Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

Last week we had a team from Walnut Memorial Baptist in Kentucky come to work with our school kids and sponsorship kids. Becky Ivy, the team leader, is our sponsorship coordinator. It was her vision that started the program and she handles all the details stateside for that program. Several on her team got the vision to bring new shoes to our 210 sponsorship kids. Then it mushroomed to include all the school kids, and then the 62 old people in our Gran Moun feeding program. In the end, they brought over 500 pairs of new tennis shoes to give out!!! Everyone of our school kids, everyone of our sponsorship kids, and every Gran Moun received a new pair of shoes along with some other needy people. We know that for some of these, this was the first pair of new shoes they had ever received.

Our old people walk up the dirt road every Monday morning to our property to receive their allotment of food for the week. Team members discussed washing their feet before giving them the new shoes and all wanted to do that. The smiles of the old people as their feet were washed and then fitted for a new pair of tennis shoes was priceless. What a joy to be part of a team that were literally being the hands and feet of Jesus to these elderly and indigent people.





It was wonderful to hear the laughter and squeals of delight from the preschoolers as they all got their shoes. They pranced around in them and wanted to leave them on the rest of the morning. The older kids were also excited, but many chose not to wear their brand new pair, but keep their old ones on and save the new pair for later. The new pair quickly made its way to their backpacks for safe keeping.



We are so thankful for all the hands and the hard work put out by Walnut Memorial and the many other teams that come along side us to help with projects and minister. We could not do it without them!

Jensky

This is Jensky now. He is almost healed. He will still need bandages to keep from developing bands and lots of lotion for his healing skin and good nutrition. He keeps gaining weight and is much more active. Mom says he is so mobile now, he is getting in trouble! He is not walking yet, but should be shortly. He is now 16 months old and we are so thankful he is doing so well! He is one of the success stories in that his parents did all we asked of them, brought him every time we gave them an appointment and understood the importance of keeping his dressings on. We are grateful that God placed us here to care for him.


Today begins a busy six weeks as we host 4 teams, 3 interns, and a new Global couple arriving tomorrow to live here and minister with us. We are excited to have Glen and Linda Erickson join us. They just recently retired from their jobs in the US. Glen is a diesel mechanic, truck driver, and farmer and Linda has been a nurse for 30 years. We look forward to working together. Pray for them as they transition to life in Haiti.

Jensky

This is Jensky now. He is almost healed. He will still need bandages to keep from developing bands and lots of lotion for his healing skin and good nutrition. He keeps gaining weight and is much more active. Mom says he is so mobile now, he is getting in trouble! He is not walking yet, but should be shortly. He is now 16 months old and we are so thankful he is doing so well! He is one of the success stories in that his parents did all we asked of them, brought him every time we gave them an appointment and understood the importance of keeping his dressings on. We are grateful that God placed us here to care for him.


Today begins a busy six weeks as we host 4 teams, 3 interns, and a new Global couple arriving tomorrow to live here and minister with us. We are excited to have Glen and Linda Erickson join us. They just recently retired from their jobs in the US. Glen is a diesel mechanic, truck driver, and farmer and Linda has been a nurse for 30 years. We look forward to working together. Pray for them as they transition to life in Haiti.

Last week, we had the privilege of having a Christian family musical group, The Taubles, with us for an afternoon. They traveled around the Port-Au-Prince area teaching lessons in stringed instruments and giving concerts. We do not have any stringed instruments in Titanyen, so we invited several schools along with our own school to come learn about the instruments and hear them sing and play. We had over 500 students show up (more than we thought would come), and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. They especially seemed to like the cello and the low notes it could play. It was a special afternoon for all of us.


We have gotten our children's puppet ministry back up and running now for the last several Saturdays and that has been great. We had to find some new men to be involved and that took some searching. The ones who had done it before the quake have gotten too busy with working for the relief organizations we have with us. We need to work with them some more on storytelling with the puppets, but it's off to a good start. The childrens' ministry we work with in Titanyen continued on through everything and it has grown to about 70-80 kids every Saturday morning.


Jensky, our little burned baby is doing very well. He is almost healed and we are so grateful for everyones' prayers on his behalf. We will get a picture of him this week and post it for you.


This is Carnival time and Madi Gras is tomorrow. Please pray for this country as this is a great time of voodoo celebrations leading up to Easter and spiritual warfare can be intense and oppressive. Pray for us as we minister in this season. Chris and Josh went up the mountain last night with some our men from church to show the Passion. We will be showing that film and the Jesus film often in the next 6 weeks.  Our church in Titanyen will be going out on missions to pray for villages and do evangelization.  In th middle of this, we have final elections for President in Haiti on March 20th and that may lead to demonstrations and possible violence. Please pray for the elections and safety of everyone.