November

And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Luke 2:10-11

 Dear Friends in Christ,

Hallelujah! What a Savior we have and serve! Because He lives, we can face tomorrow. His life, death and resurrection give our lives meaning and hope for a future together with Him. All glory and honor we give to Him, all praise and adoration go to Him, for through Him we have an assurance of eternal life!

The Lord has once again given His protection and safe passage for our Brother Nady in Mirebalais to go and bring many supplies back to the school for the children. After waiting for days, then weeks for the team in Port-au-Prince (PAP) to bring the school uniforms, backpacks and many new items for the kitchen, God made a way for Nady, our school administrator, to safely go and pick them all up.

We do not blame the PAP team for not feeling safe to go out to the school after the last time they had such a bad experience. Once you have seen something like they saw, you cannot easily remove these things from your mind. We tell them to go when they feel it is safe and pray for God to give them direction. Nady decided to rent a van with a driver and be taken to meet Kaloulou partway. With our prayer team once again praying for God’s protection to be over Kaloulou, Nady, and the driver, they went. They had all the children’s uniforms and backpacks for each child with a few extras, a new charcoal stove, pots and pans for the kitchen, new utensils, plates, and cups for the children, along with buckets of nutritional soup mix which was completely donated, including freight and customs, for our school children. There were plenty of items to stand out for a gang to see and steal if they decided to do so. Yet God blinded the gangs eyes to the many things in the van, He protected Nady and the driver from harm and they safely brought all the items to the school.

A few days before this, Nady had gone shopping in Mirebalais for the food needed at the school for the month. This is a much more expensive, yet safer way, to get around our problems with the gangs. They still could stop Nady and take what he is purchasing, but it once again worked.

Many people in Haiti are not so fortunate to get through the gangs with needed food and supplies. We do not mean to be overdramatic, yet when our Savior has given His blessing of protection, we want to give Him the glory and praise for what only He can do. It is not our cunning or good planning; it is all Him.

The children were very happy to receive the uniforms and backpacks. This is a huge blessing to them. Nady took all these pictures of the children with his cell phone and sent them to us. Praise the Lord for the technology and tools that He gives us so that we can share these pictures of these precious children with you!

We would ask for you to please continue to pray for Pastor Santos and his wife Fini in Nava, Mexico. They are serving Jesus physically non-stop. They ask for prayer for their health as their bodies are beginning to wear out. With many people coming by their church, which is on a main road coming from south Mexico to the border, they are sharing the gospel with hundreds of people each day. We don’t receive many pictures, but Pastor Santos does share what he is doing on a regular basis, asking for our prayers, which we ask for you to pray for them also. He and Fini continue to be blessings of encouragement to us as we know how physically and emotionally draining their ministry is in Nava. Unseen servants, serving our Savior through their service to others.

While all this has been happening, Ken and I (Debbi) were working hard to get all the Christmas gift bags for the school children ready to deliver to Missionary Flights Inter-national in Ft. Pierce, FL, then they are flown to Port-au-Prince. Our thought was to deliver them on our way to the National Bible Bee. Though we worked and tried hard, we could not get everything ready in time to go. Since that couldn’t happen fast enough, the delivery will now have to wait until December.

However, we were able to attend the Bible Bee, which took place at the Ridgecrest Conference Center, close to Ashville, N.C. this year. What an awesome blessing to be here watching this encouraging event again. We are watching it as the newsletter is being finished up. Though we would like to share more with you, we will need to wait to put pictures and information about this in our next newsletter. We thank the Lord for this opportunity to watch this competition each year!

With two new precious Grandbabies and more of our children and Grandchildren coming to spend Thanksgiving with us, we are very excited to be together with many of them this year. Please also pray for God’s protection over our daughter Brigitta who is currently in the Air Force in Kuwait. We thank the Lord for His abundant blessings in our family, for His love and protection over OSM and the children, teachers, and team members in Haiti, and Pastor Santos and Fini along with Lety and the Dorcas House ministry in Mexico. May He pour His love into each of you and your families, drawing hearts closer to Him as we walk with Him on this earth. Thank you for your love and kindness to our family and OSM! Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas, celebrating the birth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our Provider and Protector, full of mercy, grace, and peace, Jesus Christ.

Serving our Savior with you,
Ken & Debbi