Dear friends, Monday night

I trust you all had a great Easter weekend, as the basis of our faith was celebrated all over the world. We had a great weekend, here is an update on the going on's:

Friendly visit: We want to thank the Hassey family from Ohio for coming and doing ministry with us for the past week. Thank you Kevin, Roseann and your 3 wonderful kids, Meg, Kate and Steve.

The word Meg in Creole means skinny so Meg got called skinny all week, which she didn't mind. Claudy thought Kate's name was Cake so she was called Cake all week. Thank you folks for coming, and giving and leaving..........part of your heart behind.

2 and 2: One of the first things our Pastor Jackie told me when I met him 3 years ago was that God promised him 2 boys and 2 girls when he was married. At the time Pastor and his wife had 2 boys and 1 girl. Well, yesterday, Easter Sunday morning Eve Rose Delice gave birth to a baby girl, just like God said. Pastor was called midway through church Saturday night to be with his wife. I am going in the morning to visit the baby, and get the name. I suggested naming her Esther on Easter but we shall see.

Birthday Boys: Tomorrow night we celebrate two birthday's here, Dearson, whose birthday is Tuesday and Manel who has a birthday Wednesday.

English anyone: Last Thursday was our first English class at Merjay. It was so exciting to pull up and see over 50 people, men and women, all dressed up, from this very poor village, all walking to English class. Then to stand before this class of 51 people sharing the word of God, using English as a tool was incredible. I wish you could have seen the spark in their eyes, the hope on their face. They found out that this class is much more than about learning English, it is about eternity. I can't wait for this week. Pray will ya for this new ministry?

Elections: Next Sunday Haiti has it's elections minus the candidates of the largest political party, the Lavalas party. The government of Haiti voted to not let this party of our former president Aristide run for office and they are hot. When they are hot, things get hot so please pray for this weekend and the possibilities of what could happen.

Church: This past week at church, was a real challenge for me. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Case in point;

*The truck that brings people from Pastor Jackie's village broke down, we had to drive and get these folks.

*Our sound system man didn't show up, the sound was off kilter all night and way too loud.

*Pastor left quickly to be with his wife having her baby, with me shoving him out the door.

*The oil was not checked by our generator man before church and half way through, the generator stopped. Luckily it has a system to protect it so after oil was put in, we continued church with power.

*A few other odds and ends made it a very challenging night, but, we survived.

God cares he's alive: 5 years ago one of my ministry staff came to me and said he had his nephew living with him but he could not take care of him. I told him I would take the 7 year old boy to my home. When the 20 year old parents found out, their only comment was "who cares if he's alive or dead?"

I took this precious little boy home and found out that I had my hands full. I had never seen such a BAD little boy. Putting peanut butter in the VCR, cutting my truck tires, stealing, breaking stuff, you name it, he did it. The final straw was when he began to leave our yard without permission. This was during the days of kidnapping, which were happening on our street. This was very dangerous for him to do.

I tried everything, spankings, yelling, being his friend, timeouts, everything, plus lots of prayer but nothing worked. He was so bad for our family, I regretfully took him back to his uncle, admitting defeat. Very, very sad.

This took place the day after school was out that summer. Two months later the uncle called saying this little boy was begging to come back to "poppy's house". I broke every world speed record to go pick this little boy up. 4 years later, little Steven has become a wonderful 12 year old boy. He was in our drama at church as a 12 year old Jesus. I thought of his past, his parents, and how far this little boy has come in 4 years. He has become one of the best boys, oh, still gets in the normal trouble but what a guy. He went to town with me today and we had a blast talking and laughing.

We got home and he helped me make supper and serve it. Another example of why I am here, why you do what you do. A little boy, not only given up on by the world, but thrown away by his own parents. A boy who is becoming a young man. A young man who will become a man. A man who will change his world, because of Jesus, in Haiti. Thank you all, for Steven, and for the lives he will touch with the life changing message of Jesus Christ. tominhaiti