3/17/2011 – God is So Good

Blog Master — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:21:06 +0000

All I Can say is PRAISE THE LORD! He kept us safe, Danny was welcomed by a swarm of family, friends, and media. He is back with his wife and daughter Rhiann and all is Good!

He lost 70lbs, but after watching him attack his first American food, a piece of Pizza Hut pizza, he’ll be back to fighting weight soon. I marvel at God’s work over the past few days!

Keep Danny and the Pyes in your prayers and Praise the Lord for his goodness!

I’m calling it a night,
Bart

3/17/11 – Is this really happening?

Blog Master — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:19:27 +0000

Thank you all for your incredible outpouring of prayers, love, and encouragement. After a period of healing, recovery and recuperation, Danny will no doubted use this experience to further the work so desperately needed in Haiti for years to come. Financial needs for this work is needed. Anyone wishing to help us continue our work in Haiti can do so on our website at www.globaleffect.org
God Bless you All,

Impact God has made over the last sixty days…and some updates for the fall

mark — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:34:57 +0000

Dear Friends and Partners,

The last two months have been totally crazy – but a very good crazy! God continues to do amazing things as we strive to be faithful to the work He has called us. You’ve probably noticed that we have updated GlobalEffect.org to give it a more effective look and feel. We have also moved our FaceBook page to Global Effect and we would love for you to follow us on Twitter. During this time we have returned to the DR and Haiti on numerous trips to work and minister in our communities, continuing with the transformation projects that have been initiated over the past two years. On three of our strategic trips, we took different teams into Haiti and the DR with us, all from Alabama and all passionate to see lives changed. These trips have included the following activities and projects:

performed water filter distributions in the DR and in Haiti
we shared the Jesus Film with over a thousand people in Soto DR as well as Jacmel and Port-au-Prince in Haiti
conducted worship services in tent cities in Port-au-Prince
conducted soccer camps in Jacmel, Haiti with over 200 kids participating
worked in orphanages and provided professional training to orphanage staff
conducted prison ministry at La Vega
hosted all of our DR community pastors/leaders and their families to dinner for encouragement
hosted community-wide cookouts in all our communities for outreach
spoke at all of the churches in our adopted communities in the DR and Haiti
started a ladies sewing ministry in one of our new communities to make a greater impact on the women there

Thanks to funding by Robert Easter, we have launched a new project called “Bread of Life Bakery” in Los Sualez – another incredible opportunity to make an impact on the whole community. Revenue from the bakeries will be used to meet many of the tremendous health and food needs of the very poor. We plan on installing these bakeries in all of our communities.

All of this work and these trips have been done while we continue to work diligently with the City of Jacmel and our many partners on the Village of Jacmel Project to create jobs, safe housing, schools and medical centers. The Village of Jacmel has the chance to change the future of Haiti by creating self-sustainable communities! We thank God that He is allowing us to be a part of a great work in these two countries. Because of your support and God’s blessing, we have had a major impact on many thousands of people but our work has only begun.

We thank you for your prayers and support. We know you believe fully in Global Effect, our community transformation strategy and are committed to assisting our work (your work) in any way you can. Our heartfelt thanks go out to each of you. You are such a huge part of our team!!

On another note we want to introduce you to a book by David Platt called “Radical”. Scott, Mark and I have each read this book it has raised our level of commitment to serve the poor and needy to be stronger than ever! We feel such a sense of urgency to share the love of Jesus to the millions of people on this big Island of Hispanola where God has called us. There is so much to be done. There are so many needs… there are so many people, especially children, who are sick and dying because of drinking contaminated water. There are so many people dying who have never heard the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are very eager to step up our efforts in the DR and in Haiti, and we need your help to do that! We ask you to please read this book as soon as you can. It’s short, but it will challenge the way you look at everything in your life. Click on the link below and watch a 3 minute Youtube by David Platt the author:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqxk9fzOh1k&feature=related

I know it is a busy time for everyone with fall approaching and school starting, but the work at Global Effect must not slow down. We have many trips scheduled for the fall including a men’s conference, a week of men’s discipleship, baseball camps, public school programs, water filter distribution, and much more work to be done in orphanages and tent cities. Scott will be leading the Chapel at Rosemary on a strategic trip in September so please be in prayer for all of these events. At this time, Mark is making arrangements to take medical teams into extremely remote, mountain villages in Haiti. Pray that in all our humanitarian projects, we will be vessels used by God to share his love to these very oppressed and needy people.

If you feel a desire to help us in any way, you can contact us directly by email, and we will respond immediately. You can also make any tax-deductible donations on our totally secure donation links on our website.

May God bless you and your families,

Bart
Executive Director
Global Effect

Leaving Jacmel and headed to Port-au-Prince

mark — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:56:14 +0000

Back in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, we spent the last day of our first week in Jacmel finishing up 18 sets of bunkbeds for LifeLine Childrens Home. We have been working here since Tuesday. The youth group/SWITCH from Church of the Highlands has been hard at work. We held soccer camp for over 200 kids, Bible School for the same 200+ kids. At the church we did filter distribution of 106 filters. The money for these filters was raised by the group, about $3100. They also cleaned all the filters before they were distributed, which was quit a job. This group has not backed away from any challenge. The schedule has been very busy and when Pastor Wilbertcame to us and asked if we could build 18 sets of bunkbeds for the kids there was no hesitation to jump right in. When we left on Saturday they were completed, these guys were not going to leave until they were finished. Its so wonderful to see the love and compassion of Jesus Christ being shared in such a real and tangible way, through carpentry. Just spending time with these kids was such a reminder to me of how many times Christ refers to children in his word and how he loved them. How wonderful it is to know the love of the Father as a child of The King and to share that love with others. To see the joy in the ones giving as well as the children who received all this love and attention.

We were off to Port-au-Prince, where we are staying and working with New Life Childrens Home, founded by Miriam Fredricks who has been working in this area since 1977. They have 130 kids with about 23 of them who are special needs children who are basically abandoned from birth. Most of these kids as you will learn are not true orphans in the sense that both parents are dead. These kids are giving up because the parents can’t take care of them financially. Sunday was filled with fun and worship as the team from Church of the Highlands lead the morning service. After lunch was spent playing with kids on the huge home made version of slip-n-slide with plastic, shampoo and lots of water…it was such a blast! Today the team has divided up to work around the grounds. Some are pressure washing, and prepping to paint. Others are going through literally tons of supplies that have been here for months with no one to help sort and organize. These supplies will then be delivered to other orhanages and tent villages by our group and others as they come here to help. Tonight we had some time with the older boys as they shared some of their stories. One of the boys told us how his father did not want him and told his mother that she could throw him away…this story are some very similar stories were repeated over and over, but they all told us how now they have Jesus and how real he is to them.

Thank you so much for the many prayers.

Love in Christ,

Mark and Scott

Haiti…Filter Distribution with Church of the Highlands

mark — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:25:01 +0000

Yesterday a group of 23 students and young adults called SWITCH from the Church of the Highlands arrived in Port Au Prince to join us in several ministry projects here in Haiti. Today was our first day of ministry in Jacmel. We spent the morning cleaning 100 filters, that the group raised funds for, in preparation for distribution we did later in the day. It was awesome to see 100 different families fill the church waiting to get their filters that would provide safe clean drinking water for the next five years. The most exciting thing was to see people give their lives to Christ, as they learned not only about how these filters provide clean water but heard about the Living water found in Jesus. Tomorrow we will be hosting a soccer camp for over 200 kids. Please check back for daily updates.

Blessings In Christ,

Global Effect Team

BUSY DAYS…

mark — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:51:30 +0000

It’s been a while since our last blog, but for good reason. The past six weeks have been a flurry of activity. Here is a brief update.

A New Project
In early May we were in Haiti building the new Global Effect Filter Factory in Jacmel. As you can imagine, it attracted some attention as Jacmel was also devastated by the earthquake. Local community officials were curious about our new factory and engaged us in conversation about the possibility of assisting them with their community revitalization plan. The conversation progressed to the point that Global Effect began assembling a coalition of strategic partners to pursue a master-planned community project that supports Jacmel’s community revitalization plans. The master-planned community project would include homes, a medical and vocational center, a school, industrial factories, a civic center, a market place and more. The coalition we assembled includes experts in a range of fields from various industries, builders and land developers, town planners, health care and education specialists. We also included a sociological professional with experience in developing world communities. Our goal is to assist the city of Jacmel in creating a self-sustainable community by creating jobs, enabling families to purchase homes, to provide for themselves and to break the culture of dependency on the outside world for survival. Global Effect, our partners, political and business leaders from Jacmel believe this is the exact help that Jacmel and their country needs. It offers them an opportunity for self-dependency as opposed to dependency on charity.
Later in May the project partners met in Miami, Florida with officials representing Jacmel to dialogue further about the project. And we just returned from meetings in Jacmel where we met with the regional governor, senators, congressmen, the mayor, the Chamber of Commerce president and many local leaders of commerce, education, health care and others. The meetings went well, and the city leaders proposed a site to build what is now being called The Village of Jacmel. This is an ambitious project, and it will have challenges. Yet, all partners believe it is worthy of pursuing. What a privilege it is to think that Global Effect could be play a role in fostering a new culture in Haiti by creating a community model that champions self-reliance, opportunity and pride. Haiti is not beyond changing, and we believe it can happen — one community and one city at a time. The Village at Jacmel is an ideal project fit for Global Effect. It permits us to serve the impoverished community of Jacmel, Haiti by equipping them to transform their socio-economic, physical and spiritual well-being.

Men’s Conference in the Dominican Republic

One of the greatest problems in the Dominican Republic communities we serve is a lack of leadership from the men. Many lack moral integrity, and do not serve as positive role models for the younger generation. This leadership vacuum is, without a doubt, a major, contributing factor to the many problems that grip these communities.
In response, we host men’s conferences. In early May, we hosted 93 men from these communities by promoting a weekend of fun, food and adventure in the mountains. These men signed up for a weekend that changed their lives forever! For many of them, it changed the lives of their family and friends, as well.

Over two days, we met with the men. Mark, Scott and I shared with them the importance of personal choices and that our life’s story depends on the choices we make.

These men took a journey to the mountains, but it led them to the greatest story ever: The Gospel. By the end of the weekend, most of the men made heart commitments that changed their lives. Since then, we have received many positive reports from our country coordinator, Ambiores. We are encouraged. Please pray for all these men.
Project Trips Set to Begin
We plan to take three teams to the Dominican Republic and Haiti during the next 6 weeks. These teams will help us distribute filters; work in the schools, orphanages and tent cities; help at the filter factory; and sharing joy and hope with people who are hurting and needy. Please pray for safety and that all will be used to share Christ’s love during these trips.
More E-Updates Available
I want to encourage you all to subscribe to our free newsletter to keep you informed about our community transformation projects. It offers more details about our economic development, community revitalization and education projects.
Thank you so much for your emails of encouragement, your prayers and financial support. Our work does require funding from generous folks like you. Please know that thousands of desperate lives and families are being impacted. How do we put a price tag on changing lives forever?
God Bless You!

Love you all,

Bart

At Home…for a few days

mark — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:12:38 +0000

We flew into ATL last Thursday evening at midnight. Already planning the return trip for the next week. We leave on the 8th, we have a Mens Conference scheduled for April 10-11. We have scheduled this conference for 100 men we could have had 200 if we had the space and the funds available. Many have never heard the word of God or been challenged to be the man that God has called each of us to be as a father and husband. We had three cookouts on the last trip in each of the communities that we are working in. We used each opportunity to challenge the men as they prepare for this upcoming time. We also ask you to be praying for this time that God will speak through us and that he will move the heart of each man involved.We know from our last retreat that many lives were changed. While we were in the DR this last trip we were told that one of the men from our last retreat (a year ago) had died…we were shocked, we thought we knew who the man was and were even more devastated when we were actually able to go to his house and found out that he had been one of the men who had received Christ as his savior. His wife is actually on our video, she talks about how his life was changed!! She said that for the first time in their marriage he had “the kiss of love”. She told the pastor that the last year of his life with her since the retreat where he came to know Jesus as his savior and lord was the best year of their life together. Joselo his pastor said that his testimony had reached many of the men in the community and they also have come to know the Lord, PRAISE GOD!!!

We ask that if you have the ability to help financially with this retreat to please contact us. The live lives that will impacted will be immeasurable as we have already seen. The total cost of this retreat is $6500.00 you can make donations online at www.globaleffectministry.org or mail a contribution to our address at

Send Check payable to:
Global Effect Ministry Inc.
P.O. Box 611635 Rosemary Beach
Florida 32461

Thank you so much for your many prayers and financial support. We could not do what we do without it…

Mark

You can also reach me at 205-612-7945 if you have questions.

Back in the DR..

mark — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 01:11:27 +0000

MARK—–What a trip! So far we have been blown away by the amazing grace of God and his direction in everything that we have been involved in so far…The doors that have been opened. We have been allowed into schools where evangelical groups have never been allowed, and invited to speak in other High Schools with the same history. So, for the first time we have shared the gospel with these students at their school.

Our Baseball camps have been unbelievable, the Coach said this is the first time in his 23 years of coaching that he has had any help…he was very encouraged, and motivated to continue work with the boys. We left him some equipment and told him that the next time were here we would have more for him, SO, if you have equipment we can have there is also another league in the same community of kids that are even more underprivileged and have no equipment at all. To be apart of a league you have to have your glove and shoes etc. I will be posting again soon, Thanks to all who have been praying and have been supporting us financially this would not be possible without your involvement!

MARK

SCOTT—–Dear Ministry Partners,

I wanted to give you a update of time in the Dominican Republic and Haiti and thank you for your prayers and ask you to keep praying as we wrap up our time on the island of Espanola.

Here is a recap of Highlights from our trip so far:

* God opened the door for us to be the first evangelical groups to go into the public High School of Soto. Not only were we able to share about the importance of developing Character traits such as, Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibilty, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship but we were also able to share about the love of Jesus.

Praise the Lord for this incredible opportunity to share Jesus in the Public Schools in the Dominican Republic.

* 2 day baseball camp in Soto were we had around 200 kids. The director of the league shared with passion and emotion that we were the first group in the 27 years that he had been in charge of the league to come and offer help. He shared that our coming and the way we work and the message we shared with the kids really encourage him to keep working and sharing with the kids. God used us in a mighty way as we saw many kids put their faith in Jesus.

*We had our men’s cook out in Los Relies. The church in Los Relies is the only evangelical church in the community with only 4 men involved in the church but for the cook out over 100 men showed up and it was such an awesome time of fellowship and sharing with these men. Many of these men will be attending our upcoming mens’s conference in April 10th – 11th.

* In Los Relies we handed out 100 water filters and shared the Gospel with each person. It was such a powerful time as we were not only providing a source for safe clean drinking water but sharing the living water of Jesus.

Please continue to pray for funds as we strive to provide safe clean drinking water to each of the 600 families in the Los Relies community.

We are now in Haiti to begin the construction of the water filter plant that will hire Haitians to manufacture these filters that will be distributed through out Haiti to provide safe clean drinking water.

Please pray as we try to get this up and running in the next 45 days.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support.

Scott Steelman and the Global Effect Team.

Scouting Trip…

mark — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:12:28 +0000

Bart… Just wanted to say a big ‘hello’ and ‘thanks’ from the Dominican Republic to all of our Global Effect Ministry partners. I came down on a short trip with a couple of board members, Bony Barrineau and Brandon Agee, as well as some new friends to the ministry, Bordon Ray, Walter Grant and John Hisey.
While short, the trip has been fabulous. In three days we have been able to visit all of our ministry locations and projects. This could not have been possible without the generosity of Bordon Ray and the use of his plane! We visited Port-au-Prince, met with some of our filter distribution partners there and visited an orphanage where we gave them 10 filters to supply safe clean drinking water for the children there. We also toured the destruction; spoke with many earthquake victims accessing needs and locations for water filter distribution.
We then flew over to Jacmel, where we will be constructing a filter factory. We finalized negotiations on the lease of the property from an organization named Friends of The Children of Haiti (FOTCOH), which is an incredible medical clinic that treats sick Haitians. The site where we will build the factory is right on the ocean! It’s really beautiful. The director of FOTCOH, Richard Hammonds, and his wife Barbara are very dear people and will be a delight to work with. They treat 2-3 thousand people during the 8 days when volunteer teams come in every 8 weeks. They have dormitories there where the medical teams from the U.S. stay on their 8 day projects, and Richard will allow us to use the dorms when we bring teams into Haiti on mission projects.
Yesterday we flew to Santiago and went straight to visit our friends at Los Reilles. We walked through this small very impoverished community and promoted the baseball camps and men’s meetings we will be holding there next week. They are very excited. We met a gentleman who had a very infected foot that looked really bad. Without some strong antibiotics to stop the spread of infection, this man could potentially die. Fortunately, Bony was able to check him out and Walter had the exact antibiotics needed, PTL!
We participated in a church service in El Ranchito and presented Pastor Joselo with a computer he has needed. We had a great dinner with our Filter Pure Partner, Michael Ballantine, last night and a great night’s rest. Today we will be visiting the DR filter factory in Mocca and the retreat center we will be using for our upcoming men’s retreats before heading home.
It has been a lot for our team to absorb in a short period, but it’s been totally great. God has kept us safe, and these guys were blown away with what God is doing there.
Thank you for all your prayers and support. The needs are so great, but we serve a Great Big Lord and through him, nothing is impossible!!

Blessings,
Bart

Latest Updates…

mark — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:44:17 +0000

Dear Friends,
We have been extremely busy since we got back from our last trip. Our desire is to communicate well with all of our sponsors and donors so that is taking some time. We are also following up on the many inquiries and media requests we’ve received. We’ll be in Dallas Monday and Tuesday of next week to meet with a group of supporters. If you know anyone in that area that would like to attend our meeting Tuesday night please call us to get the location, we would love to meet them. We’ll also be visiting other cities and will let you know the dates and locations.

I want to sincerely thank each of you who have committed to being prayer partners with Global Effect. We feel your prayers and God is blessing! He is opening one door after another which is enabling us to improve our ministry efforts in the DR and Haiti. We are establishing many key partnerships and relationships with other organizations and non profits. We all understand that many times we can accomplish much more by working together and we are experiencing that.

We have trips planned for just about every month for the rest of the year. We will be publishing the exact dates and prices very soon so hopefully you and/or your group could make plans to join us. Our short term trips are loaded with intense life changing ministry, but we also have a lot of fun! You will never be the same after a mission trip with TEAM GEM !! Our trips include baseball camps, men and ladies ministry, speaking in schools about morals and values, distributing water filters, children’s ministry, small business consulting, micro-financing and more. There are ministry opportunities everywhere as the communities we work in are very very poor. But they are beautiful loving people who want to be loved and receive our help with tremendous gratitude. With beautiful mountains and deserted beaches with coral reefs nearby, we can always slip off for a little group fun as well!

A quick update on the Haiti Filter Factory:
We are awaiting word regarding a land lease where we will build the factory. We hope to have that settled within a week. We need to raise $40,000 for the land improvements, building and equipment. Once the construction of the new water filter fabrication facility is underway, we will raise funds for the purchase and operation of two delivery trucks .
We have qualified persons ready to oversee the construction as soon as the money is raised and the location is set. Global Effect is partnering with Filter Pure in this plant.
We have several organizations that are committed to distributing the filters to orphanages, tent cities, medical clinics and the most needy areas. Please pray that we will be able to raise the needed money as soon as possible.

Again, thanks for all your prayers and financial support. We could do nothing without you!!
Please share our website and the videos with your friends, families and churches. You never know when you’ll share with someone who is eager to help in some way and we need all the help we can get!!

Love you all and God Bless You,
Bart Smelley
Executive Director