October 2002
I recently ran across an old Haitian saying, “In Haiti there are mountains and beyond them are more mountains.” This is true in the physical sense and it is also true in the spiritual realm. As we work earnestly in an effort to get things accomplished for the Kingdom of God, we find that in Haiti there are many mountains that we must climb.
No one could possibly understand how hard Haiti really is until you have lived here!
There just isn’t any way that anyone could help but be touched by the extreme poverty here in Haiti and when you live and work here you find that things are much worse than most people could even imagine. Sometimes the burden almost becomes overwhelming. There is so much to do and sometimes we feel that we are not accomplishing anything. The Haitian people feel that the “blanc” (white person) is the answer to all of their problems. We are constantly bombarded with requests for help. Unfortunately, there is only so much that we can do. Desperate Haitians have told us that if we will just help them, they will repeat any prayer we ask them to repeat or go to any church that we ask them to go to.
A couple recent examples of mountains that we have faced in the last couple of months are: in July we took in another five-year-old boy. We were told that his mother and father were dead. One month later his mother showed up. She left the child in the care of his father and went to the provinces to visit her family. When she returned she could not find her son. The child’s father did not want the responsibility of caring for the child and concocted the story (about the child’s parents being dead) with a neighbor, a lady that we have known for some time. We felt betrayed when we discovered that they lied to us in order to get free baby sitting for a month. We felt that it was best to return the child to his mother, even though she insisted that she would gladly leave him with us!
As we mentioned in previous newsletters, we have discovered that it is extremely difficult for us to find and keep good helpers. We were forced to fire a woman in August and as she was leaving, she told us that she was going to put a Voodoo curse on us. Even though we know that Satan doesn’t have any power over us because we are covered by the blood of Jesus, this wasn’t a pleasant experience.
These are examples of the mountains that we face daily here in Hiati-lying, being threatened with Voodoo curses and the difficulty that we have faced in our efforts to find reliable helpers. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus talks about having faith to remove mountains. We ask that you lift us up in your prayers each day. Pray that we will have the faith that we need to move the mountains that we face here in Haiti. Ask Jesus to help us in our efforts to win this nation for Him.
Recently, Sonson’s and Nancy’s little sister visited us here at House of Compassion. She is approaching her first birthday and she is smaller than our six-month-old Hannah! She was burned and the burn became infected. The baby stayed with us for four days while we tried to re-hydrate her and treat the infection. She is now doing fine, but she has a nasty scar that will give her problems in the future.
In August, we had a three-day “Children’s Church Revival”. Our guest, Kay Farmer and our Children’s Church Director, Evans, presented the lessons to the children. For three days they taught about the Ten Commandments with flannel graphs, puppets and other activities. After each service a meal was served. We had over 100 children in attendance each day! We badly need to purchase a guitar, tambourines and a keyboard as well as some other basic musical instruments to use in our Children’s Church Program. We are pleased to report that our Children’s Church Program is growing every week!
September 9th, was the first day of the school year for nine of our ten children here at House of Compassion. The children were excited about school. Two of our boys, Micah and Yronel attended school for the first time. We also enrolled thirty other children in school. This is possible only through the support of our “Child Sponsors” who sponsor a child for $12.00 per-month. Through faith, we have committed to help additional children who do not have a sponsor at this time. If you would like to help send a child who could not possibly afford to go to school, please let us know. The need for education in Haiti is critical and sponsoring a child is one way that we can help improve Haiti’s standard of living.
Compassion is not the norm in Haiti. We are teaching the children to have compassion for others. We are taking food to a mentally ill lady who lives down the street from House of Compassion. This is one way that we can teach “our kids” how to show compassion for others. We are praying that the Lord will heal and save this woman.
Please remember us in your prayers every day. We couldn’t do our job without your prayer support as well as your financial support. Pray that we will remain strong physically, mentally and spiritually and that we will be able to accomplish the work that our Lord sent us here to Haiti to do for His Kingdom!
Thanks again for all that you do for us, we are praying for all of you!