Dear friends and family,
We have not written you since the turn of the New Year. We pray God’s blessing on your lives and all that you are involved in to help usher in the Kingdom of God in 2008. What a challenge we all have before us!
Steve, Asia, Micah and I and our friend, Art Wiser, spent a wonderful Christmas in Haiti and then shortly afterwards our family left for two weeks in the US. We made a short visit with Nancy’s folks at Penney Farms, FL, then flew up to Philadelphia, PA, for our American Baptist International Ministries commissioning service in Steve’s folks church, Lower Providence Baptist Church. This service was a true blessing for us as we felt inspired, blessed and challenged once again to be a part of the Body of the Christ empowering us through the Holy Spirit to do the work God has set before us. Reid Trulson challenged us to seek out those the world might be overlooking or discarding as the very ones God may be especially using to bring about His Kingdom here on earth. We appreciated so many inspiring words spoken, and the hymns that were sung, the trumpet introduction by our dear friend from Haiti, Grace Chapman, and our long-time friend, Michael Heneise’s solo were all truly beautiful. Members of our Missionary Partnership Team, who could make the trip, were an integral part of the commissioning service. Friends and members of the Royersford and Abington Baptist Churches also participated and attended and many of our family were there to support us. This meant so much to us. I wish you all could have been there! This service of commissioning we felt to be part of God plan’s as he seeks to reconcile the pain and divisions of our past histories.
After attending our CBF Transformational Development Team meetings in Homestead, FL, and having a delayed Christmas with Kirsti and Lee and grandkids, Skyah and Eily June, who drove down from North Carolina, as well as the Beavers at Penney Retirement Community, we flew back to Haiti on January 10th. Accompanying us on the flight back was our good friend, Dr. Arch Woodard from North Carolina, volunteering in Haiti for two weeks.
The past three weeks since our return have been busy with visiting the rural clinics, attending meetings, and organizing the medical supplies that have come in. In addition, I have been helping plan 30 minute health talks to be given each morning to the patients and their family members who come to the Ebenezer clinic following the brief worship service and prayer that starts each clinic day. These talks will be given by a health care worker to cover subjects such as hygiene, malnutrition, malaria, typhoid, HIV –Aids prevention, and parasites. Perhaps the patients are children or people who are too ill to learn or listen, but there are always those who have accompanied the sick who can benefit from these health talks. There is much misinformation, superstition and fear that people bring with them when they come for help. This is a chance for the health-care workers to use this opportunity to educate during that often long wait to be consulted. We hope to use visual aids to help clarify the talks.
In our next letter we want to share some of the patient’s stories with you that move and inspire us that we encounter each day here in Haiti. The little two-year-old boy, Emerson, with congenital heart disease, has now been sponsored by the Gift of Life organization in Cleveland, OH, and we all are working on a possible end of March surgical evaluation for him in Cleveland, God willing. Please continue to pray for him and all and for the suffering ones in Haiti. Thank you for your support for us. We want to encourage those of you who are members of CBF or ABC churches to remember to give generously to the Global Mission Offering or the World Fellowship Offering which supports so many wonderful ministries that God is doing in our world.
In Christ’s love,
Nancy and Steve