Category: Archived Posts – 2007-2016

I am always amazed at what God continues to allow us to do with GMSM. This mission trip is really special, as one of our main goals is to help people get involved in mission work in Mexico and Haiti.

This trip is Gulf Breeze Baptist Church’s first mission with us to Nuevo Laredo. We brought Deryl Hatt, the youth pastor, down this past January in hopes of getting his church involved. Well, praise the Lord they are fired up and we are all serving in Mexico less than six months later.

After a long journey to Laredo we arrived at the host church Iglesia Bautista Emanuel. This will be our home for the next 5 days.

We will cross the border each day and do Vacation Bible School in the morning at the colonias and VBS in the afternoon at Casa Hogar Elim orphanage. I will say, this church is in a very rough part of town. Tomorrow I will take a small group over the border and let them see what God has gotten them into.

Praise God for the safe journey. Thank you to all supporters for keeping us in your prayers this week.

Kenny

GMSM

Give Me Shelter Ministries is returning to Nuevo Laredo twice this summer, once with Gulf Breeze Baptist Church on June 12 and again with First Baptist Church Ft. Walton Beach on our annual mission June 27.

We will be working on building one shelter during our trip. We have more than one needy family down in Nuevo Laredo, but each trip makes a difference.

We ask for your prayers as these volunteers help our neighbors who have very little. If you can make any contribution to helping us build homes for the members of Pastor Felipe’s church, please do so. God bless you and we thank you for your support.

May 29, 2009

Today is the day that is always met with mixed emotions. This is break down day when part of says “I wish we had another week and the other part of me says its time to go back to the land of human chaos. In any event there is much work that needs to be done where ever the Lord will allow us to work. As with every morning, it is cool to watch the village come alive. People start to scurry around doing their daily chores, children start showing up for school and life starts a new day in Z’Orange. Just like home there is always something to do. What they do down here is survival. We do not have to worry about survival unless you consider survival being worried that that guy’s boat is bigger than yours. As we say our goodbyes and get things packed, we start the trek back towards Port and then on to Love a Child to drop the truck off. I drove the whole time and that was a nice break for Chuck. Once we dropped the truck off we headed for CSI guest house to stay the night. Tomorrow we head to the land of plenty

May 28, 3009

We finally started assembling the pews. Work began about 6:30 and ended over 12 hours later. There was plenty of local help, and once we got our system down we were beginning to look like that we knew what we were doing.

Twenty pews were built and I know Pastor Fanilus will be stoked. He was supposed to have his surgery today. I will not know anything until we come back to Port Au Prince.

All in all it was a great day of hammering and banging with my brothers in Christ. This may very well have been one of the hardest days of work that I have put in here in Haiti. Chuck worked us hard today and I know we all felt it. God protected us and gave us strength.

May 26, 2009

After leaving the guest house we had e few more errands to run before we headed up the mountain. Chuck and I drove in the big truck and George and Joe drove together, we all met at the lumber store to get the supplies for the pews for the Jerusalem II. After the lumber run we had some lunch and picked up food supplies. From that point we split up. Joe, myself, Ginette and Simon took Gabriel up the mountain while Chuck and George stayed in Port to take care of some business. I drove all through town and up the mountain to Z’Orange. Praise God for a new path. The new road makes things a whole lot easier. I am glad that Chuck feels comfortable with me to help with the ministry. Once we arrived in Z’Orange we unloaded the truck and set up camp. It was neat to see the kids helping us to unload the lumber and set things up. It started raining and stopped us from working so we ate supper and chilled.

May 27, 2009

Praise god from whom all blessings flow. What a night it was. After the rain it got so cool that I even got a little chilly a couple of times. Trust me, that is a good thing when the days are blistering. Ginette gave us a nice breakfast and we began the wait for gas to put in the generator. Chuck, George and Simon went back to Port to take care of a few things. Once the gas arrived we started pre-fabricating the lumber to be be used to make the new pews for Pastor Fanilus and Jerusalem II. It was so cool to have some of the young men help us out. Even Ginette was a tremendous help. Although there was a language barrier of sorts they caught on quick to Joe’s and my plan. Before long we had a cool assembly line going, the work went so smooth and it was great fun fellowshipping with my brother and sisters.

There is a lot that goes on during the day around the church. One of the main things is the school. It is so neat to see the children in dress uniforms and learning. School costs money so there are a lot of children that do not attend school. We spent many hours ripping and cutting lumber to get it ready and I think without the help the Lord provided for us, we would not have gotten as much done as we did.

You know something I was thinking about today was that I have not even seen John Wesley (the voodoo priest). I am not even sure if he ever rented the house that Chuck and I gave him the money for so he and his family could be together.

When the guys returned from Port Au Prince I learned that Pastor Fani had gotten some much needed blood from the Red Cross so he could have his surgery. I am still not sure when this surgery is going to take place but I do know that if he was in the U.S. this would have been taken care of long ago. We will all continue to pray and lift him up .Tomorrow we will start mass-producing the pews.

May 25, 09 Haiti

After a great night sleep we prepared to see what the Lord had in store for us on this day. This place is a very nice place. It is like a kitchenette where you can cook your own food.

It is only $10.00 per day. Once we set out for the day, George and Joe dropped Chuck and I off in town where we waited for Harry and Joe Joe the driver to pick us up. There were several things that we wanted to accomplish today before we headed up the mountain. We went to the hospital to see Pastor Fani and his wife. I can promise you one thing; you do not want to be stuck in a Haitian hospital. Everything is open and patients are piled into a big room with no privacy what so ever. When we walked in and he saw us he started crying. As we visited he would look up at me and tears would fill his eyes. From the flesh part of me I am bummed that he is this way. But the spiritual part of me knows that God is in complete control and He knows what is best for His children. We were informed that if he would not have come to the hospital he surely would have died.

After a short visit we spoke to Sister Fani and I gave her some money that Vance Baptist Church, Al had provided. We prayed and then we left. After running several more errands, which at times can be an adventure in itself we grabbed some lunch and headed off to Love A Child to pick up the truck. I logged some good drive time driving back to the guest house. I think tomorrow I will drive up the mountain to Z’Orange.

May 24, 2009

Once again we head off to Haiti to see what the Lord will allow us to do. Things we have planned on are seeing Pastor Fanilus in the hospital and to build pews for the new church on the mountain, Jerusalem II.

We are experimenting with a new airline called Spirit and hit our first glitch of the trip when we arrived in Atlanta. At the ticket counter they informed us that we can only have one check in bag due to an embargo they have with Port Au Prince. Well Chuck and I had two trunks apiece that had tools that would be needed to perform the task for the pews. Wow, what a curve ball. We looked at each other and said what we do. The only thing we could do was just pray for wisdom on what to do. God is so gracious and guided us through this mess. So we decide to pack all our stuff in one trunk each and deal with the over weight charges. We ended up with only one trunk being over the weight limit.

I am traveling with Chuck Martindale and Joe Hutchinson. We will meet fellow brother in Christ and missionary George Truelove in Port. We will be staying at a new guest house in Port named Blue Ridge/ Keys for Life Ministries. Once we arrived and George picked us up and we headed off to Blue Ridge guest house. Chuck will be preaching tonight at Pastor Harry’s church in Port. I am looking so forward seeing Harry. He is such a warrior in Haiti. I love church in Haiti it is always so refreshing. As always Chuck did a wonderful job in the pulpit and Harry did a great job translating. I am beat and it will be good to rest.

Kenny Phillips

GMSM

Kenny joined Truth Evangelistic Ministry in a return trip to Haiti this week. Originally intended to be a mission to complete pews in Jerusalem II Church, it is now also a mission to visit Pastor Fani (pronounced “Fan-ay” and short for “Fanilus”) in the hospital and deliver over $1200.00 for his hospital expenses. Praise the Lord for all your help in this effort. Special thanks to Vance Baptist Church for their help in Pastor Fani’s medical expenses. Please pray for Kenny, his family and all the members of the mission team, as well as Pastor Fani. We will update his condition and the success of building pews as soon as we get a message from Haiti. God bless you all.

We have raised nearly $1000 dollars to help fund Pastor Fani’s medical expenses. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support.

Please donate today through PayPal and indicate “Pastor Fani” with your donation.

Hello all,
I received this today and talked to Chuck this morning about Pastor Fani’s situation. It does not look very good at this time.You know what this man and his family means to me. I ask you that we help in some way to ease the burden of lack of money.I know that if God is ready to take this Godly man home then so be it. I know that he to will be living the promise of our Lord and Savior. If not I know that the medical facilities can be less than desirable and he is suffering. Please pray now for him and his family and that Divine healing would occur if it is Gods will. Please pray how we may help. Search yourselves and lets together do what we can.
Please pass this on and let me know as soon as you can. Thank you,
Kenny

Pastor Fanilus as you know had a very bad motorcycle accident at the beginning of the year. He took a hard blow to the head. He hasn’t been himself since but two days ago he could not answer questions and Pastor Harry called me and asked me what they should do. I said take him to the hospital but he said they had no money . I told him to take him and we would take care of it. We need to first pray that the Lord will heal him. I sent $ 100.00 today for the doctors to look at him and they suggest that he go into the hospital they think he has bleeding in the brain. That is all I know. it cost $ 187.50 to admit him and $ 30.00 a day. Also we have medicines and doctors to pay so if the Lord puts it on your heart to help with Pastor Fanilus. Please let me know. I believe we need to do all we can do for this man of God. Please let everyone know that knows Pastor Fanilus so they can be praying God bless you all

Bro. Chuck