Sunday, April 14, 2013

Still waitin on the rain!


Hello from Haiti!  It’s amazing what a couple day, lots of prayer and an awesome time of worship can do for a dry, thirsty soul!  We just had a great time in worship this morning here on the hill in Soliette.  Not sure what was different, but the presence of the Lord was obvious in the singing, the prayers and the preaching!  Even in the audience.  This might have been the largest regular service crowd we’ve had since we’ve been here with 47 people counted.  Attendance numbers aren’t our goal, but it is exciting to see the growing interest in worshipping together here.  And it was a great day for them to be here too, because they were
Sometimes the clouds almost touch the
but still no rain!
really challenged!  There is a lot of anxiety here because of the lack of rain.  We’ve discussed this before and I don’t want to sound repetitive, but it’s pretty simple.  If it doesn’t rain, you don’t plant.  You don’t plant you don’t eat.  You don’t eat….well it takes a lot of Faith to live there.  And that is where we were challenged to live today.  The text was Hebrews 11:1 and the Kreole Bible, in my opinion, snaps Faith into a new perspective.  The Kreole text reads,, ‘Le you moun di li gen konfyans nan Bondye’.  Literally, that would read ‘when a man says he has trust in God’.  Somehow ‘trust in God’ carries a little more weight than simply saying faith.  He compared Abraham trusting in God’s promise enough to lay Isaac on the altar with our trusting in God enough to place our lives and the lives of our families in His hands while we wait for rain.  It was encouraging, challenging and just a little bit scary, but it just seemed to draw the people together to wait this thing out and be ready to get to work when God says go.  Some people have even more at stake as the onion farmers waited as long as they could but had to transplant to the mountains before the plants got too big.  Now they need more confidence that God will bring rain on plants that need it pretty regularly.  And there are some that chose not to wait and have seed in the ground that will become an ‘ant snack’ if the rain doesn’t come soon.
A 22 row Haitian corn planter in action!
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We’ve been blessed with visitors recently and that has been a welcome refreshment.  There was a team from Cornerstone Dunkard Brethren Church visiting International Faith Mission.  We got to enjoy 2 nights of revival meetings with them and they came up to our place for an afternoon and hung out for a while.  It was great to share some time with them.  This team and the saints at Cornerstone teamed up to bathe us and all the missionaries here for the weekend of ‘carnival’.  Thanks to all who participated!  Your prayers are valuable to us and they were effective against the work of those who choose to worship satan. 

No this is NOT a cooking class !! My guests are coming
up the road and I'm frantically preparing for our
Seder meal.  These friends just stopped by for a visit. :-)
I guess I needed a lesson in GRACE
.

Beth & Philip Holinger, Steven Rapp,
Tyler & Mandy Holinger



Another group of good friends came up and allowed us to host them to a Passover Seder meal.  It was a special time together as we remembered God’s faithfulness and the coming of the promised Messiah.   




Next year in Jerusalem!















Mike Martin from IFM is faithful to make the trek up the hill to teach here every Wednesday evening and Vlad and Ashly were here for services and lunch last Sunday.


  Hopefully, we won’t get too spoiled, but you’re welcome here anytime!
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My (Pat’s) English class has grown from 1 to 6 boys and they are really dedicated to learn!  They are seeking a better relationship with Jesus Christ too, which is even more exciting!

I'm putting my lessons on Power Point.  Wishing
I had a printer!
  Our lessons are opened and closed with prayer, they pray in English and I pray in Kreole, and the lesson material is songs and Bible verses.  We pull words they don’t know out of the verses and use that to build vocabulary.  Join us in prayer for these boys.  Three of them are brothers and their father is Catholic.  They would love to worship with us but he refuses to allow them to worship anywhere else.  They have asked us to pray for them as they want to change their religion.  Please remember them when you pray.



The boys like to sing along with the MP3 too!
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Our garden continues to grow.  We’ve had some problems with root knot nematodes killing some tomatoes so we’re replanting them. 
We were blessed with a collection of heirloom seeds (thanks Jeremy & Laura) so we can replace our plants and now have some to give away to visitors that want to try their hand at growing some things.  With heirloom plants, they can harvest seeds from the fruit so they have something that is sustainable if they are diligent in caring for it.  This is the real purpose for our gardens, to cause interest and take the opportunity to teach about plants, planting techniques and Godly stewardship of the soil and water.  Hopefully, it will create opportunities to go to their homes and help them get started right.  It’s also an opportunity to plant Spiritual seeds and build relationships.

Getting Mona started on her garden



Evening is now approaching and I had all intentions of getting this done earlier in the afternoon.  
First the 
internet wouldn’t co-operate and then a machete wound appeared at our door.  
Cheryl cooly sutured the wound shut with 5 tidy stitches.  She handled here first patient like a pro!  Practicing on my hand a couple weeks ago was worthwhile!


So now you’re up to date.  Some of you special people were kind enough to bless us with packages of sweet things!  Thank you so much for remembering!  Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support!  We pray for you all often!  May the God of Grace and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless you all real good!  Whatever you do, do it with all your strength in the name of Jesus! To Him be the Glory!


"Thank you Jesus for today, yesterday and tomorrow!"  Pierreau, 16, Praying in English in class.