Carol and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary on April 13th by going away for a weekend at the beach (one of the nice things about living in Haiti!). On our rings, we have the verse 1 Jn 4:19 "We love because he first loved us." Without Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and his forgiveness of our sins, we would not have been able to forgive each other and stay together all these years!
Love, or the lack of it, can make a huge difference in a child's life: For a few years now we have been paying school fees for a 14 year old boy in our neighborhood named Davidson. We already knew that is Father had died many years ago. Then in the past month his Mother died suddenly of a fever leaving him and his 3 brothers as orphans. After his mother died, we found out that he has a little brother (same mother, different father) who is 3 years old who does not talk normally. So I took him to visit a preschool that specializes in developmentally delayed children. Thankfully, the director said that she does not feel he is autistic. She believes he simply has not received the love, attention and stimulation that he should have as a baby. She suggested that he be put into a kindergarten situation with a regular schedule and regular stimulation with other children, so we will look into this after the Easter holiday. Imagine that, a Mother's love has such an impact on a child's intellectual and emotional state that it allows the child to develop normally and reach his potential. Without it, the child does not develop normally! Thank God that God loves us all the time, and in James 1 verse 27 it says: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
Nature awaits the return of the King of Heaven and earth:
A very emaciated Mom was fighting off her puppies when they tried to nurse. She had no milk for them, and so what should have been a beautiful time of mother and puppies was disappointing for both. Later I saw several Puppies who were fighting each other over a piece of fruit. Poverty affects everything on the food chain…
Coral reefs in Haiti:
80% of Coral reefs in the Caribbean in the past 50 years have died off because of Bleaching (Time p.43, April 14, 2014) Other causes: Over-fishing, Pollution, Fertilizers, Lionfish.
“At least a quarter of the world’s corals have been lost over the past 25 years.”
“Corals don’t like it when the water around them suddenly heats up, which can trigger what’s know as bleaching. The coral organism reacts by ejecting the zooxanthelia algae living inside its tissues, which robs the coral of both its color and its source of food. While bleaching doesn’t necessarily kill the coral outright, it leaves it extremely vulnerable to other stresses.” P.44
I love to go snorkeling around the many coral reefs in Haiti, but as you can see they are quickly being killed off.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Brain_coral.jpg
Romans 8:22 says: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time"
Maranatha - Come Lord Jesus!
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