Archive for November, 2010

A donation has been made to pay for Matthew to attend SAT classes.  He is hopeful to take his exam soon and to do well.  This is a first step in him becoming eligible to apply for and attend college here in the US.

Today we sent food to all of our families, as we had received word that they are without food.

Here is what we sent:

1 gallon oil

25 lbs pinto beans

55 lbs rice

50 cans Sardines

24 packages spaghetti

This comes to $114.00 for each family.  This food will last them several weeks.

Thanksgiving was just awesome.  We enjoyed fellowship with family and friends all day.  I cannot help but to still feel this sense of thankfulness today as I begin my day.  It is an attitude I want to keep throughout the year.

This morning we are securing a place to live for Jean and Venise and their family.  To us it is very simple, a 2 room with bathroom apartment for 11 people.  To them it is a home out of the tent city they have been living in.  As of last week they were asked to leave because 2 people on the property got Cholera and the Church that owns the property became concerned.  We were able to secure this place for a year for $1012.65.  I know the number is funny and I usually round off, but it is all in the conversion.  In Haitian speak the apartment costs 5000 Haitian dollars.  I write this to say that I am learning there are places out there for people to rent, however very few Haitians can afford 5000 Haitian dollars.  This is about 3-4 years wages in Haitian terms.  Our families are very blessed to have Homebound Missions assisting them in this way.  They are thankful and I am thankful.

Yesterday Obenson e-mailed to ask for food.  I will do that also.

Please pray with us concerning our families as we move forward and try to assist them in building self sustaining work for their families.  This is our most difficult challenge, but also our most worthwhile.  And please, if you have ideas to offer we would love to hear from you.  Tyler, myself and our Board would love to hear your thoughts as you have prayed.

At our house, Thanksgiving is our big (only) holiday.  It is a day that we make all about Him and others; a day to say thank you and show gratitude.  This year we chose Psalms 100:4 as our theme for the day.  We have a chalk board in the dining room and so we dressed it up with our verse.

Tomorrow we will have a house full of family members from early in the morning until in the evening.  We will have a chance to tell our grown children along with Magnalie how much we love them and how thankful we are that God blessed us with them.  This will be our first year with our new grand baby, Nathalee.  We will be thanking the Lord for her precious life.  Then there are two more children soon to come and we will be thinking of them all day, and thanking God that He allowed us the gift of being their parents.

But tonight, we are thinking about all of you who read this blog and the Homebound Missions News and who sacrifice to walk along side us in the work that HM’s does in Haiti and around the world.  Thank you.  We could not do what we have been able to do without you.  Thank you for the financial assistance, clothing, medical supplies, shoes, fabric, gifts for the sewing school, gifts for the new moms, and everything else.  Tonight we thank God that He blessed Homebound Missions, Tyler and I with you.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.  Make it all about Him.  He loves that you know.

Tyler and I have been so blessed by the recent turn of events with our families that we want to share with you what is going on.  This is so special to us because this is what we have prayed for concerning our families and to see it in action is just so awesome.

On Monday morning I met with Matthew on the computer.  This is a regular event that allows us to communicate with all of our families.  Matthew has been doing an awesome job, but it was this week that I learned he is stepping out and doing his work for Homebound Missions, ” as unto the Lord”.  Without hesitation he is helping our families in any way he can.  He is a volunteer just like the rest of us and he has taken to heart the job before him.

Here is the story in a nutshell.  The players are Matthew, Job, and Obenson.  As you know, HM’s paid the rent for Obenson to find a place to live.  Without delay we asked him to go out looking for work.  We recently learned that he has his license.  Job had mentioned to us, that if he could get his license (it was lost in his house during the earthquake), that he knew where he could get a job.  Unable to send Job the money needed to get his license again, we asked if he wouldn’t be willing to give that information to Obenson.  He gladly did.  Obenson went to apply and was told that he needed a resume, so he called Matthew to tell him.  Matthew met with him at the cyber cafe and helped him to write out a resume and Obenson returned to apply for the job.

Our families are going out of their way to help each other.  You do not know how big this is when you are trapped in survival mode.  I honestly had to hold back from crying I was so touched by each of their efforts for the other.  We hope this will grow so that our families are always watching out for each other.

Thank you Lord!  Thank you for your Son, your provision, loving care, and your Holy Spirit that draws us together as one family.

Persecution of Christians is becoming so commonplace that we now hear about it everyday in the news.  I no longer have to visit the sites of organizations who assist the persecuted; I simply read the news.  The latest story, from Pakistan involves a young mother.  Read the story at http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/18/pakistan.blasphemy/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn.

Now Muslims want special protection from the UN against persecution.  Hmmm, aren’t they the ones doing the persecuting?  Check out Christian Freedom International and sign their petition to stop this law from being enacted.  Your Christian brother’s and sister’s very lives are on the line.

Talk to your children about persecution and what Christians around the world suffer for Christ.  Pray together as a family for the specific Christian(s) being persecuted.  Remember them as if in prison with them Hebrews 13:3.

Here is an interesting update on Cholera. If you have wondered what the Haitian people are thinking, this will give you some insight.  Please continue to pray for the Haitian people.

Home Sweet Home

Over the last couple of days I have spent several hours with Matthew and his family, by way of computer and the cyber cafe, discussing the best way possible to assist them.  They are our largest family and in need of the most resources.  I have been very encouraged by our meetings and have learned many things about them that I did not know before.

First, I learned that the Dad, Previlus has his license.  He even had Matthew scan it and send it to me.  This is important because we did not know he had any job skills.  A license can be very valuable in Haiti if you own your own vehicle.  Though he does not, it leaves it open for consideration.  Previlus would love to have his own vehicle.  He is specifically wanting a van and would like to drive children to school and back home.  I do not yet know what the cost for a van would be, or if we can even consider this at this time.

I also talked to Venise about selling clothes.  She too offered me some very valuable information.  First, that she enjoyed selling clothes and secondly what items sold the best.  She told me that shoes and sneakers sold the best and that she could make $140 H dollars ($20.00 US) on them.  Pants sold for $40.00 H ($5.00 US).  She also mentioned that clothing for young people and children sold best.

We are trying to create a new life plan for Previlus, Venise, and their family.  They appear to be eager to work hard for themselves as well.

You might know that after the earthquake we were sending clothes to Venise to sell.   They had moved to Ouananinthe, a town near Cap Haitien and we Florida Coastal Airlines to ship there.  A problem arose with a shipment that we sent in July and they still have not received it.  Because we are unable to contact anyone at the airlines we have 100 pounds of clothes missing.  It has stopped our shipments and we are trying to create a way for getting clothing to them, without the use of a shipping company.  The clothing idea is perfect in so many ways.  It uses clothing we normally don’t collect and allows us to use it versus giving it to Salvation Army.  It is free and thus cost effective to get.  However, shipping as always is the nightmare.  To really make this work we need to figure out how to motivate people to take them into Haiti for us.

The Jean Previlus family consists of:  Previlus, Venise, Matthew, Vilia, Vilian, Sonel, Smith, Wilbert, David, Esterline, & Nadjea.  Most of the children are not in school and the family is presently living in a tent.  We have raised $500.00 so far to rent an apartment for them.  We will need about 1100.00 to rent  2 rooms with a bathroom for a year.  This will house everyone except Matthew who rents a room else where.

Please pray for the Previlus family as they move forward.  Even with both parents working it will take assistance to get and keep all their children is school, fed, and housed.  We hope to not only give them profitable work to do, but also teach them how to save money so that they can make rent payments and school tuition payments in the future.

On Monday, I met with Matthew for a computer conference.  I have learned Mimose stopped going to sewing school in April.  Sadly, she didn’t tell us.  Having Mimose accepted into sewing school was a gift from Heartline as a way of showing their appreciation for Homebound Missions.  They took her immediately without question.  I do not know of anything else for Mimose.  There is no other program that I know of that helps woman achieve what Heartline’s program does.  Please lift Mimose up in your prayers.

Just as we were finishing up, Job called saying he needed to talk to me.  We waited for him to arrive and he had a chance to speak to me.  His home was given to him.  It is a very tiny box of a room.  I hadn’t realized that some of the walls are mere blankets and sheets.  It seems that thieves are going around at night with machetes and knives and they slice through the blankets/sheets and steel what is inside.  Job says he is afraid and doesn’t sleep at night.  He would like funds to buy wood or metal to secure his house.  He estimates that it will cost $270.00.  If anyone feels so led to help with this need we will send him the money right away.  For now, we can only add it to the list of needs that we are trying to meet.

Presently we are raising the funds needed to get our last family out of a tent city and into something solid.  We have about half the funds needed.  This will provide housing for 11 people, the Jean and Venise Previlus family.  This need will cost approximately $1000. for a years rent.  It will provide at most 2 rooms and a bathroom of sorts.

We thank you for your prayers and support  for all of our families.

So many people have asked me to explain what is going on in Haiti.  The hurricane?  What about the tent cities?  What are they going to do about the cholera?  How do you even begin to explain how terribly difficult these situations are to the Haitian people.  I have started to cringe when I hear about how resilient the Haitian people are.  People say this as though the Haitian people are somehow gifted with torment and they are out there saying, “Bring it on.”

The Haitian people are resilient by a force of hand.  They are as resilient as the N Korean people who are put in death camps at the hands of their government.  They are as resilient as the millions of others who suffer poverty, government tyranny, and natural disasters.  They all suffer and yet each morning wake up and have to do it all again.

For many in Haiti they cling to the hope that is in Christ.  I am always amazed at how they worship and praise God though everything around them is bleak.  Even with hurricane Tomas I read a news article of a Haitian gentleman who was sitting along the road with his Bible awaiting it’s arrival.  Resilient isn’t maybe the word I would use for the Haitian people.  I think of words like courageous, faithful, persevering, and maybe these have given them resilience.

Several weeks ago we were able to get Obenson’s family into an apartment of sorts.  We mentioned the owner of the land he was on has evicted everyone.  Please read the following news story as it answers so many questions about the hurricane, Cholera, and the tent cities, so you can see for yourself the terrible situation that Haitian’s now find themselves in.  Please talk to your family about it over the dinner table and pray as a family for the families in Haiti.  Feel their burden as we are instructed to do in the Bible, as if it were us who were suffering.

Here is the news article.