July

On God my salvation and my glory rest; The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.

Psalms 62:7-8

Dear Friends in Christ,

We are praising and thanking the Lord for each day the school in Haiti is open. With gang members still very close by, we know it is only by God’s hand of grace and protection that our little school is functioning and the children and teachers can attend. Thank you for remembering our teachers, these precious children, and their families in your prayers!

All of our teachers, except Nady, have been able to travel back and forth from their homes outside of Mirebalais each day for school. Unfortunately, Nady’s home was further in the city, so he had to move near the school to live with his grandmother when the gangs took over. Now, he, his wife, and baby twins are still safely living there. Sadly, Nady’s home has been looted by the gang members. His beds and anything of value was taken for the gangs to use or sell. He took as much with him as he could, but he had to move fast and had to leave most of his belongings behind. While writing this newsletter, we heard his baby boys are currently sick with a fever and rashes.

Please keep Nady and his precious family in your prayers.

Our school year in Haiti ends on July 31st. The children are excited for a break! The school, however, will remain open through the short summer break to provide stability and meals daily for the children. This helps the teachers, cooks, and coaches to continue to have income. The summer school schedule is more relaxed, which gives the opportunity for fun through crafts, play, singing and time to study God’s Word together!

This month, for a field trip, our teachers took the children to a nearby river. They all enjoyed an afternoon of fun and swimming! Having this river so close to the village helps the school and villagers in many ways, even giving them a place to cool down and relax. The river stays very busy as it is used by the locals for washing laundry, many use it for bathing, and it is also where buckets are filled with water and carried by women and children back home for household purposes. Because of all the activity, a visit to the river is a community social event where all the locals stay connected, especially the women on laundry day! This is a very common and beautiful sight all throughout Haiti.

Last month, we asked for your help to pay for 2 cisterns and a graduation party for our kindergarten and senior (6th grade) classes. Praise the Lord, those needs have been met! We are grateful for your outpouring of love and care for these precious children. At this point, it is uncertain where those who are graduating 6th grade will go to school as the schools inside of Mirebalaias are shut down by the gangs. Our school goes through 6th grade. Haiti’s education system requires extra classes for 7th grade and above which we are unfortunately not able to offer through our school. We will see if the Lord opens doors for the children graduating 6th grade to continue at another school or where we can help send them hopefully, when things settle down.

Please continue to pray for Woodson. He is doing fine, but is still unable to come to school each day. His family often comes to get a meal for him. Ken and I met a Brother in Christ, Michael, at a church in Ocala, FL, who is on his way to do medical work for the military at the Port-au-Prince airport. Michael is now aware of Woodson’s medical needs and said he would investigate any doctors or hospitals in PAP that might be able to do the Hirschsprung surgery for him. As many of you know, we have the problem of not only finding a place for his surgery, but also the challenge of getting him there safely past the gangs when we do find a hospital and surgeon. We continue to search and pray for God’s safekeeping of little Woodson.

While in Florida this month, we met Wayne Culver, a dear Brother who has helped us many times in the past. Wayne has and still is collecting backpacks for the students’ next school year. He gave us over 100 backpacks and is still collecting. We are very grateful to Wayne and his church, Stillwater Christian Fellowship, for showing love to the children in this way! Getting a new backpack is a great gift. We will have pictures of the children receiving their backpacks in the fall.

When our family lived in Haiti in the 90s, we attended a Haitian church. Pastor Jimmy Cartright and his wife, Maryse, were leaders there, and we were blessed in many ways by their testimony and love to us. They were born in Haiti, moved to New York as teens, met, fell in love, and married in N.Y. They felt the Lord called them back to minister in Haiti and have been there faithfully serving for 41 years now. They minister in Port-au-Prince in a dangerous, gang-controlled area. Sadly, Pastor Jimmy has had threats against his life, yet he and Maryse continue to stay and minister the love of Jesus Christ. When we lived there, we used to take a big truckload of Haitian friends from our area to attend his church each Sunday. This is a wonderful memory we have from living there. One thing that Pastor Jimmy shared with us was how important it is to teach the Haitian people that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, which is completely opposite to what voodoo teaches. Pastor Santos from Mexico has actually preached in their church on one of his trips with us. They are raising money to put a cement roof on their church, and through you, OSM has now helped with this project. We feel blessed and honored to help this special Brother and Sister in Christ in this way.

With all the problems and danger caused by the gangs in Haiti, we have not been able to go back in a while. Though we can go to Pignon and some of our staff can come to meet us there, the traveling puts them in harms way, so we have not felt it is wise to do this. It’s been challenging for us not to be on the ground in Haiti for so long. We love the country and the people there so much! On our recent visit to FL, we enjoyed meeting with John and Tracy Willey. They are helping minister to Haitians just inside of the Dominican border. We are praying for God’s direction on possibly joining them in August. Please pray with us for God’s leading and direction for this potential trip and future vision. We want to be wise to follow God’s leading.

We are blessed and honored to minister with each of you and our friends in Haiti and Mexico. What a wonderful and mighty God we serve to connect us all in this way. He uses you and us together to touch and impact many lives. Your love, prayers, and support make all this possible, and we are very grateful. May He encourage and bless you and your families with His love each day.

Serving our Savior with you,
Ken and Debbi