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.

Snapshots!

As busy as we were when we last talked, it's been about as quiet as it probably gets up here! March is supposed to be the beginning of the rainy season and everyone is hustling to get fields prepared for planting and school is out for 2 weeks for spring break so there aren't a lot of people around.  I've got our 'jarden' tilled and ready to plant so now we wait.  Everyone is waiting for rain.  The whole time we've been here and wondered when you planted your jardens, the answer was always 'Mas' (March).  Now that Mas is here, we've had exactly one measurable rain and nothing goes in the ground until after a rainfall.  Not only is the ground dry as powder, but they tell me that if you plant before a rain the ants will eat the sprouts!  Must be something to it because everyone is just kinda sitting on their hands waiting.  Except the onion farmers.  They're still watering every day as well as treking up the mountain to work ground for transplanting. They'd love to be planting too, but rain is a bigger issue for them than it is for the corn and beans.  In the mean time I keep adding to my vegetable garden and Cheryl is busy visiting and treating the walking wounded.

This jarden just keeps growing, both in size and the plants are growing too.  The onions especially get everyone's attention. They can't believe they are filling out.  They think the soil here is not good enough to grow onions.  I always thought you could grow onions in the driveway!  All I've done different is water them. Today I added another row of carrots.  Seems we can eat them faster than we can grow them.  A local farmer showed me the banana leaf trick.  Plant your seeds and the banana leaves serve as a temporary shade structure until they are big enough to mulch.  The sun is so intense here everything needs some protection until it is established.  And a thick layer of mulch helps keep the soil cooler and moist.  The little nursery is ready for the rain to

come too!  I got lots of little trees to plant in the erosion control ridges I've dug across the field behind the house.  Trees for food, animal forage, nitrogen fixers, shade, firewood, leaf mulch and eventually a start on reforesting this barren place.  I have my plans for growing things here, and really believe that this is part of what we've been called here to do.  But the bigger part is just doing it and letting people notice that it can be done and it's not really that hard or expensive.  I'm an older person and don't have children so I have to pay someone to haul water for me.  That is the only real expense I have.  I started out with some seeds, about $20.00 US worth, but still have a lot of them left and am harvesting seeds and replanting with pretty good success.  We are starting to get  opportunities to teach how others can grow their own produce plus some for sale without investing a lot more than time and energy.  The water is an issue and we're praying that God will provide the funding to get a well dug up here.  We need it for the school and it would have a significant impact on the community.  Join us in  prayer to bring water closer to home.

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The weekend of Feb. 15-17 we had revival meetings up here, and that was the beginning of Wednesday evening services.  For the past 3 weeks, and hopefully several weeks to come, Mike Martin from International Faith Missions has come to share teaching on salvation and baptism. There has been interest in baptism within our little congregation and Mike has done a great job of helping raise their level of understanding.  The meetings have been well attended, especially by younger people.

By well attended I'm talking about 25-30 people, but that's a lot for us.  And many of these aren't regular attenders at our Sunday morning services.  We are so thankful for Mike's willingness to come and share, and for his wife Joanna's understanding.  This has truly been a blessing to us. And if it brings one soul to salvation it will be worth it!

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Cheryl always says she doesn't do much, but she always seems to be busy!  She has several lady friends with various needs that she visits regularly, and she also works as the go between for sponsors and their students. Many of our student sponsors write letter and send gifts to their students and Cheryl delivers them and helps the students write back.  School is out for spring break right now but a package came that she wanted to deliver.  

This is Linda.  Her mother made her change into this pretty white dress to get her 'photo' taken with her gifts! She WAS feeling pretty special!

Linda has 7 brothers and sisters, 5 of them go to our school.  This little gift made the day for the whole family.  And Cheryl made some new friends too.  Turns out that mom and dad both sing in the choir in the River Church and dad was taking guitar lessons (that's his guitar in the pic).  She was treated to several songs accompanied by a fairly out of tune guitar. The songs came from their hearts though!  They were so excited just to have her visit.  The gift was just a little bonus. Good friends in Jesus!  

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One other thing that has become somewhat of a regular thing is people that want to learn to speak English. 

 I have a young man that comes every Saturday afternoon who really teaches me more Creole than I teach him English.  We've worked through our only book, so each week I copy down several Bible verses from the English Bible and the Creole Bible and then we translate for each other and talk about them. It's becoming a good relationship. 

Cheryl is way more talented than I am.  Sometimes she had one on one lessons, but hers tend to grow in size from week to week.  Some really want to learn, some just like sitting in our chairs.  It's all good, though!  It's often not what we'd choose to do, but we always end up being blessed by taking the time to share with them.

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We find ourselves in my favorite time of year.  The time when our thoughts revolve more around Christ, His suffering, death and Resurrection.  Join us at the cross as we remember the work that was done there for you and for me.  And celebrate with us the fact that HE"S ALIVE!  

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
(Col 2:13-14)