The big Surprise!

Jim and Bob, from Bible Fellowship brought us a big surprise...what Ricky has been dreaming of...an electric guitar!

Right away, he tried playing with Joy on her acoustic. Joy and Richard had to try it too.

Now he's practicing a song to do with the praise band for our school chapel next week. He's a beginner, but he might be able to do that because God has given him a real talent for music.

We are so thankful to Bible Fellowship and especially Jim Compton and Bob Spicer.

Help for Hurricane Victims

Last week I posted about helping the hurricane victims and my director pointed out in a comment that our own mission, CrossWorld, has a relief project for Haiti. They have already disbursed $17,000 to provide aid and will continue to collect and distribute funds. If you would like to help with that, please check out http://www.crossworld.org/.

(I thought that once I "published" the comment, people would see it, but you actually have to click where it says "comment" below my post, so I thought another post would be a good idea.

An encouraging visit from members of Bible Fellowship

We were very encouraged by a visit from Jim Compton and Bob Spicer of Bible Fellowship Church this past weekend. They both left their jobs and their families for 5 days to come and learn more about our work here and plan a future visit from a larger team from Bible Fellowship.

We could not travel to central Haiti as we had hoped to because the bridge connecting the north of Haiti to the south was destroyed by the hurricanes and has not yet been rebuilt.

So we showed them around Port-au-Prince and visited Ft. Jacques where we held a soccer tournament this summer.

On Saturday morning we had a meeting with the Executive Committee of AIS Haiti and invited one of our leaders from Verettes to come and explain the needs of one of the schools there. We are thinking this is where we will bring a team early in 2009.

While they were hear they helped us fix up the house of one of our church members that got flooded from the hurricanes. They even donated enough money to put a new roof on it so that they don't get soaked from the next storm.

Of course we talked a lot about our plans for the year and how we hope God will use us. The biggest projects we have in the next 12 months revolve around training:

Training of young entrepreneurs in how to write a business plan, get financing and start a small business with Young Americas Business Trust - Haiti (YABT-Haiti) for short.(Oct. 15-25, 2008)

TREC 2008-2009 with Ambassadors in Sport: This will train our Haitian leaders how to train other Haitians in Sports Ministry. (Dec. 26, 2008 to Jan 4, 2009

AIS Haiti leadership Training: During this training the Haitian leaders we trained in TREC will train other Haitians in how to start their own sports ministries in their schools and churches.

We were overwhelmed by their interest and desire to help and encourage us in our ministry and look forward to when the entire team from Bible Fellowship will come alongside us for a week of ministry in 2009.

Anybody thinkin "How can I help Haiti?"

If you're seeing sad pictures of the aftermath of the recent 4 hurricanes that hit Haiti and wonderin how you can help, there are several ways.

1. Of course, pray. Please. There are neat stories going around of how God is providing for victims of these hurricanes. Like 27 orphns and orphanage workers whose orphange and school were washed away. I talked to Sherry, a missionary teacher (but not at QCS) yesterday at Quisqueya Chapel and she breifly mentioned how she would be receiving these 27 that afternoon even though she never expected to have an orphanage...God provided the building and bit by bit God is providing what these children need.

2. Get online or call Christian missions and ask if you can serve in Haiti helping with the relief efforts.

3. if you go to wwww.unjobs.org you can find jobs that are available with organization related to the UN who are organizing and carrying out relief. Most of the ones listed there are high level jobs, but it may be worth checking out if you are availble for an assignment of 3 months, 6 months or longer.

4. There are a lot of organizations collecting money to help the victims.

Flooding problems

The boy quoted in this article is in one of my French classes.

Posted on Mon, Sep. 08, 2008
Haitian family recalls `darkest night'
BY JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA

As the wind howled and rain tore through the Haitian village of
Messailler, Charles Amicy huddled on a dark staircase with his family.

Amicy and his wife tried to console the group of six children, three
of them his own. As they wept, he encouraged them to pray.

As the floodwaters raged around their two-story home, they sang
religious songs to help block out the screams of neighbors.

''It was the darkest night of my life,'' said Amicy, 48, a
Presbyterian pastor, recalling Hurricane Ike's wrath early Sunday
morning.
'People were crying, `Save me. Save me.' There was nothing I could do.''
The family, three orphans living with them and a maid, clung together
for hours as water crept up the walls of their home.
They survived, but so many others in Messailler and the nearby poor
oceanside town of Cabaret -- grandmothers, pregnant women, babies --
weren't spared.
Bodies of the dead were scattered on the grounds of Amicy's five-acre
compound, a former sugar cane plantation turned religious retreat
where local children learn, orphans feel loved and the faithful flock
to church.
Amicy's 10-year-old son, Allan, saw several corpses that had been
dumped by the river onto the grounds of the compound.
''This has had a big impact on his life,'' said Amicy, who lives in
Port-au-Prince during the week and at the compound on weekends. ``He
cries. He doesn't want to sleep alone.''
The horror began at 2 a.m. Sunday.
Amicy was awake, praying in his second-floor bedroom, when his
25-year-old nephew ran in, saying he heard a ``big noise.''
Amicy hurried downstairs and toward the front door to peek outside. As
he reached for the doorknob, he felt water on his feet, coming through
the cracks of the door.
Then, the door collapsed. Water came rushing.
Amicy ran toward the first-floor bedroom where his three children,
three orphans and a maid were asleep.
He ordered them all upstairs.
The children -- ages 3 to 18 -- were crying.
At daylight, Amicy walked outside.
What he saw, he will never forget.
''Houses washed away. There are no more walls. Everything is
flattened,'' he said.
``Everywhere you look, devastation.''
Toilets were flushed down the river, tires shred to pieces, tables floated away.
Also stolen by Ike: More than $300,000 in prescription drugs from the
compound's pharmacy and five vehicles used by the ministry, including
a school bus, a dump truck and a van.
After assessing the damage and handing out spaghetti to hungry storm
victims, Amicy knew he had to somehow get his family back to safety in
Port-au-Prince.
But phone lines were dead and cellphone service spotty.
So they started walking.
Barefoot, with only the clothes on their backs, Amicy led his family
up the hills, away from the water, on a four-mile walk to a main road.
There, they were picked up and driven to the city.
Even after all the devastation and heartache among Haitians, Amicy's
spirit remains unfaltering.
''We will rebuild,'' he said. ``I don't know how, but I know that God
will help us.''


(c) 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights
Reserved.http://www.miamiherald.com

Richard's home

Richard is home safe. We'll give an update of anything we hear about the woman's condition.

Pray right now if you see this tonight

It's 8:15 pm our time Tuesday night (9:15 in Pennsylvania). If you happen to click on this tonight, please pray for a woman in our neighborhood that Richard just took to the hospital, along with some of her family members and Ecdes, our helper. All I know is that she felt like she might be having a heart attack. Please pray for God's will, God's help, comfort & provision (they didn't have any money) and safety & wisdom for Richard.

Pray for flood victims

Please continue to pray for the flood victims of hurricanes Hanna and Ike. We keep hearing stories of the extent of the damage and it is extreme. I've read estimates of displacd people from 82,000, to 150,000 and more. Many of these are children.

Especially pray for the 18 refugees from an orphanage in Gonaives that our school is helping. There are 12 very young children & 6 workers. They spent 5 days the roof of their building which was flooded up to the second floor and were rescued by boat, but their food had run out after the second day. A Haitian pastor brought them down here and found a guesthouse where they could stay in the neighborhood of our school. The staff of our school has been providing food, clothing and even some fun playing on our soccer field.

You tube on situation in Gonaives

Watch this youtube on the situation in Gonaives (a city hit hard by hurricanes and the same one that had a huge flood in 2004)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sygFl7dwO48

If the link doesn't work, go to www.youtube.com and search for this:

Haiti suffers floods as Hurricane Ike hits Caribbean - 07 Sep 08

Photos of Hurricane Hannah's damage to Bolosse campus

These are some pictures of the hurricane's damage to the Bolosse campus. One of the pictures is of a school classroom with no roof - and school is supposed to start in 3 days!

Others are of our co-workers the McMartin's house. A tree fill just alongside it and would have destroyed the house if it had fallen any other way. Just one branch hit a corner of the house and put a hole in the roof.


I went over to the Bolosse campus today to encourage people, pray with
them and lend a hand. I took 50 pastries with me and some cold water, a
camera and a desire to encourage people spiritually.

The first place I went was the Christian school. The roof of 2 large
classrooms was completely blown off and there were other places where
trees had fallen on buildings.
We encouraged those cleaning up and working by giving them pastries.

Next stop was the house of our fellow Crossworld missionaries Bruce and
Cindy McMartin. A huge tree fell just next to their house wiping out
their side porch and very nearly destroying their whole house. As it
was a branch came crashing through the roof of their guest bedroom.
Naturally they stayed up all night, afraid of what else might happen.

Another missionary friend, David Schmid dislocated his shoulder when he
was avoiding a falling branch. He spent the night in the hospital and
was released today.

Then I helped Elysee Vaillant's family buy some rope to hold down their
roof from the wind and went into the neighborhood around the campus to
see the damage. In another miraculous event, a tree that was between 3
houses fell in the only open spot possible. If it had fallen any other
way the house of our cook, Margaret, would have been destroyed. Many
houses had lost their roofs and some collapsed entirely. The public
school at the top of the hill lost all of the roofs on all of the
buildings - and school is suppossed to open this Monday!!

Finally, I went to see the apartment our whole family used to live in
when we first got to Haiti. Ricky and the girl's old room had the roof
entirely blown off. I spend the afternoon moving the bedding and
furniture to a part of the apartment that still had a roof so it
wouldn't get ruined.

And the rain has not stopped - with 2 more storms possibly on the way.
Please pray for the victims of these storms and for us as we seek to
encourage them materially and spiritually!