January

Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Thy faithfulness reaches to the skies. How precious is Thy lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take ref-uge in the shadow of Thy wings.

Psalms 36: 5 & 7

Dear Friends in Christ,

This month we are thanking the Lord for His faithful love, protection, and provision over OSM. He is with us each day and directing our path in His will and plans. Knowing this gives us peace so we can rest in Him.

We were so happy that the schoolchildren in Haiti were able to get their Christmas gift bags just a couple of days before Christmas. For most of these children, this is the only gift they get. They don’t have Christmas trees, gifts wrapped, or decorations in their homes. Having a special church service or a few days off from school is their idea of celebrating Christmas. Thank you for your generous provision for these beautiful bags. The children are excited and grateful to those who helped make the gift bags possible.

Some of the girls in our school received new tennis shoes! This is a huge blessing for them. The shoes were decorated and donated by one of our dear friends, Brittany Schlichter. She was looking for a project for her Bible Study group and she chose to decorate 17 pairs of cute white tennis shoes. The ladies in her Bible Study enjoyed time together decorating with markers and stencils creating colorful designs on each unique pair of shoes. Our students who were blessed with these new shoes were thankful to all of the ladies who designed and made these special gifts!

For the rest of the newsletter we wanted to share the story of little Woodson’s cancer journey so far with you. As you will see below, he has become very precious to us, our prayer team and many church groups around the United States who are praying for him. We thought sharing his full story here may be insightful and encouraging of God’s faithfulness:

Woodson Joseph is 5 years old and was born in a small mountain village just outside of Mire-balais, Haiti. He attends our Christian school nearby. Woodson lives with his Mom, brother, sisters, and grandfather in a small, dirt floor, home.

In March of last year our school director Nady, learned that Woodson was sick and took him to a local clinic. The clinic informed Nady that it was a serious condition, Woodson had failure in 1 kidney and his liver had shrunk. By the end of March, we learned he had a mass on his stomach and the hospital closest to him could not help. The local doctors said Woodson needed to be taken to Port-au-Prince (PAP). That journey was very challenging at that time as the roads had been closed and were in gang control.

We began searching for a hospital in Haiti that could help. Dr. Berthola, who lives near PAP, became involved in helping us find a hospital. We exhausted every option, including moving him by helicopter to avoid dangerous roads. During this research process, we were able to have Woodson’s scans read by Dr. Berthola, and along with the help of Dr. John Leininger, we learned Woodson had Hirsch-sprung (hersh sprung) disease.

As we were navigating this trial with Woodson, the gangs began taking over the town of Mirebalais near our school. For safety rea-sons all schools were closed. Our school closed down for a time and the new challenge quickly switched to a focus on just getting food to these families who were cut off from supplies by gangs. Our updates at this time were that Woodson was eating, but no further progress was possible because of the gangs surrounding the area. Eventually, by the beginning of May, we were able to adapt and find alternate routes for our teachers to get through the mountains to get food and supplies back to the school for the children and teachers.

As soon as we could move people safely, we began working once again to find a hospital to care for Woodson. Each time we found what we thought was an option, something came up that shut the door. Some hospitals even shut down a few days before we could get there. The hospitals that were open responded they were not able to help. This was a very disheartening process. The beginning of September, Woodson’s Mom decided she was willing to attempt to travel to PAP. The trip was very dangerous because of all of the gangs and random shootings that had been happening. Our prayer team covered her and Woodson in prayer through this journey and they arrived safely in PAP on Sept. 14th. Though it was a dangerous area, they stayed close to the hospital and were able to have many helpful tests and scans done that gave us a clearer picture of what we were looking at. Although this process took months, it was at this time we learned Woodson has kidney cancer. Soon after we were told the doctors were having too many problems getting back and forth to the hospital because of the increased activity of gangs in the area and for their own safety they could not continue helping Woodson.

We began looking more aggressively at other options for Woodson and increasing our prayer circles for him. Meanwhile an American friend and nurse, Judy Foster, who has worked in Haiti for many years, began helping us. Judy has experience helping children with medical needs get expedited passports so they can leave Haiti and have their needs met wherever she can find medical help. With her help we were able to quickly begin working on Woodson’s passport. Many caring, Haitian, brothers and sisters in Christ began scrambling to get Woodson’s mom back to PAP and help her get paperwork from her home in the mountains sent into PAP. Praise the Lord, by the end of December, with God’s help, we had a passport!

Many weeks were spent making phone calls and sharing Woodson’s story again and again to hospitals all over the US as well as Panama, & the Dominican Republic. Our faithful prayer team, churches around the US, and small group studies continued praying over Woodson.

Today we are finally so grateful to share with you that Woodson has now been accepted by St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital! They are now working to provide us with the necessary papers showing they have accepted him as a patient. Praise the Lord, He is making a way!

Now our real work begins, the paperwork. There is still so much to be done. We need papers signed by Woodson’s parents giving us power of attorney/guardianship. We will need to get an emergency medical visa for him to come to the States. We are praying for favor from the US embassy. We ask for continued prayers for safety of our staff in Haiti as they continue making efforts to help. We serve an amazing Savior, He has done so much already for Woodson. Thank you so much for your faithful prayers!

Each of you are such an encouragement to us. We pray the Lord’s hand of protection and peace over you and your families. We know much of the US is dealing with extreme winter storms and possible power outages as we are sending this newsletter to the printers. Please know our prayers are with you! Thank you to each of you for ministering in Haiti and Mexico with us. May we continue to share His awesome love with those He brings to us.

Serving our Savior with you,
Ken and Debbi