HELLO FROM SANTA CRUZ, CA!

Just wanted to share with you how awesome last week’s camp was. Now don’t get me wrong, because every week has had some sort of awesomeness involved in it, and Jesus has been moving every single day, but this past week was just…special?

I wish i had time to go into details, but i don’t. So, let’s just say that the week started off not so great. It wasn’t horrible, but basically there were a lot of distractions. One example: a bat would fly into the room when the speaker was talking about Jesus, completely drawing everyone’s attention away from Jesus, and onto this disgusting furry creature with rabbies. Anyways, just things like that were happening for the first 3 days.

Then, by Wednesday, we decided it was time to kick Satan in the face and believe that God was still going to do some amazing things in the lives of students. And that’s exactly what happened. By Wednesday night, about 40 students had surrendered their lives to Jesus!

Then, on Friday night, the speaker asked if we would lead worship after her talk (rather than before it), so as to send them out on a sending-out note of Jesus-worship. So we had 4 songs prepared, about 20 minutes total. So we wrap up our time, and I dismiss the students to their small group. It was about 8:45pm by now. But no one moved. They all just stayed there and were chanting “we want more”! Now that’s what I’m talking about! 200 high school students chanting for more Jesus-worship.

So we sang another song.

But still, no one moved. And so we sang another song!

This went on for the next hour! I have never been a part of a worship service where there were like 15 “encores”! It was insane. I wish I could explain it better, but words don’t really do it justice. All i know is that there was freedom for the Holy Spirit to fall in that place, and It did, and it was a beautiful thing.

200 high school students begging to worship Jesus at the top of their lungs for almost 2 hours. That’s beautiful.

This week at camp was amazing. Looking back, it’s beautiful to see how Jesus moved in the lives of students during the week. On thursday night, we shared our song “Light Beyond the Sun”. I hadn’t played it in a while, and as I was on stage singing it, I realized how much I need that song. I need that constant reminder that our God is huge. Let’s face it, as long as we are living on this earth, there’s going to be things in our lives that are heart-breaking and seemingly unbearable. There are going to be times when everything seems to just be crashing in around us. There are going to be times when we have no idea why we are even on this earth. There will definitely be times when we wonder what our purpose in this world is. There are going to be times when we just can’t help but fall on our face and cry.

But I believe that it’s in those times that we need to realize that there is a huge God who holds us in the palm of His hand.

The idea for the song, “Light Beyond the Sun”, is the fact that our God shines brighter than the sun. Here on earth, the only way we are able to see things is by the light of the sun, or when it is dark, we use lights that mimic the light of the sun. But the truth is that God created that sun; His light shines beyond the sun. So it’s when I’m at my deepest darkest times in my life, when my problems seem even too big for God, that this song reminds me that “He’ll be my warmth when I’m lost in the cold”. No matter how big our situations are, God is bigger.

We all made it! Danny flew in from New York City, Eric and Blake drove 3-days-straight from Mississippi, and I, well, I kinda live kinda close…

This place is just amazing. So for those unfamiliar, Santa Cruz is about an hour south of San Francisco, right on the ocean. The weather is like perfect: 80 in the day, 60 at night, no humidity=perfection. And where the camp is at is about 10 mins from the beach, but we are basically in a mountain (and yes, there are mountain lions, so they say). And to top it all off, there are gigantic Redwood trees EVERYWHERE! You should be jealous.

So this week has been staff training for us as the band, and for all the normal counselors. We start the actual camps in a week. And then, we will be leading worship 2 times a day, 6 days a week. Do the math on that real quick, and you’ll see that we will be playing a TON of music this summer for 10 weeks straight! How amazing is that?

Basically, I’m just stoked to see where God is going to take us, and how He’s going to move in our lives and in the lives of the campers who come. I’m expecting big things. We will be posting updates weekly, so check back with us and let us know how you’re doing (contact@mfillmore.com)!

-Tim

Frank, Jeff, and I headed into Port Au Prince to pick up a group of four men from Memphis who had to come late. We spent the rest of that day driving around PAP, looking at the earthquake damage. We went straight for the Royal Palace, which you probably saw pictures of on the news. It’s their version of a capital building. It was completely destroyed; it used to be 3 stories tall, now it’s pancaked into one story. Hundreds died in this building.

Across from the palace, on three different sides, are tent-cities. Hundreds of thousands of people live in these tent-cities, on the door-step of the destroyed capital building. We decided to get a closer look at life in a tent-city, so we walked through one. This was not a great idea, as far as safety is concerned. My heart was pounding out of my chest: half because of looking into desperate eyes of people who are treated as dogs, and half because at any moment we could have been mugged/shot/killed/etc.

It made me think. Dogs, and other pets, in America live in circumstances a hundred-times better than these people. This isn’t right. After all, dogs are dogs, people are people. It’s disgusting to me. When will these people be given a chance to live as human beings? What about human rights? Don’t these people have a right to live better than an animal? Aren’t they entitled to anything? I don’t have any answers, just a lot of questions. I don’t even know to whom I should be asking these questions…

Sorry, no pictures, just a lot of writing…

In John 7, Jesus said, “I’m not teaching my own ideas, but those of God who sent me…those who present their own ideas are looking for praise for themselves, but those who seek to honor the one who sent them are good and genuine.”

I read this today and it got me thinking. I have to admit, I’m not really sure why anyone would want to come to a place like this. This isn’t exactly a vacation destination; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Leaving the comfort, security, and safety of the U.S., and willingly putting yourself in a country with virtually no law or government must seem pretty ridiculous, even crazy, to most people. Freely coming to a place where people are desperate for even basic necessities that I’ve always felt entitled to, like food, water, nice clothes, school, and a bed.

Reading Jesus’ words in John made me believe that God has called me to Haiti. Because in reality, why would I choose to come here if I was left to my own selfish choice? I probably wouldn’t.

But I want to be clear: I’m not writing these blogs from my trip to “present my own ideas” (as the verse says) and make you think that I’m cool because I went to Haiti after the earthquake. No. If I were writing for that reason, then it’s pretty clear what Jesus thinks about that from the verse above, that I’d be just “looking for praise for myself”. And that’s not cool.

But here’s the deal, and here’s why I write. To push myself, and to encourage others to push themselves, to learn what it means to live as an American Jesus Follower and the responsibility that it entails. Let’s face it, we have everything we need. Even in a “horrible” American economy, we’re still doing pretty well. There is still drinking water, usually for free, there is plenty of food for pretty cheap, and most of us live in homes and sleep on beds. Now, I’ve had problems feeling guilty for living the way I do. I don’t feel I live in extravagance, but seeing 3rd world countries like Haiti, I realize how much I have that I take for granted everyday.

I believe my responsibility as an American Jesus Follower is not only to advance His Kingdom by leading others into His Presence, but also to bring food, water, and clothing to those without.

I heard a quote once that metaphorically said, “If a man has two coats, while his neighbor has none, then he is considered a thief.” Basically, it’s saying that if someone has the basic necessities of life, and knows that there are some who don’t, then he is a thief for not helping that person. If I’m being honest with myself, I have plenty of “coats” to give; I have plenty of resources to help at least one person, either in Haiti, or right downtown.

Today was the second day of a women’s conference that some of our ladies on our team have been hosting. About 100 women from our tiny village came. Just think about this: these women all probably have somewhere between 4-8 kids, live in shanties made of thatch, and have no income. They only meal they can feed their children are beans and rice, and even so, only about three meals a week.

But these women are strong, physically and emotionally. You get a sense of their strength in the way they clap when they worship. Not only are their hands strong, but their hearts are strong to worship their Savior even when their lives are hard. Their lives are so hard.

I was asked by our team to come perform a “concert” during the women’s conference. And let me tell you, it was like no other concert before! Imagine an extremely tall, skinny, and sweaty white dude walking into a room filled with 100 Haitian women, guitar in hand, ready to perform a concert! Add to that a huge language barrier, and you’ve got yourself quite the concert!

So, I sang a few songs I’ve written, sang a few worship songs, and then sang Amazing Grace. And wouldn’t you know it, they clapped the entire time! And, they were exactly on beat, I might add. It was pretty crazy. If you think about it, these women never get anything for themselves. They never do things that normal American women do: go shopping, get manicures and pedicures, get their hair done, etc.

And I can almost guarantee they’ve never had a private concert from a tall, skinny, American dude! Now, I realize I’m nothing special when it comes to music, but, deep down inside me, I really loved getting the chance to do that for them. It meant a lot to me.

On a completely different note, most of the men in the village always have a machete in their hands. The men work in the banana groves, harvesting thousands of bananas each week to sell at market. But whenever we walk through the village, they seem to always be holding their machetes.

And even when I walk up to them, they will be holding their 2-foot-long sword-like tool at their sides. It usually sets my heart racing when I’m trying to talk to them, knowing what they could do to me with their machetes. So far so good…ha.

Exact excerpt from my journal this day:

“One of our Haitian friends and interpreter is named Sammy. He is my age, 23, and grew up in the orphanage with his brother, the only family he knows. He and his brother were living in Port-Au-Prince at the time of the earthquake. He lived in what we would call an apartment style building. Basically, he and his brother paid a little bit of money to sleep in a room in a 3-story building.

While living there, in January, he had gotten a call on his cell phone (which is another story in itself: the fact that most Haitians will die of starvation before they get rid of their cell phone, even though most don’t even have electricity to charge the battery…). Since he didn’t have cell-service inside his concrete apartment building, he always had to step outside the front door to talk on the phone.

He was outside for less than 2 minutes when the earthquake struck. The building that he had just stepped out of, collapsed to the ground in a fraction of a second. Sammy was a 2-minute phone call away from being thrown into a mass-grave as another statistic among the 250,000. Insane.

He said that there were 3 children from another family still inside the building when it collapsed, along with his God-mother. They all died. His brother was safe, but 4 of his close friends all died.

After the quake, Sammy didn’t have any food for 3 whole days; he said he had to eat salt and drink dirty water. But, he was able to make his way out of Port-Au-Prince to a pastor he knew. The pastor gave him some food and a little money to buy clothes, since he lost everything but the shirt on his back during the quake.

Exact excerpt from my journal this day:

“Today, I was sitting with a group of village kids, and they were all just begging for water and food. They are to the point of starvation and are so incredibly thirsty in this constant blistering heat. Yet, there is nothing I can really do.

Sure, we have bottled water, but not enough to feed their thirst all day long, everyday. Not to mention the mad craze that would erupt when the village finds out we were giving away water.

And even if we did give them water, what would one bottle really satisfy? They truly need the Living Water through Christ’s salvation. So that, one day, they will be thirsty and hungry no more, in the Kingdom of Heaven.

It breaks my heart. When people in America wake up, they ask themselves questions like, “What is my purpose in life?”. But these people, when they wake up, ask themselves, “Am I going to eat today?” They don’t even have the privilege of worrying about their purpose in life, because they can’t get past worrying about food and water. Imagine.

It all reminds me of when Jesus was at the well with the Samaritan woman (in John 4). Jesus told her that if she knew who He was, she would have asked Him for Living Water. Regular water only satisfies for a time, and then you are thirsty again; but with Living Water, your soul will never thirst again. If only I consistently lived to show people to the Living Water…”

Today was spent on a bus. Our goal for today was to gather up some food and water to bring back to our village to pass out; we also wanted to see the destruction in Port-Au-Prince with our own eyes.

The day started with driving a few hours into the middle of nowhere. Literally. Then, when we got to the middle of nowhere, we turned left, down this small gravel path. Please note: Large bus + small gravel path = no bueno situano. Finally, in the distance we saw this school, standing all alone in the desert. Next to the school was a huge circus tent. As we got closer, we realized that no one was actually in the school building, but rather, under the tent. Since the earthquake, there seem to be few people brave enough to enter a concrete building. I don’t blame them. Long story short, the man in charge of the school had American contacts who were sending him more food than he knew what to do with, so he offered to let us have some to give to our village. So we loaded up almost a half-bus-load of food supplies, and then headed into downtown Port-Au-Prince.

Now I start to see the earthquake’s wrath and destruction. Building after building; home after home; one after another. One building would have some damage, then another would be completely demolished. Then another would be completely fine, right next to one that is now a pile of rubble. The way in which the earthquake chose her victims is completely mind-blowing; it doesn’t make sense why a completely destroyed building would be sitting next to a building that appeared unfazed by the 7.3 quake.

The earthquake suddenly became real. This really happened. Seeing people hobbling around without limbs that were recently amputated made the earthquake real. Seeing hundreds of thousands of people displaced, now living in homes made of tarp and tin, this made the earthquake real. It really happened. People really died. This is more than just something we all watched on CNN. It really happened.

Probably the most emotional time for me was when we passed a grocery store called The Caribbean (pictured above). This was one of the first “American” markets in Haiti. Before the quake, it was huge, five stories tall. Now, it’s no more than a pile of crushed cement and cinder-blocks. Our Haitian friends told us that there are more than 300 bodies still trapped under the rubble, left to decay in an accidental mass-grave. They also said that the smell of death and rotting flesh was so putrid that the locals had to pour gasoline on the rubble, just to overtake the smell. Imagine, driving by a pile of rocks, know that there are 300 people dead underneath; their consequence for going to the grocery store on January 12th at 4:53PM.

We ended the day by somehow weaseling our way into the Samaritan’s Purse compound to get free bottled water. Apparently, after the majority of the U.S. Military pulled out of Haiti, they had millions (literally) of bottled water left over that they donated to Samaritan’s Purse. Our team leader, Frank (who has a way of getting what he wants ) somehow convinced a few Haitian Policemen (holding shotguns) to let us into the fenced-in compound. When we drove in, we found that there were literally millions, possibly billions, of bottles of pure water just sitting in the sun, going bad because of the chemical that the sun puts in the water when it sits for too long. How ironic: here, a country who is literally dying because they don’t have clean water to drink; yet, there are too many bottles of water that they don’t have a way to distribute it.

The flight from Miami to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti is less than 2 hours. Yet within that short amount of time, one crosses into a different world. A world at polar opposites from the world in which I know. Despite talk of recession, America is still one of the richest and powerful nations on the planet. Yet, just a short 2 hours away, Haiti sits as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

I stepped off the plane in Haiti with 300 other people: American relief workers, church groups, and the rich Haitian elite. All 300 of us were tossed into a metal warehouse in the 110 degree humidity cramming our way through customs and scrambling for our luggage. A bus was outside waiting for us, but it sat about 200 yards down the main Haitian gravel highway. It is quite an event to push a luggage cart over a gravel road, with hundreds of Haitians begging for food and money and trying to carry your bags for you, in desperate hopes that you might give them a dollar.

The bus ride from Port-Au-Prince is a short 35 miles, yet somehow it takes close to 2 hours to traverse the pot-holes and the masses of people filling the streets. I had been to Haiti before the earthquake, and I couldn’t imagine how Haiti could get any worse. I didn’t know what to expect. On the drive, I didn’t see any destroyed buildings; didn’t see anything that I had seen on CNN. But what I did see broke my heart: thousands of tents made of scrap wood and blue tarps, now housing nearly 500,000 people. You’d be driving and all of a sudden come across a “tent-city”.

Each tent-city housed thousands of Haitians who were displaced after the earthquake as they fled the destruction in Port-Au-Prince. I couldn’t even count on my fingers and toes how many “tent-cities” I saw. Imagine your entire family living in a make-shift tent. What if my family had to sleep on the rocky soil, inside a tarp, in the blazing heat that encapsulates Haiti year-round? That is no way to live; it’s inhumane, really. But what else can they do? And, what happens when the first storm comes through, as it surely will within the next few months? And heaven forbid, what happens to those tent-cities during the first hurricane? Devastation, again.

As we almost reached the compound, we passed a huge cross on the hillside, signifying the burial of hundreds of thousands of bodies in a mass grave. You can see the piles of dirt which cover thousands of innocent people, who’s bodies were thrown into a dump-truck and emptied into a huge hole in the ground. Bodies treated as rubble, as garbage. Imagine, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and close friends, just thrown into a hole like a piece of garbage.

As the sun was setting, we got closer to our tiny village called Guiton, where our mission compound sits. Our Haitian friends who picked us up from the airport told us that we had to take a different road to get there. Apparently, 3 days before, there was a man murdered along the normal road we drive, about 2 miles from our compound. So they didn’t want a bus load of “rich, white, Americans” driving through there at night. Needless to say, it was a little difficult to close my eyes and fall asleep that first night, knowing the violence that has escalated since the earthquake.

-Tim