Here is a short piece I cut together during a live worship in Mizak in 2011.

HAPI Executive Director, Valerie Mossman-Celestin and my friend, photo journalist, Paul Jeffrey asked me to help with this project. The footage will be woven into a short documentary. “Let’s Hear it from the Girls” (working title) will connect the voice of girls in a rural Haitian community to touch us with stories, music and dance that convey the joys and challenges of growing up female in Haiti. The film will also capture the subtle messages of hope emerging from a dream that the community recognize the value and equality of girls and women.

We will be working in Mizak, a mountainous, rural section of La Vallee in South-East Haiti, 80 km south of Port-au-Prince and 12 km west of Jacmel. The total population is just over 35,000. Seventy percent are peasants living under the poverty level of less than $1 US per day, and 63% of the population is under the age of 18. There are no jobs available, no electricity, no telecommunication system, no plumbing, and no water filtration. The majority of households have no measurable income and they rely on system of barter and trade.

HAPI plans to make this DVD available as a teaching resource to folks in the United Methodist Church. The project is funded in part through a grant from the United Methodist Women’s organization.

Look for more in the coming days and weeks!

Zac and Julie Stutler work with the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The Stutler’s and another husband/wife team, Jeff and Deborah Climie, launched a new congregation in this upscale resort community called Alianza. While recording footage for a project with the Alliance Women Ministries, I was able to put this video together for them.

In the years following the 1956 Cuban Revolution, a hand full of scattered churches of Christ that began in late 1930?s, dwindled to a few hundred members. Today, revival is spreading across the island.

In January 2011, Church World Service asked me to go back to Haiti to record stories about their blanket and food coop programs. It was a wonderful trip full of positive stories and hopeful signs. Here is the video the folks in Elkhart, Indiana put together with the footage we recorded.

Tony Fernandez baptises a man at the Versaille Church of Christ in Matanzas, Cuba.

My friend and traveling companion, Tim Archer wrote about our trip to Cuba in his wonderful blog, The Kitchen of Half-Baked Thoughts. His post is a nice review of our visit.

Opening roads in Cuba
Posted on March 8, 2011 by Tim Archer

Back from my trip to Cuba last week, I want to share some more of what I experienced there. I’ve written in the past about the evangelistic efforts going on in the province of Matanzas, but I’m still overwhelmed every time I see the work in person. The Versalles congregation in Matanzas decided to reach out to communities around the city, something that the church had done before the Revolution.

They chose a road that led from Matanzas to the province of Havana (which now has been split in two and renamed, though I don’t remember the names). They prayed for those towns, asked members to give them names of people they knew in those towns, contacted respondents to Herald of Truth’s radio programs and set out to start churches. When someone was converted, they were told that the church would meet at their house the following Sunday. Those people would always invite family, friends and neighbors, and a new congregation was born.

After a time, congregations had begun in every town on the road they had chosen, so they picked another highway. When all the towns had churches meeting in them, a third highway was chosen. The church is now working on a fourth highway in their province.

The last few years, the Versalles congregation and the churches planted from it have averaged 280 baptisms per year. The retention rate is high. The number of Christians meeting in the province has basically tripled since 2006.

While describing their outreach methods to a visitor from Alabama, Tony Fernández made a statement that brought tears to my eyes:

When we are out and we come to a town that doesn’t have a congregation, we always stop and have a prayer for that town. Above all, we pray asking forgiveness for not having reached them yet.

Wow! I wish I felt the same passion, the same urgency. Maybe some of theirs will rub off on me

Recorded these images on a farm outside Matanzas, Cuba. The farmer is 69 years old and obviously physically fit!