The blessings of God and New Adventures

 

Philippians 4:4-6 – “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

 

These verses are very applicable to us these days. We are truly rejoicing in all God’s goodness. God has been abundantly supplying our every need according to His riches in glory.

--He has supplied the funds to pay our elementary school teachers.

--He has enabled us to put a roof on our multi-purpose room.

--God has met our Bible school budget and supplied our personal needs.

--Also, we’ve made some improvements on our studio apartment in Jacmel, Haiti. We were just there last week relaxing with some very good friends.

 

We rejoice in that despite the many challenges the country is facing. New Life Bible College is finishing out the year thanks to the perseverance of teachers, students, and God’s favor upon us. We should have had graduation on May 29th, but for various reasons, have postponed it until September. We will be holding summer classes for allow some students to earn required credits before beginning the new school year in September. We had a special, joyous end of the year party for all the students.

Our 3 elementary schools will continue through June, and are doing well. We thank God for wonderful, Godly teachers who are raising up a new generation for Haiti.

 

We are busying wrapping things up here and preparing to go to the States for the month of June. We will visit 1 church, but this will mostly be a time of refreshing and visiting family. The past 18 months have been very difficult for us in many ways. We look for to coming back to Haiti refueled and with fresh vision for the years to come.

 

Please pray with us for the following things:

1) Political stability as Haiti is working to amend its constitution, and preparing for elections this fall.

2) Protection for us as there is continued daily unrest, violence and kidnappings.

3) Provision, protection, health, and anointing for all 7 of our New Life Mission pastors and their leadership.

4) Provision for a new 14-foot bed truck to replace the 11 year old one that we sold. (Need $23,000) This is greatly needed as we use it to transport food for 3,500 children in our nutrition program. This allows all the elementary students to receive a free daily lunch. It is also used in various other ways in our mission work

Darkness over the Land

 We want to thank each of you who pray for us.  We want you to know that Roger is doing much better physically and mentally, but still needs your prayers.  We are still in a personal spiritual battle which is a reflection of a greater battle over this nation. Haiti has always been a very dark place spiritually, but it has become a much darker place, maybe the darkest I have seen in the past 35 years of ministry here. Satan is using political figures, some Haitian elites, many heavily armed gangs, and the masses to wreak havoc in the nation. As you can imagine this has taken its toll on everyone who lives here, especially those who live in Port-Au-Prince where it is worst. 

 hese verses from 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 seem to sum things up pretty well. Please read them as if they are coming from our hearts to yours.

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.  He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

We want to thank all those who gave special gifts to help us cover the salaries of our elementary school teachers and their staff. It was a tremendous help, but we will again fall short this month (March) to cover the salaries as result of a drastic change in the exchange rate on the US dollars. We need an extra $2000 monthly to cover this short fall. If we are unable to meet this goal, we will only be able to pay the teachers half salaries for the rest of the school year, which ends in June. This would be very sad because their families are very dependent on it. Yet, we believe God is able to touch the right people’s hearts to enable us to meet this budget. God has never failed us in this, and we do not expect Him to fail us now.

The Bible College is doing well despite the total chaos in the country and wrecked economy. Since the beginning of the school year we’ve only had to close the school for 3 days due to the inability of students being able to travel to school. This is no small miracle. Yet, there are many days where attendance is very low because of violence, roads being blocked, and threat of kidnapping, which is very high at the moment. We are proud of our Bible college students who, by faith and trust in God’s ability to protect them, come despite the difficulties they encounter (road blocks which often involve burning tires across the road), and a chance of physical harm coming to them.

We ask you to pray for the following things.
1) Provision for the 3 elementary schools.
2) Protection for us and all the Haitian people we love.
3) Peace to reign in Haiti, in our hearts and in the hearts of the people.
4) Power of God to be displayed.