Dear Friends,

I am going to send you a blitz of 4 emails this week, 3 will be a reader's digest version of a 7 day week, and one will be a family update, complete with pictures. Many of you are interested in life here, and say you want more, and more helps you pray better. Here is more.

Thursday: My day starts at 5:30 getting my 17 school kids from 3-20 off to school. At 6:45am Claudy leaves with 4 of the older boys in the Sidekick, at 7am Manel drives the younger ones to school.

It is then off to our school. Our school menu for the week at Grace Emmanuel School is rice and beans on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday is spaghetti day and THURSDAY IS MY DAY, HOTDOG GRILL OUT DAY.

This day is fun. I come with 320 hotdogs, ketchup and buns and we make popcorn. Myself and the 5 ladies in our kitchen and Jony, my Outreach Director, go at it. The ladies grill the hotdogs, Jony makes the popcorn and me and 3 of the cooks put together the plates with hotdogs, popcorn and cookies. The kids just love it and we have a great time doing it.

I normally sneak one, then on purpose leave a dab of ketchup on my chin and claim I didn't have one. The 5 ladies just roar with laughter pointing to the evidence. Then it is a stop at the school of the little ones, to pick them up at 1, to take them home. Next comes lunch for the 17 from 1-3pm depending when they get home. The rest of the day is rest, planning and preparing for church.

Friday: We were excited as this was movie day. Our missionary friends, Joel and Yvonne Trimble, from the mission Haiti for Christ, brought the movie "Incomparable Grace" and we had our first movie night at the mission.



Setting up the big screen for our first movie night at the mission


We were at the mission by 2pm, with 10 of my boys, making popcorn and getting set up. Dearson and I were the popcorn makers. Our goal was 500 bags of popcorn.

We ended up with about 40 staff and helpers getting benches outside, water ready and popcorn bagged. Movie night was at 6pm and at about 4:30 I asked Jony to take my truck a half mile to buy a cold drink for all our helpers.

About 20 minutes later, David came into where I was making popcorn and said "Tom, we've got two problems, one, I can't get the top off of this salt shaker and two, I think Jony just got hit by a truck outside the gate." Wow, I dropped what was in my hands and ran to the highway out in front of our mission.

Sure enough a huge several ton truck had broadsided Jony as he was pulling into the mission. My first thought was to check if anyone was hurt, nobody was. My 2nd was to look at my beautiful, less than a year old, brand new looking Kia. It looked brand new until that sickening moment. The entire rear passenger door was smashed along with the window and the gas tank broken with fuel spilling every where.

I then looked at the face of a tearful Jony, knowing he messed up my "baby." I also knew that the next words out of my mouth would be remembered for the rest of his life. I went to him and hugged him and told him that nobody was hurt, it's just a truck and we would get if fixed. I told him we had no problem too big to handle.

It was then that the police showed up and got the unusable truck back into the mission yard. I went into our depot and wanted to explode, it was sickening but God gave me a real peace. He reminded me what I always tell my boys "never let circumstances determine your attitude." I didn't and we finished the popcorn.

Missionary Joel Trimble and his team showed up. He set up the 17 foot screen and at 6:15 the movie began for over 350 people, eating popcorn and watching the movie. Two hours later, Pastor Joel gave an invitation and over 40 young men and women came forward to give their lives to Christ.

Some of the people who gave their lives to Christ

I was thinking that night, wow, I lost a truck today, but Satan lost 43 people. I WILL MAKE THAT TRADE ANY DAY, if that is what God wills.

The movie was a great success, and we can't wait for Sunday, as pastor Joel follows up with a return to our church to preach. tominhaiti