Some more Apologetics course papers

For those of you who can't get enough of my stellar writing skills, check out the new link on the right to essays and such I will share from time to time.

Here are links to three papers from the Apologetics course from AGTS that I have now nearly completed:

Theistic Doubts and Answers (utilizing To Everyone an Answer)
Post-Apologetics (help from A Primer on Postmodernism and unchristian)
Reflections on Os Guinness's Unspeakable

Haiti Days 7 & 8

By Stephen Kaerwer

This will be a short summary of the past two days, because we have been too busy to write full entries for those days. On the 24th, we got the opportunity to go and worship in a Haitian church. The building was not much to look at, very simple and made of concrete, but the people there were enthusiastic, friendly, and genuine. When we came in, we heard a man giving a message in Creole. I couldn’t understand anything, but I enjoyed listening to the Creole language. After the fist message, we worshiped in Creole. Worshiping with them was an awesome experience, listening to the people sing their praises. Next, Lindsey and I gave short testimonies in English that pastor Cange translated for us into Creole. Next, Andrea gave her testimony, beginning in English until pastor Cange discovered that she spoke French, when he told her to do her testimony that way. She completed her testimony in French and the congregation clapped for her when she finished. Matt gave the main message on loving all people equally; regardless of whether they are like you and regardless of whether or not they can do anything for you. After the message, we did some more worship and then went to go get lunch at epidoor.
Epidoor is, according to Bill, “the closest thing to a fast food restaurant as you can get in Haiti. We had pizza, burgers, and po’boys. It was nice to have a taste of home. After food, we went to go do some shopping at a metal-work village. There, people made metal hangings and sculptures that they hung on the walls of their homes and allowed you in to see and purchase. Here, it was more wheeling and dealing, made especially difficult because of the language barrier. We picked up some cool things, and despite the fact that it was raining pretty hard off and on, I really enjoyed it.
After bargaining at the village, we went to a different church and Candice, who has a specialty in crisis management, gave a seminar on stress that was translated for the youth of the congregation that was again translated by pastor Cange. The seminar was just for general education for the youth, but more specifically because many of them were dealing with the effects of the past hurricanes. After that was done, we came back to the house, out dinner and then crashed for the night.



On the 25th we spent the beginning of the day split up at another local school. Matt and I worked on doing a tin roof for a building next to the school that will be used for cooking food for the kids. I always enjoy learning a new construction skill but it was a bit frustrating working with the Haitians because of the way that they tend to take their time to do everything. The rest of the group was in the school doing crafts and singing with the children. They also gave them some Mardi Gras beads, and that was a big hit.
We left the school at noon and came back to do some assorted tasks at the home. I went with Cristina and Bill to the Caribbean market where I purchased a large supply of Zuko (Haitian Kool-Aid) to take home. The rest of the team worked on making a table for a local school. After We got back to the market, some of us worked on making a bench for a school and some of us worked on preparing crafts for the next day…gotta go to work. To be continued.

Haiti Day 6: Sight-Seeing

By Lindsey Shroff


This morning, another missionary couple named Carl and Ann joined us for a gift/souvenir shopping trip in a shop near downtown Port-au-Prince. We got there a little before it opened at ten, so we took a side trip to the Olaffson, one of the oldest hotels in the area. From the balcony, we could see a large part of the city, as well as beautiful ocean and mountains. Once shopping, we all got some practice converting gourdes (Haitian currency) to American dollars.


We went to the Baptist Mission for lunch, which also featured an amazing view of mountains spotted with agricultural plots. There were many vendors set up outside and we tried our luck with bartering (something which I am apparently absolutely terrible at, but Stephen made out like a bandit).


From the Mission, we went to His Home for Children, an orphanage for infants, toddlers, and older girls. It was really an eye-opening project. There were a lot of special needs children and it was moving to hear the stories of illness and abandonment. The lady in charge of the orphanage really had a heart for the children and takes care of them through surgeries, etc. We divided into two groups. The group working with the older girls made flower necklaces and told about how God cares for the lilies and for them. The group with the toddlers attempted to make bear puppets, but we found that they preferred climbing on us, scribbling on the floor, and stealing crayons from each other. It was definitely an example of kids being kids, no matter where in the world they’re from.


It was tough to leave the kids, but we proceeded on to a dinner of hamburgers and Haitian potato salad (with beets) at Carl and Ann’s house...

Haiti Day 5: Goat

By Stephanie Bream

Imagine you’re at a petting zoo. Along with the possible lamb, llama, and piglet, there is a goat (goats are a petting zoo staple). Now, normally you would grab and handful of food and feed the goat…but not today. Today the goat fed us. That’s right, we all ate goat for lunch (6 platefuls if you’re Stephen) and it was delicious. Our Haitian cook Jaqueline prepared a wonderful meal of goat, beans and rice, sweet potatoes, and spicy coleslaw for us and we were all very grateful for her hard work.

Speaking of hard work, we had a very productive day. We built and varnished 7 cabinets for classrooms and they look fabulous. All we have left to do is put the doors on them. Lindsey and I even built one all by ourselves and felt very empowered by our accomplishment. I’m sure our dads will be proud. We also finished sharpening the entire box of 1,430 pencils today. That was a team effort if I ever saw one. While leaving the workspace for the day, Cristina was almost assassinated by a maliciously plummeting palm frond. Fortunately, it hit Stephen’s water bottle instead and left a nice dent. Tomorrow, we’ll give the varnished wood pieces some time to dry tomorrow while we go shopping and visit an orphanage in the afternoon. I’m looking forward to it.

Haiti Day 4: Carpentry

Written by Jillian Winters

The bright Haitian sun awoke the team today at the luxurious hour of seven o’clock, quite different than our normal wake-up time of five or six. It was truly a fabulous start to the morning. The project for today was to build cupboards for a school on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

Unfortunately, the power saws were not working, so Matt and Stephen, as well as Abraham, Dieuness and Terek, manually sawed the pieces. This however, left we girls with little to do. Inspired by our visit to the school yesterday, however, we endeavored to create a little dance/handclap (after, of course, playing a few rounds of Concentration 54 and London Bridges for our own entertainment). I would say that overall, we are pretty much cooler than Soulja Boy and N*Sync combined. We taught it to the two kids who live at the house where we were working, Daniel and David, who mainly speak Spanish. They seemed to really enjoy it (and I learned how to count to eight in Spanish!).

Eventually, however, the dance reached a lull, and there could not have been a more convenient time for Dorothy to call us over to run some errands with Bill. Needless to say, we all but ran to the car, excited to get back into the streets of Haiti (and this time on cushioned seats). We first hit up the Haitian version of Staples, where Bill bought some supplies to make school supply kits to give to school children. While Bill made his purchases, Candice, Lindsey, Andrea, Stephanie and I entertained by “letting me passing the fine time with you” (found on a make-up kit within the store--reading the boxes was really fun).

After that, we went to the Caribbean Market, a grocery store where we exchanged our money—Haitian money is very colorful, by the way, very pretty—and then between the five of us, we bought out the stores entire stock of Zuko, a delicious Haitian kool-aid type drink. I don’t know if I normally like pomegranates, but I’m sure I love absolutely love pomegranate Zuko.

After our trip and yet another fabulous meal, we began putting together the cupboards. Matt and Stephen showed Cristina and I how to put together the cupboards while the others sharpened pencils. Ok, that sounds a little lame, but it was a vital part of the school supplies, since often the children are without pencil sharpeners (except for their knives). Jen, Candice, Stephanie, Lindsey and Andrea together sharpened nearly 700 pencils, a feat that earned them many a painful blister.

Eventually, though, everyone moved out to the cupboard factory, and we managed to sand, level, and nail one cupboard together and almost complete two others. Cristina and I are excited to finish our masterpiece tomorrow, as well as the whole team is pumped to get the rest of the cupboards finished. Rain set in towards the end of day, and we had a pencil sharpening party, because are 1,430 pencils total. I know, that’s a lot of pencils.

Now we are enjoying a game of mafia, except that I was the first person to die, and have been chilling in dead-land all by myself for the past half hour, now newly joined by Candice (mafia) and Stephanie (townsperson). Lindsey is the other mafia for the record. Yes, Lindsey killed me—I think she was jealous I got my kitten J-Lou and wants to steal her.

Haiti Day 3: Terre-Froide

Today's post by Stephen Kaerwer

Today we had the opportunity to go and visit a small school in the mountain village of Terre-Froide. We got up early in the morning, ate and got everything ready for the day. We met up with a Haitian man named Makenzie that teaches math at a different school in the area. Our journey there was made much more interesting because one of the vehicles that we were going to ride in was not in working order and so we got to ride in a tap-tap. Tap-taps are pick-up trucks that are converted into taxis by removing the bed and adding a floor and cover. Seating consisted of wooden benches on either side of the inside of the covering in the back. Fortunately, we got a great deal to get to the top of the mountains by including a couple of pairs of shoes. The ride to the top of the mountain began through the busy streets of Port-au-Prince and then continued into the beautiful mountains of Haiti.

The view was amazing the entire 3-hour ride, although it was very bumpy. Most of the Haitians that saw us stared or called out, “blanc” for white, but almost all of them were very friendly. On the ride up, I also developed a new obsession with digital cameras because I promised a friend I would take some pictures. As we drove higher into the mountains, we eventually entered into the clouds, forming a thick foggy mist around us. We arrived at the school and after some set-up time went into the classroom to play games, sing songs, and do crafts.

There were 62 children in the classroom that I was in with a very friendly and enthusiastic teacher. First, we helped the children make puppets out of paper bags and paper cut into the shapes of a head and a body for the bear. They colored their pieces, a skill they recently acquired, and then we glued them together. Next, we sang two songs in Creole along with simple dances and then played some simple rhythm games. We distributed some food to the children, and then Candice did a seminar for the women of Haiti on Sexually Transmitted Diseases that was translated by our host, Bill. During this time, I was able to get a lot of awesome pictures of the Haitian people. The Haitians loved having their picture taken because they got to see themselves on the screen of the digital camera. Jen and Matt were exchanging Creole and English lessons with some of the Haitians, and all of us enjoyed interacting with the people there.

After the seminar finished, the children and their mothers left and we ate the lunch that we packed with our hosts, Bill and Dorothy, our tap-tap driver, and Makenzie. After lunch, or throughout different part s of the day, many of us had the opportunity to use a non-western toilet for the first time (a hole in the ground). I think that for most people it was not nearly so difficult as they expected, but I can only vouch for myself and I really wasn’t too worried to begin with.

Next, we took a short tour of the surrounding area on the mountain with our hosts and met some of the people that lived near the school. They also told us about some of the other programs that the organization was doing, such as lending seeds that the families would plant and then return once the harvest came in. After enjoying the landscape and meeting new people, we returned to our tap-tap for the ride home, which proved to be much shorter because it was downhill and because I managed to sleep for some small spurts on the smoother roads.

It was really nice to return to our temporary home and wash the mud and dried dirt off of ours feet. We spent the rest of the evening preparing dinner (although most of the work was done by Dorothy, who is a super-awesome cook) and playing Yahtzee. Unfortunately, we had a small tragedy because I again lost to Matt. I have made another personal goal for the trip, that I have to beat Matt at least once and I think that if we play enough games that should be a statistical probability (although I was never very good at statistics). All in all, it was a very full and exciting day and an awesome opportunity to see Haiti outside of Port-au-Prince.

Some pics from the Day (not by Stephen):

Haiti Day 2: Arrival

Here in Haiti, we mostly settled in and worked on our schedule and preparing for what we will be doing tomorrow and a couple other days when we will visit some schools.

The pictures show the house where the majority of the team is staying (three are staying next door). Our hosts are great, and we ate some excellent Haitian cuisine for lunch!

Two fun notes:
1) We spent some time shaking and stirring more than a hundred bottles of Elmer's Glue that had separated in storage (big time fun!).
2) The pictures of walls are white walls our 2007 team painted. Sweet!

Tomorrow, we have a big day in store. Expect some exciting news tomorrow, and likely, another author.

haiti 2009

Ok - I just got back from Denver with a great team from UNO, and I haven't said anything about it. I'll try to do so soon.

In the meanwhile, check out some fun posts from our Haiti Team. We are in Ft. Lauderdale, FL tonight. We hope to post each night something from a team member or two at tulaneinhaiti.blogspot.com You can check that out, or just stay tuned here, as I'll post those posts on this blog, too.

Here's tonights:

Welcome to our online journal of the Tulane Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship trip to Haiti 2009!

Today we got up nice and early and flew to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We will fly from here, tomorrow morning, to Port-Au-Prince.

Since we had the day in a beach town, we made the most of it. It was a blast topped off by a tasty dinner and a surprise birthday celebration for Lindsey, courtesy of her mom. Thanks!

Here are some pictures. Please pray for us as we finish our travels into Haiti, tomorrow.

My Google Reader

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If you look to the right ---> you will see a widget listing some of the items I've shared through my google reader. These are items from other bloggers, other RSS feeds I follow, or just news items from the web that I've found interesting or noteworthy in some fashion.

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writing assignment from N.T. Wright's Simply Christian

Take the link, to check out the paper I wrote for an assignment in my AGTS course on Apologetics - professor, Dr. Charles Self. The assignment was to write a short apologetic for Christian faith utilizing two of the "echoes" Bishop Wright employs in his excellent book.