Buy Music. Help Haiti

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On January 23rd Joel Gerdis and John Congleton, members of the Rogers’ Louisville based fundraising events team helped put on the first Breachbent Benefit Show to help diversify support of our work with G.O. Ministries. They collaborated with Sojourn Community Church, The 930, Kevin Janes, Michael Winters and Drake Hatfield. Kevin helped secure the following musicians for the show: Jamie Barnes, The Parade Schedule, Dave Moisan, Brooks Ritter and Luke Asher. We’re grateful to all involved for their contributions both to our support and the Haiti Relief Fund through G.O. Ministries. Between the ticket sales, concessions, one time gifts and the silent auction just over $8000 was raised. But the Haiti Relief fundraising continues.

The above artists have each donated live songs from that show to make up a compilation put together by Drake Hatfield. This is the first release on his record label, Hatfield Media. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this $10 album will go to G.O. Ministries to help with Haiti relief efforts. Please consider purchasing this download in support of G.O., Hatfield Media and each of the above artists.

G.O. Haiti Relief Blitz!

One of our fellow staffers here at G.O. put this map together for us to share with you so that you could get a better sense of where all the relief has gone through our efforts in Haiti. Again, we’re humbled by the ways in which God has equipped us to respond to this disaster.

The entire southern coast of Haiti has suffered much of the same destruction as Port au Prince. The organizations we’ve sent aid to in the North have been receiving and caring for refugees since the days after the quake.

Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti. The rainy season is almost upon them. G.O. currently has 1000 or so tents on their way. We’ve also sent down three 48ft by 16ft mobile greenhouses to be used as temporary shelters and hospitals. There’s an inflatable tent hospital purchased by G.O. that just reached Santiago and will be in route to Jacmel, Haiti very soon.

I was in our Louisville warehouse today, Saturday, February 27 receiving the last of some relief supplies from our local relief drive. The huge warehouse is about full and we will be emptying it out on Monday as trucks will be hauling it away to be loaded onto a boat and floated down to the island where it will be distributed. Much thanks to Eric Leach (fellow G.O. Staffer) who has organized and managed the warehouse effort since day one of getting the space. He really has done a fantastic job!

As always, thanks for your prayers and your financial support of Vicki and myself. By helping us you are helping Haiti.

Check out a more detailed account of what has gone where in Haiti here.

Pictures and a 1000 Words...

Last Friday Vicki was visiting the girls’ school. On her way out she stopped to visit with their art teacher, Jill. Our girls are prolific artists. We have countless pictures, paintings and sculptures thanks in no small part to their art teacher. Jill commented on how much she enjoyed teaching them. She asked Vic if she had seen Sophi’s picture of the earthquake and then Jill got choked up. We hadn’t seen it. It was buried in a stack of pictures that come home on almost a daily basis. Jill said that she’d never seen anything like it from a 4 year old, that our girls were extraordinarily connected with a more global perspective. We weren’t sure what to make of it but anxiously searched for this piece of art once we got home. We found it. We’ll let Sophi explain it to you in her own words in just a minute.

Just a little more first by way of introduction… Our daughters are very aware of what’s going on in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. They’ve been to the DR with us at least 6 times. They have a sense that their mom and dad work to try and be a help to those that need it. Before the quake in Haiti they were already familiar with the reality of hunger there and the unfortunate novelty of dirt cookies. They thought about it; they prayed about it.

When the quake hit while I was in the DR Vicki was glued to the TV. Not because she was concerned about me, she knew I was ok. She, like me, understood the enormous tragedy that this was. The girls saw the footage as she watched. Vic told them that I was in the DR helping the people in Haiti. When I came home the relief efforts state side were in full swing. We worked around the clock in the office and at home. The poor little ladies were almost neglected. Friends from our community group prepared us meals for about a week so that we could devote some time to the girls without the distraction of having to prepare and clean up a meal. Soph and Rae knew we were up to something and that it had to do with Haiti. From this the following was born.


Just so you know, Tio Mano is our friend Romano, a dear Haitian brother. Tio is Spanish for “uncle” which is what our daughters call him. It will make sense in a minute. The girls have known him their entire life.


I'll post Romano's story after this:

I was fortunate enough to shoot this quick video of Romano before he left for Port-au-Prince.

Responding to Haiti, a Gift, an Act of Faith...

The last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind. God has been very gracious to G.O. Ministries in the face of such an overwhelming crisis in Haiti. We have been steadily responding to the urgent needs that have come from this event. Our years on the ground on the island of Hispaniola, our familiarity with the place and our Partnerships and relationships with people all over the island have served to uniquely position us to respond. We never could have imagined that God would use these relationships in the way in which he has. It is as though a door materialized before our eyes in a concrete wall and so we were compelled to walk through. God has completely surrounded us with the resources and the new relationships to respond to Haiti’s deep need. Our capacity to be good neighbors to our Haitian friends has been multiplied a hundredfold and continues to grow. This ability to respond in a manner that immediately meets desperate needs, in a way that has been saving and continues to save lives is itself a gift. Vicki and I are blessed to be a part of it and to have a role to play in it. It is startling; it is humbling; it is a labor of love.

3 weeks after the fact we who are on the leadership team are beginning to process and consider what G.O.’s long-term response to the new reality facing Haiti will be. We cannot imagine that the island will ever be the same on account of the magnitude of this disaster. We know that we will continue in the rescue phase for at least another 2-4 weeks as larger organizations responding to the crisis will have time to get to the areas we are currently serving. We know that we will be committed to doing our part towards restoration in Haiti. We were working towards it already. To be about the Gospel and the Kingdom of God is to be about restoration. It is not work born of duty but of faith, motivated by Love. Given the enormity of what our Haitian neighbors now face, faith seems a better resource than duty. Duty draws on our own strength and will quickly prove to be lacking. Faith draws on God’s own strength and reveals to us what God will do with a little trust and obedience.

I’m convinced that God hates what has happened to Haiti. I’m convinced that years of injustice and exploitation at the hands of others inside and outside of Haiti have not escaped his notice. I’m convinced that the brokenness of Haiti is not the final word. The final word will be his Shalom which will also be the very first word of the Age to come. It is that Age that we now work towards even more fervently than before in Haiti not because we are the saviors of the world but because Jesus was and is. And at the dawn of the renewal of all things he expects to catch us working to meet him from our side of history, not out of duty but out of faith, motivated by love and compassion rooted in the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. If we have counted ourselves among the People of God and yet have had idle hands the time for that to cease is now. There are many who suffer in the world in and beyond Haiti that are in need of our faithful love and service. Let’s give it to them.

Here’s a story published today in the New York Times about our relief effort in Haiti. Read the article here. Please watch the video report “Haiti, Help from Above.” We’re grateful for the Times coverage of what G.O. is doing in Haiti. We have lots of information on http://www.gohelphaiti.org/ highlighting different aspects of our response over the last few weeks. Please check it out and direct your friends, families and church leaders there. God has graced us with the ability to do some very important work on the island. Again, it’s been a gift to share in it and now we share that gift with you too.

Grace and Peace,

The Rogers

Christmas in Mongolia

We’ve hinted here and there about G.O.’s work in Mongolia. We wanted to take a moment to highlight that work today. John Koehler serves addicts and prostitutes in Mongolia. He works with a team of Mongolian leaders that regularly hit the streets there in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar serving the Mongolian ladies hot tea and food while they are “on the job.” It used to be that if they wanted to speak with the women that they would have to pay them for their time. They’re continued kindness opened doors with the Madams and after some time they gave permission to their “employees” to stop charging for these visits.

Over time many relationships have been built and some of these women are being transformed by the Gospel. The biggest obstacle for them has been how to provide for their families if they stop the work. Most of these women are not driven by addiction. They are driven by the need to provide for their families. Once the monthly bills are covered, many do not work until the following month’s needs develop.

Each of us on staff helps partners with Koehler’s work in Mongolia through G.O. That’s why your support of our work is also support of this work. In the past year G.O. has helped to finance three small businesses in Ulaanbaatar that are offering these women other ways to earn an income for their family. We have helped get a bath house (public pay showers), a car wash and shoe/purse/wallet manufacturing company off of the ground. Our hope is that at these grow more women will benefit from them as ways out of their current life style. Our intention is to add to these efforts as time and resources allow.

I’m reminded this Christmas that Jesus, the son of God, was a blood descendant of Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho. I’m reminded of God’s gracious use to accomplish his profound will of broken people both with their cooperation and in spite of them. I’m reminded of his deep love of humanity and what He is willing to sacrifice to have us for his own. I received this photo in John’s last update, after hosting a Christmas party for the ladies.




Please join us in praying on behalf of John’s work in Mongolia. Pray for these women, loved by God, that they discover the blessings of abundant life, of Shalom. Pray for renewal and transformation.

As always, thank you for your love and support. Merry Christmas!

G.O. Leadership Team

(Center) Vicki Rogers (Left to Right) John Martinez, Tim Krauss, Jeff Rogers, Brook Brotzman


The G.O. Leadership Team has just finished with our planning retreat for 2010. We spent 3 days at Quills Coffee House in downtown Louisville and 4 days in a cabin in Southern Indiana working, planning and praying through what the next year of ministry will look like!

It’s an awesome privilege to work with these four people. Brook’s work and vision for G.O. created an amazing opportunity for Vicki and I nine years ago. Brook’s faithfulness to God’s leading made space for us to discover the width and depth of God’s Kingdom locally and globally. That global discovery has forever changed us. It changes how we understand life and ministry. It has completely reshaped how we understand the application of the Gospel in word and deed.

Nine years ago, again, because of Brook’s faithfulness to God’s leading, we got to meet and start working alongside of Tim Krauss and John Martinez, similarly, space was made for them to discover God’s passion for the people of the entire world. Sharing in that discovery and the work that has come from it has been one of the greatest blessings of mine and Vicki’s life. It is truly an honor and a joy to work alongside of them.

And now, together we make up the Leadership Team of G.O. Ministries. This places us in a position of great responsibility for the care of the ministry and the Staff. There are those who have had space made for them (and others who are coming) to make similar discoveries to our own and we now still have much to discover together as God reveals what he has for the future growth of G.O. Ministries.

I am small for the task and humbled by the reality that there is much expected of me and of us. Please commit to praying for the five of us (Brook, John, Tim, Vicki and Jeff) regularly, that our leadership be characterized by service to one another, love, grace and accountability and that God would grant us wisdom as we move forward over the coming year. Your prayers and your Partnership make you apart of this work too!

Dirt is Yucky: A Thanksgiving Meditation...

The morning after I posted "Dirt" Vicki was reading over the entry while Sophi and Raena were eating their breakfast. When Vicki started watching the news report on youtube Raena came over to watch the "movie." She saw the women mixing the dirt into mud and making patties. She asked Vic what they were doing. Vic explained that these people didn't have enough food to eat so they were making cookies out of dirt and feeding them to their children. Rae couldn't make sense of this at first but the reality quickly set in. I could barely hold it together when she started to express with concern, "Mommy, no! People don't eat dirt! That's for animals! Mommy no! That's yucky." She said some version of this four or five times.

I have a hard time telling this story without getting choked up. I'm choked up right now typing it out. You can read what she said but you can not hear the tone in her little voice... A tone that communicates an awareness that something is deeply wrong with this scenario. A four-year-old gets that this shouldn't be. It shocks her. She knows its wrong.

This offered up an opportunity to give Raena a glimpse into our work with G.O. Vicki told Raena that morning, "Raena, Mommy and Daddy go to work at the office because part of what we do is work so that children don't have to eat dirt." I'm still not sure what Rae makes of this but time will tell.

Sophi continued to eat her breakfast and appeared (as she often does in some educational environments) oblivious and disinterested. But she's a sneaky perceiver. She get's more than you'll ever know until she shows you. That night Vic got the girls down for bed and Sophi spontaneously prayed for the children who had to eat dirt cookies, that God would help them get food so they didn't have to do that anymore. Beautiful, from my other 4-year-old.

So these were the bookends to my day that day, a child's discovery of human desparation and a child's intuition to pray that it would cease. And tonight, before Thanksgiving, Sophi did it again, unprovoked, unencouraged, "God, please help the children that eat dirt; they don't have food. Give them food. Dirt is yucky."

So I'm choked up again. I'm grateful for both of my daughters' hearts, grateful for the work that Vicki and I share in, grateful for those that make our work possible, grateful that ultimately there is profound hope for the broken, marginalized and us. I'm thankful that we're blessed to be a blessing and that my daughters are arriving at the starting point of beginning to understand this. It took me over 20 years.