Merry Christmas

I am writing this from where I have spent so many Christmases: my parents' farm in central Minnesota. Yes, it is colder here than in Haiti, but we are enjoying the time of rest and celebration here with my family.  It is great to be here. Even now I am hearing the sounds of my nephew playing with his "Uncle Al" and Grandpa. So great to be with family. We are taking this weekend to celebrate the birth of our King all together.

This morning, at brunch, my dad prayed that we would remember why we celebrate and why we give gifts.  We give gifts because God gave us the greatest gift of all...Jesus.

My prayer is that while we are all celebrating this Christmas season--whether we are in Haiti, the US, or anywhere else in the world--we will remember the gift God gave to us in Jesus: salvation and eternal life with Him.  The greatest gift of all... 

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Continued Blessings

This morning, I was up early--as usual these days--and I was thinking about teams. Those teams who choose to give of their time, energy, and funds to serve. To those teams: thank you.

I don't think you realize the impact you have on the lives if those you serve with when you come. You may be serving with members of a community, a local church, a pastor, a child, an orphanage staff member, or a missionary and blessing them in ways you never will know this side of heaven. Communication could have been limited during your service-at least verbal communication-but your smiles, hugs, and passion were a blessing to those you met.

Examples of this wonderful ministry you may not know you have abound and continue to bless me as I sit here now. Like the team that was so focused on prayer that they made a conscious effort to make sure that in every circumstance they would pray. I can still see them in my head praying together. 

Or the team that saw the importance of ministering to the staff of the orphanage and not only the children. 

Or the team that saw there wasn't enough funding to get a good start on an amazing project so they have whatever they had to bless the pastor and church who were starting the project by faith. 

Or the team who followed the Lord's leading and, at the end of their week, gave the pastor the exact amount needed to complete a project and brought tears to his eyes. 

Or the team that comes back year after year and is a huge highlight for the entire community--they look forward to seeing you all year long!

To those teams-all of you: thank you for being a continued blessing to me. Thank you for being a continued blessing to others. Thank you. I pray you will always remember how God chose you to bless others-what a privilege!

True Partnership

The pastor called for offering.  But it wasn't just any offering.  The team was here.  The very first team that has partnered with this church through Praying Pelican Missions.  They were here to partner.  The pastor took that word very seriously.  He called for offering on Sunday.  An offering of cement, sand, time, labor, money, or whatever you could give.  One by one people raised their hands.  One gave a bag of cement.  One gave a load of sand.  Many others showed up to work throughout the week.  Partnership.  The team wasn't there to just do something FOR the church.  They were there to do something WITH the church.  The pastor knew this.  The pastor got it.

When we partner with a church, this is what we hope for:  True partnership.  Almando has been meeting with pastors to see if and when we can send a team to partner with them.  We look at many aspects and explain many things about who we are and how Praying Pelican Missions works.  Almando met with this pastor at our home.  We heard about him and his church because Almando's mom attends there but he didn't know what we did so he didn't approach us to ask for a team--this often happens.  He listened to Almando talk about what we would like to see in a partnership.  This pastor was on board right away.  He heard Almando's heart for ministry and then shared his vision for the church.  Currently there are 100 members--he has his sights on 1,000 for God's glory.  The church has a plan and programs in place for kids, youth, and adults.  They just needed a building.

The team arrived on Thursday last week and has been giving that building project a kick start as well as participating and leading different programs for the kids and the youth this week.  Pastor has been spending time with Terry--the group leader--and shared his heart.  Terry already had a love for Haiti, but caught the vision and the passion of the pastor and has been excited to serve along side him.  The week continues with more concrete, sand, kids, and fellowship.  I'm sure God is smiling down at this little community here in Haiti and watching with joy as His children--who can't even speak the same language--serve Him side by side.  

On the side...

It seems that the opportunities to minister are never lacking as The Lord gives Al and me the privilege to serve Him. Many times those opportunities are not in our plans, but they are in His.

In the past weeks and months I have noticed a theme in my "on the side" opportunities. Young women reaching out to find out how God called, led, and provides for me/us. He is faithful when you obey. I share my story with them and answer their specific questions and pray God would use my words and my story in some way to guide or inspire them.  It's been a blessing to be able to have this ministry on the side.

For Al, he's a builder.  You would see that if you came to our house with tools and a seemingly never ending list of things he has built for our home.  It's wonderful to be so talented in this way.  He has started to build things for other people who need them.  Pastor Samson's wife came to our house, saw a shelving unit we have in our storage room and asked Al if he could come build at their house. He did.  He and a friend of his are starting to look for more opportunities to bless those they come across with things they can build, whether that is shelves or tables.  God has blessed him with such talent--to serve Him.

How beautiful it is to be able to bless others with our story, our time, and our talents.  These are just ministries "on the side".  I love the opportunities that God gives us in our lives.  All the glory is to Him! 

God is so good!

These days I have seen God's faithfulness so evidently in our lives! He is so good to us! I would like to give you a few examples of how I have seen God's hand working:

1. Vehicle. Many of you may already know, but our vehicle situation has been completely taken care of by our great King! He has provided for us by using one of His servants to bless us with a brand new Toyota Hilux.  We received word about this blessing a few weeks before Bityah was born and were overwhelmed and inspired. We wrote a song based on Ephesians 3:20-21. This was more than we could have asked for or imagined.

2. Timing. Bityah was born a week before her due date. Had she been born later we would not have been able to have the time to apply for her US citizenship and passport in time for my sister's wedding. Her passport arrived the day before we were supposed to travel and it was God's perfect timing for us to go to the embassy at the exact time we did as they just received their mail with her passport in it. A huge blessing! Praise The Lord!!!

3. Travels with the little one. I prayed the morning of our flight that Bityah would be a good traveler. She was! Not a single cry during either flight! That day was the smoothest travel day we have had in a very long time! 

God is faithful in big things and in little things! We can see it and hope you see it too! Praise The Lord!

New Little Family

We have been blessed, since my last post, with a darling little girl! She was born the morning of September 16th.  We named her Bityah which means "daughter of YAHWEH" in Hebrew.  The last week has gone by so quickly!  We have been busy learning to be parents to this lovely little girl.  There have been challenges, but we have been blessed to have my mom be with us since Tuesday, the 17th.  Her knowledge and wisdom has been more help than we could have hoped for.  

Now, a week and a few days later, Bityah has had her first vaccinations, I am finally feeling more normal again, and we are getting ready for the arrival of my sister and dad.  We are also heading into the embassy tomorrow to get Bityah's paperwork all completed to make her a US Citizen and get her a passport.  Please be praying that this process goes better than expected as we have plans to travel to the states on October 23rd for my sister's wedding--we know that God can make that happen.  He is faithful and He has brought us this far!

Thank you for all your continued prayers!  I will continue to post as I can in the coming days and weeks.  

Four Words I Love to Hear

It's been a long 20 hours.  I went to bed exhausted last night and not in the best of moods.  I woke up several times during the night sweaty and needing to drink water.  I woke up this morning with a really bad headache. I stayed in bed until 11.  Sleeping and sweating most of the time.  Our batteries in our fans had died during the night.  I finally got up and showered.  Decided to have grilled cheese and chicken soup for lunch as my hubby had fish with rice and beans--he did offer to pick me up something else, but I didn't want anything else.  After lunch, I wrote and prayed.  Then I cleaned the floors, watched the kittens play, did dishes, cleaned the rest of the kitchen and decided to hop online--glad I charged the computer yesterday because in the last 20 hours, we didn't have power.

This time, the four words I love to hear were, "Honey, there is power."  Almando yelled them up the stairs and I joyfully yelled back, "YAY!"  It's funny that such a thing, many take for granted, I rejoice over when we are given this gift of electricity.  It's been dark here for about an hour and our batteries that can power the lights in our house were almost out of juice and we were about to have to start the generator.  A blessing of power came to us tonight.  A blessing.

Typically, we get power every day, but I have never seen it stay on for a full 24 hours.  We have had it for up to 20 hours at a time and for as little as 20 seconds.  It comes and goes--it seems--as it pleases.  It is one thing that the government here wants to have fixed, but it's on a long list, so we have to be patient in the process.  Sometimes, this is really frustrating--like when you want light or have to charge your computer or would like to use your freezer to stock up and keep food for long periods of time--but we learn how to make do and make it work.  Most of the time, we can even keep ice.  :)

One thing I have learned from this is to never take anything for granted.  You really appreciate something when you know it won't last forever.  I really appreciate when I can charge my computer, watch a movie, or have ice water.  I really appreciate when I don't have to use batteries to have a fan on a hot night.  I really love to hear--or say--those four words, "Honey, there is power."