“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Since Carol and I were without our children for Christmas for the first time in our lives, we had time to do some “Good Works” which God had prepared in advance for us to do.
On short notice, I was asked to M.C. the Christmas Eve program at church where many talented people sang solos and read poems, etc. It kind of reminded me of New Year’s Eve at Crossing Community Church years ago, except a lot more serious! The service ended with us singing “Silent Night” as we all lit candles and turned off the lights.
Then on Christmas day we decided to go and visit a family we had helped after the earthquake (Venita & Bejano). So Carol made some casseroles and we packed up some small presents and drove up a mountain over rough roads to get to their home. It seemed like they were not home, so we knocked on the door of Venita’s sister-in-law to see if she knew where they were. When we stepped inside the house there was a tiny new-born baby lying on the bed. It turned out that the sister-in-law had just given birth on Dec. 24th to a baby girl! It turned out our friends were not home, so seeing that the sister-in-law was in need, we gave them the food and presents we had brought for Venita. She and her husband and two other young boys rejoiced over this unexpected blessing from God and we did too!
Then since we were close to Bolosse where we used to live and there was no traffic we decided to go and visit Elysee’s family – The Vaillants. It turned out that his whole family was there: Mom, two brothers and his sister with her two young daughters. We had some small presents for the children and enjoyed visiting with the family and praying for Elysee, who is still in prison.
The following day we had to go to the US Embassy to get something notarized and found out that a man we know who has cerebral palsy was in the hospital near there. So we decided to go and try and see him. Unfortunately there was a lot of traffic and dust, and our A/C is broken. But we finally made it. When we arrived, we found out that we could not visit him because it was not visiting hours. So we just asked someone to deliver a gift of money to him and left.
We had been talking with Grace, Joy and Ricky over the holidays, but Carol especially was missing being with our children. I had just seen Ricky and my family from Dec. 12-20th in Miami, but Carol had school that week.
So when Grace called feeling very homesick and needing to move out of her apartment by Jan. 1, Carol started to count up the points on our credit cards to see if she could get to Nashville to see Grace. Well, God made her Christmas wish come true and on Dec. 29th she flew to Nashville to be with Grace for a week.
In the meantime, we had promised to have Venita & Bejano and Francoise & Odens and their 8 children over during the holidays. So from Dec. 29 to Jan 1, I had them come to our house for a sleep over New Years party! As you can imagine I wasn’t lonely! I set up a baby pool, took them to two different playgrounds, a Christmas play and handed out the presents Carol had bought for them.
I was also able to do devotions each day on the 10 commandments and also encourage each couple in their relationship with each other.
The highlight of their visit was Dec. 31st when I had 22 people over for a New Year's Eve lunch.
So thanks to all of you who make it possible for us to be here in Haiti doing the Good Works that Christ has prepared for us to do!
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