September

O Lord, Thou art my God; I will exalt Thee, I will give thanks to Thy name; For Thou hast worked wonders, Plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.

Isaiah 25:1

Dear Friends in Christ,

What an awesome and amazing Father we have! He has been so good to us this month. We praise Him for all He does for us, and we are excited to share His goodness with you!

The Lord allowed us to visit the Dominican Republic with our friends John and Tracy Willey. Our daughter Holly who was in Puerto Rico at the time was also able to join us. What a blessing to have her there! Her language skills were a huge help for all of us.

During our trip we visited Pedernales which is a town that borders Haiti. Although the border crossings are all closed now, the Dominican Republic has been flood-ed with Haitians who are trying to escape the harsh and dangerous conditions in their own country. The Dominican has done all they can to help these people, but the numbers of Haitians in the border towns are overwhelming and the Dominican has had to close the borders for the safety and well-being of their little country. Our visit to Pedernales was very eye-opening. So many people and children are living in such terrible conditions. The Haitian villages are called bateys (bu tay). Although the Dominican government has tried to help, they are unable to support these families with job opportunities or even an education for the children, which leaves these areas incredibly desperate.

We met with John and Tracy’s friend Pastor Eliezar and his wife Ilanka who live near by and work in the batey. Pastor Eliezar and his family live in what we would consider desperately impoverished conditions, yet they are doing all they can to reach out to the Haitian community near them. They live in the top floor of a partially completed block structure and use the bottom floor to hold Church, and a sort of kinder school with a feeding program. We were honored to join in and help teach a VBS for the kids with crafts, stories, singing and games; followed by the highlight which was a big lunch for the children and cups of cold water. We had never seen children so excited for a cup of clean water to drink! The river that is the water source for the village is not close or clean. The children were begging for more water and hiding their little cups under the table hoping they’d be handed a second cup. Part of the reason for our trip was for John & Tracy to deliver funding for a well to be put in. This project will be completed soon and a huge blessing for the whole community!

Pastor Eliezar and Ilanka took us to visit the batey near them where they visit daily to encourage and pray with people. Pastor Eliezar shared with us how the local Haitian pastors have so much voo-doo tradition mixed in with their “Christianity,” making the Haitian churches very challeng-ing to reach. This is something we’ve often seen in Haiti and is a result of a lack of access to solid Biblical training. We understood his challenge in this area.

During our visit to the batey we met a little girl named Evline (ev leen). Evline is about 6 years old and has special needs. Although all of the children in the batey are very thin, Evline is exceptionally malnourished. The ends of her hair are a reddish/orange color which is a sign of malnourishment, and her little limbs are all bones. Evline is cross-eyed; she can walk, but it has more of an appearance of stumbling around. It’s hard to tell her mental capacity; she doesn’t seem to be able to connect with much verbally, but she does smile when you talk to her as her arms and body flails around. Her mom told us she can understand some. She smiled so big and loved for Holly to hold and hug her and didn’t want to be let go. Sadly, many times children with these type of special needs are very neglected in this level of poverty. When there is not enough food to go around, the child who offers no benefit to the family’s well being will be the one who goes without. This is heartbreaking for us in a first world mentality to understand, yet we’ve seen this to be very common in Haiti. It isn’t necessarily a lack of love, but survival instincts. Little Evline may have been God’s purpose for our trip to the Dominican. We were blessed to be able to help her family with groceries. We also set up a feeding program for Evline that will be closely monitored by Pastor Eliezar’s wife Ilanka. Evline is now receiving a protein drink (Ensure), vitamins, and nutrition daily. We’ve enjoyed receiving videos of Evline who has loved the care and attention she is being given now.

Back in Haiti, the Brunette school in Mirebalais was open until the end of August, then they took a break in September. We’ve been able to use this break to have the school sprayed for termites, do some repairs on the buildings and repaint. Thank you for your full provision for this need. We are very grateful! This will help the school buildings to last longer and stay in much better condition. We thank the Lord!

We are now working on having uniforms made for the next school year which begins in October. Nady found a local tailor who will be sewing the uniforms and has been helping us locate the material for the girl’s dresses. Nady had to travel to Port-au-Prince by motorcycle tap-tap to purchase the fabrics. While in route, they had an accident and Nady was injured. The driver was not injured since he was wearing a helmet. Although Nady owns a helmet, he was unfortunately not wearing it. He hurt his head and neck, but praise the Lord it seems to have healed quickly. We are grateful for Nady’s initiative to get the impossible done for the school, (as you can see in the picture to the left, the bolts of fabric he carried on the back of a motorcycle, through rough terrain all the way out to the school), but we are encouraging him to use more caution in the future. Our prayer team was praying for Nady immediately and Praise the Lord, God answered and healed him!

Little Woodson is now being seen by doctors at a hospital in PAP. We covered the cost for him and his Mom to go through the gang-controlled roads, paying a gang tax, to get to the hospital. They have discovered that his left kidney and pancreas have been affected by the mass they need to remove. This will complicate things but hopefully they can still remove it. Please continue to pray for Woodson, and the doctors!

Because of your generosity, we are able to keep the school going, pay teachers, maintain the buildings, and help with the care for Woodson and now Evline too. These precious children will never know or understand fully the things that you have done financially and through your prayers for them, but our Savior does know. This is the love of Jesus Christ in action and we are blessed to be a part of your sacrificial love to these precious souls. Hallelujah, what a Savior! May His love bless and encourage you through whatever difficulties you may be walking through.

Serving our Savior with you,
Ken and Debbi