Haiti Missions Update

Thank you so much for your prayers and your encouragement!

I don't have internet connection yet at the missions base where I am
staying, so this will have just be short update. The team from my
church left this morning, and I am so thankful for the week of VBS
ministry at various churches and schools and orphanages. I'm also
thankful for the people I was able to connect with this week, and I
want to share their prayer requests with you.

- Aristhene is a 20 year old high school student who will graduate
soon. He has been studying the Bible in French and asked me for an
English Bible! He is eager to learn more about God, about the Word,
and to grow in faith. I wrote down the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's
Creed for him in English, and his eyes lit up as we talked about their
meanings. His dream is to become a doctor. Please pray for Aristhene!

- Jacques is a youth leader at a church/school in Acobo. He is a young
man with incredible vision and faith. He said he is so thankful for
the people coming into Haiti to share the love of Jesus and to help
and serve the people here, but he also said that more than money or
anything else, Haiti needs our prayers! Jacques is certain of his
calling to preach the gospel, and he hopes to continue to lead people
in his village to Christ as well as to preach the gospel in all of
Haiti and even abroad. When I asked him what his prayer request was,
he said that he just wants Jesus to hold him and keep him close. I was
so challenged and inspired by his love for Jesus.

- Paul is a 16 year old high school student who attends the school
where Jacques teaches. He has a beat up guitar with rusted strings
that another mission team left some time ago. I taught him how to play
"Lord I Lift Your Name on High," and he sat in his seat for over an
hour learning to play and sing the song. I joked with him and said he
can be a rock star, and he said, "A rock star for Jesus!" He said he
is thinking about becoming a pastor.

- Gabriel was our interpreter for the week. We were all so blessed by
his faitfulness and the gifting he had in interpreting and ministry.
We prayed on our last day with him about his calling to preach and
teach the gospel. He said he is struggling to find God's vision and
direction, but he will continue to pray about his calling to ministry.

This "short" update is turning out much longer than I had planned, but
I am so excited to share with you about these individuals! It's been
overwhelming at times to process all the brokenness and poverty I see
here, but I see hope here. I see hope in these young men who love
Jesus and want to live their lives loving Him and serving His people
here as doctors, teachers, ministers. Please pray for them!

I am doing well - please pray that God would increase my ability to
communicate and translate as i work with the missionaries, pastors,
and leaders of other churches and organizations. Please pray for
intimacy with Jesus and a prayerful and worshipful heart in everything
that I do here. Please also ask the Lord for spiritual protection and
good health.

Thank you so much again for your prayers.

I hope to update you again soon with more prayers and praises and also
pictures of some of what I am seeing and experiencing here.

"They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them
singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for
their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make
an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to
them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn
away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly
plant them in this land with all my heart and soul." Jeremiah 32:38-41

-sera