown - Leaving on Wednesday

We leave in three days. I just wanted to take some time to write a little bit about what you can expect to see here over the next couple of weeks. Two groups of high school students and adults will be traveling to Haiti and staying at the Baptist Haiti Missions site. While there we will be constructing the only playground in Haiti. What you can expect on this blog: A lot of what you will see and won't see here will depend on our access to internet. We will do our best to post daily updates both here and on twitter @gassawaybaptist. There will be blog postings which you can leave comments on. Those comments will be given back to the writer so they can read your feedback. Normally we have a lot of video. On our trip down on Thursday, June 13 we will attempt to have live video as we board the plane and take off. Check the blog for updates. Video updates will be sporadic and videos will be given to the first team to bring back after week 1 and then they will be posted. Finally for the most current updates, see our twitter feed. @gassawaybaptist Please be in prayer for our trip. We are excited to serve the Lord in Haiti the next few weeks. If you have any questions, please comment on this post or email me: ecamp02@gmail.com Thanks for following along

Day 3

Getting ready to head to our first day of clinic for the week. We were told to expect about 1500 patients over the duration of the week.

Had a very good day yesterday at a church service down towards the city. Pastor Mark delivered an excellent sermon. As you looked around the sanctuary you could see tears in the eyes of several people sitting there listening to the translation. I had a unique experience as I started to film portions of the service. As I was holding the videocamera, I looked out of the corner of the eye and I was being photographed while I was taping the service. I figured that was fair.

Yesterday there was a scheduled power outage in the afternoon. Apparently someone from our team turned on the shower, since there was no power, there was no water. After that, they forgot if they had turned it off or not. Yesterday evening, the entire first floor of our dorm was flooded including all of Pastor Mark and Darlene's clothes. We all pitched in and everyone grabbed a broom, mop, squeegee, shopvac, fans, and this morning they have a dry floor. There were clothes dryers available as well, so everything is good. I'll have to encourage Pastor Mark to elaborate on all of his experiences here. I see he happened to leave out one of the more memorable events of yesterday in his blog. :)

Headed out shortly, have a great day!

Day 2 | Honduras

Good morning. This morning we have our devotional time followed by breakfast. Then we are going to head out to a local church where Pastor Mark will deliver his sermon. This afternoon we will head to the site in La Paz where we will have our clinic Monday-Friday and hope to share about Jesus through medicine. Please keep Pastor Mark and the rest of our team in your prayers. We are expecting around 300 people at church this morning.
We are probably going to be unable to post any video because of the slow internet. Hopefully we can post some pictures from our travels here. Have a good day.

In Honduras

We have made it safely to Honduras. Currently at the airport , we should have Internet access at camp and will write more later. Thank your for your prayers.

Arrived in Houston

We have arrived in Houston. Leaving for Honduras at 9:30 local time, 10:30 eastern.

In Charlotte

First flight is running on time. Should be leaving here at 6 am.

Honduras - Getting Packed

Hitting the road around 10pm tonight. Leaving from Charlotte first thing in the morning. I'll give a basic overview of our trip a little later on. If you are looking for information about our trip, you have reached the right place. Keep checking back for blog posts from the men and women on this mission trip. We need and appreciate your prayers more than anything else. God will be glorified on this trip and some much needed medical treatment will also be given.

For those in the Gassaway area, we will try to Skype in to Sunday night's service. Can't make any promises though.

Have a great weekend and enjoy reading the story of this mission trip as it happens.

Day 7 | Eric Campbell

Just wrapping up what you have read from everyone else, today I was involved in the dedication service for one of the homes we helped to build. I was nervous, but with help from Pastor Bill and through prayer I was able to deliver the message to the family. That was a moment I’ll never forget. It was special to be involved and this past week has given me a new outlook on life. I’m far more thankful for the life God has blessed me with than what I was before I came. If you can spend just a week in a third world country, you won’t have anything to complain about when you return home to the US. 

Tomorrow we head back to the US. I’ll try to keep this page updated as we make the stops along the way. Start looking for the videos to be posted tomorrow night. Days 1-4 are already done and while it was impossible to capture the experience completely, they will give you a good window into the situation here on the ground. God bless.

Day 3 | Eric Campbell

Another full day here in Haiti. Just sitting down to post everyone's blog posts and taking a little time to reflect. Today a man walked up and began talking to Eladio, Rich, and myself in English. There are many moments here that I wish I could videotape and share with all of you, but it's a difficult balancing act between capturing the moment and offending someone. This was one of those. He talked about the conditions here before the earthquake and how poor the people are here now even more so afterwards. He talked with Eladio for 20-30 minutes, taught himself English, walks 45 minutes to church, has no job and has no desire to date a girl until he finds a decent job. I continue to be more and more humbled by the hour on this trip.

At times, it's much easier for me to just think of this trip as a project to build a couple houses, because if I allow the things I'm seeing and hearing to sink in, it's too much for me to handle. You know the pictures are real. You see Anderson Cooper grab a bloody child carry them to safety in downtown Port-au-Prince, but that's TV. Being here makes it all real. There are people suffering. There are people living in tents. I get to go home in a few days. These people have no home. But some of them do have God and they have real joy and couldn't be happier. I just hope and pray that I can share the joy I have thanks to Christ to some that don't know Him.

The other group we are here with finished their home and had a dedication service with the family that will be moving in. Eleven people gave their lives to Christ at that service today. Praise God for that.

Still working on getting more to you back home than just some blog posts. I promise at least a few pictures tomorrow if not something more. Logistics here have been a challenge to say the least.

Enjoy driving to church tomorrow, some people will be walking at least 45 minutes to get there and they will be thankful to worship God and turn around and walk the 45 minutes back.