On this date in history

October 26th, 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue

October 26th 1922 Four month old Morris Osbeck was alive and kicking

October 26th 1926 Eight month old Maxine Buzzing, lived 2 miles from 4 year old Morris

October 26th 1945 The world rebuilds after a world war, US NAVY sailor Morris Osbeck returns to civilian life

October 26th 1946 Morris and Maxine Osbeck are married in Ravenna, Michigan

October 26th 1949 Ten month old Rodney pulled himself to his feet for the first time

October 26th 1950 Rodney is very happy playing with 2 month old Lester

October 26th 1951 Winston Churchill elected in Britian as prime minister

October 26th 1952 Pastor Morris Osbeck starting Sunday Schools all over Michigan

October 26th 1956 The world is adjusting to 5 month old Tommy

October 26th 1958 Pastor Osbeck takes over Cathro Community Church in Alpena, Michigan

October 26th 1959 The first pictures of the moon are seen from the earth

October 26th 1959 Two month old Mark gets punched in the nose by older brother Tommy

October 26th 1963 The United States is sadly about to lose a president

October 26th 1966 Pastor Morris takes over Robinson Baptist as pastor, in Grand Haven, Michigan

October 26th 1967 11 year old Tommy heart broken over the Detroit Tigers missing the world series

October 26th 1967 John McCain shot down over North Vietnam becoming a prisoner of war for nearly 6 years

October 26th 1968 12 year old Tommy on the top of the world, Tigers, WORLD CHAMPIONS

October 26th 1972 Pastor Osbeck moves to Rollins Christian Fellowship church in Manton, Michigan

October 26th 1974 A dozen Manton High school teachers still wondering how Tom graduated in May

October 26th 1979 The Osbecks move to Waterman, Illinois to pastor Waterman Bible church

October 26th 1981 59 year old Morris Osbeck recovering from triple bypass heart surgery

October 26th 1990 A retired, ailing, lukemia patient still running his race, struggling to climb ocean liners to share the gospel in the port of Jacksonville in the winter, Muskegon, Michigan in the summer....doing as Paul said, running his race

October 26th 1996 The Osbeck family celebrated the 50th wedding anniversary of Morris and Maxine Osbeck

October 26th 1997 Morris is in Heaven, Maxine misses her life long friend and husband

October 26th 1998 Son Tom spends the day with his mommy, celebrating her anniversary at Steak and Shake, then flies out to begin work in Haiti

October 26th 1999 Morris and Maxine Osbeck together, in Glory, to begin part 2 of their life together, with the Lord Jesus Christ

October 26th 2009 Tom prepares to begin his 12th year as a missionary in Haiti.

I hope you enjoyed my little journey via October 26th covering the past 600 years. At times, it seems I have been in Haiti for 600 years but really just 11. Thank you for making this all possible. One of the last things my dad told me before going to Heaven was "son, go to Haiti, hug everyone you see and tell them Jesus loves them", Dad, I am still trying to do that, thanks for the great advice. tominhaiti

Dear friends,

This past Sunday at church we were geared up for 600 people but that didn't happen. There was a combination of reasons:

1) Our tent was down from Thursday to Saturday night, some didn't know we put it back up
2) A church in the area had an all night revival that got out at 3am and many folks went to that and then slept in
3) We had a new bus picking up people and some didn't recognize it

We still had 305, and had a wonderful service, and I saved the good news for last, we had 7 folks accept Christ as their personal Savior. That is very exciting for us and why we do what we do.

We had a little fun with our youth. While Jony was talking, someone poured a bucket of water over his head. Everyone laughed then the person who did it took the microphone and was talking. Jony then grabbed a bucket (they thought it was water) and he ran and threw it at the guy, the people in the congregation about had a heart attack thinking they would get wet but..................it was confetti.

Youth group starts in two weeks and we are trying to build excitement for the youth. Tomorrow we try again with our leadership training. Last week the tent fell and we had to cancel our meeting.

Also I have started meeting with 8 young women in their early 20's that I have known for 10 years. They came to my youth group when I first arrived in Haiti. I call it the Esther club and am discipling these 8 at the church. Pray for them.

Tomorrow morning we have our hotdog cookout for the school kids which is always fun.

I received word that my Kia that was in the accident will be fixed and ready to pick up Monday or Tuesday. An anonymous donor is paying to get it fixed, praise God for this.

It is such a blessing, it doesn't matter what we need or what crisis comes up, one of you always steps up and fills the need. I must be the most blessed missionary in the world. You guys are my heroes, all of you. Not only are you being Jesus where you live, work and play, you are allowing me to do the same, and I thank you. tominhaiti

Monday: This is my go to town day, so to town I went. On this trip to town, we will get the needed supplies for our home and ministry for the upcoming week.

At the grocery store, the list goes like, 10 dozen eggs, 4 cans of propane filled, 40 gallons of diesel fuel, 20 gallons of gasoline, 10 cases of bottled water, 14, 5 gallon jugs of culligan, 4 cases of juice, chicken, and fresh fruit.

Every Monday evening is Family Fun night where we have a fun family activity. This week I had puzzles and the boys were split into teams to see which team could finish their puzzle first. All the boys have a ranking for how well they speak the English language. The ranking goes from 1 to 12 and each of them can challenge another person higher than them to an English face off to see who speaks better English. They really enjoy this and it helps them to improve their English.

Tuesday: I did something on this day that I am not sure I have ever done. (no smart alecs it wasn't a shower) I dropped the little ones off at school and snuck away from everyone and went to a resort for a swim in the ocean and a nice meal. I was the only person there in the morning and had a great time swimming and talking to God. It was a restful, fun morning. By noon I made the hour trip home, to pick up the kids at school, at 1pm. I came home refreshed and ready to go.

My son Claudy turned 21 and we had his birthday meal and cake. They get to chose what they want for their meal on their birthday and he chose chicken wings and pizza. Roger led family devotions for the next 20 minutes and we were done for the day.

Wednesday: Today was our staff meeting at the mission. I have to admit we are a tad overwhelmed with the numbers at church, the salvation decisons and the people to visit.

I shared with them how successful we have been in stage one, the operational aspect of the church. We talked about stage two which is taking care of the spiritual needs of our church.

Tomorrow that begins as we begin leadership training. We have no idea how many will show up but we all expect somewhere between 125-150 people will show up for training.

After our staff meeting, we went on a village walk to visit people who live there. I always enjoy this but have a sad heart when I see some of the living conditions. Some of the houses have a board on cement blocks for a bed, with old clothes for the mattress. Most of the time there is NOTHING of value in the one or two room home. It was then home by 1 to pick up the little ones from school, make lunch and finish up planning leadership for tomorrow.

Upcoming: This Sunday we begin our Sunday school hour. We can't do SS classes because of space but we are having what I am calling our "hour of power". (Hope Mr. Schuller doesn't sue me). This week we are pretending to have a talk show with host Roger Carole (our acting pastor). He is going to interview live on this weeks show, Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego. We have quite a plan and goes along with our SS theme of "bringing the Old Testament to life." One of Rogers questions to Shadrach is "come on, didn't the fire burn you just a little". Lots of lessons in this interview to be learned.

As you can see, we are busy, and have lots coming up. We are praying for 600 this week at church and I know a couple of my dear friends will cringe. They let me know I shouldn't talk about numbers but seems to me Jesus mentioned he had 5000+, on a couple of occasions. Seems the number of Christians added daily was mentioned and if memory serves me correct, a whole book of the Bible is called NUMBERS. Numbers do matter, one person at a time.

Thanks for your prayers and financial support. Friday is a wonderful family email coming, complete with pictures of all 22 people who live here, or is it 23. tominhaiti

Saturday: After 5 years of having church on Saturday, I am thrilled to have my Saturdays free again.

This past Saturday, I took 6 of the boys to pick up 6 new pews for church. We delivered and set them up for church on Sunday. It was fun trying to figure out how to set up the 30 pews we now have, plus some school benches we use along with chairs.
It took about an hour to get it perfect and ready for church. As we headed home, we stopped at our favorite Haitian restaurant and had, you guessed it, Chicken and rice, along with a cold Coke.
After a great meal, we went home and later that night had our Saturday family grill out, burgers and hotdogs. A very peaceful, restful, fun day.

Sunday: We left our house at 8am. We only had one truck since the other was involved in an accident. We arrived at church and I was shocked when I saw that over 100 people were already at church, 90 minutes early. I reasonsed this meant a huge crowd to follow.

I was not wrong as they came and came and came. Pastor Joel Trimble who showed a movie Friday night, came back to preach. I had time to chat with Joel before our staff prayer time. Then it was church. The church was packed, every seat was taken and I had to ask the men to be gentlemen and give up their seats for the ladies.

Final count for church, 505 people. Wow and wow! While sitting there I calculated we can get 7 more benches in the tent and that is it. We don't want to squeeze people in to the seats. The 7 additional benches will give us room to move around.

With the additional benches we will be able to get over 600 people in our tent, and that is it. We know this will happen and are already talking about how to have a 2nd service. One problem in Haiti is these wonderful people don't want to miss anything and they will come to both services, which will not solve our problem.

Okay, that is all bells and whistles, let me get to the good stuff, the stuff that counts. Pastor Joel Trimble, director of the Haiti for Christ mission was our speaker. What a great job he did and once again, many responded to the call of the Gospel. Our pastor Roger got all their names and we are ready for round two, discipleship.

All in all, we had around 60 people come forward on Friday night and Sunday morning to accept Christ or re-dedicate their lives. How exciting is that?

I have to admit I don't know why the people are coming like they are, but I know this, I feel a special blessing over that tent, and I feel God working in a mighty way.

Our visiting Pastor Joel who has been in Haiti for years made these comments to me, after church:

"Tom, you have a special group of people here, you have a special staff and, they have a special leader."

"Don't think small when it comes to building that new church, your plans are for a church for 800, don't build one that can hold less than 2000, this is a special place."

"You could not do what you are doing if you did not have this well trained staff."

I thank Pastor Joel for his encouraging words and for his willingness to help however they can. Praise God for Godly servants like the Trimbles.

As usual after church I was depleted of all my energy. We haven't figured out what to do for Sunday meals yet so are winging it each week. This week I gave the older boys each 5 dollars and Manel drove them to a nearby restaurant for, surprise, chicken and rice.

I fixed a sandwich and spaghetti for the little ones. I don't think I left the couch for 5 hours. I was beat.

Thank you for your prayers. I know you may be sick of hearing about our tent and church and all that but, this is the moment we are in. This is what God has placed on our plate...................for such a time as this. And we are responding. We are still shinning the light at all the points of light but Victory Bible church finally is becoming the center light of our ministry, like it should be. tominhaiti

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

Dear friends,

As normal, I have 25 pages of stuff to tell you, and only a few lines to do it. As you know, this past week was our 3rd service in out new Victory Bible church, tent style.

The tent has dominated my emails and my time the past month. We still have the other points of light, nobody has been forgotten but the tent has exploded into something we never dreamed of.

The first two weeks of church we had 298 and 350 in attendance. This past Sunday we had (drum roll please) 465 people in our little tent, all sitting. It was awesome. The excitement this tent has brought, and the blessings God is pouring down on us is hard to explain in an email.

To grow this large, this quick presents some wonderful challenges, water for that many and transportation as none have cars and we are 1-5 miles from where people live. Just managing that many people is real work. I am so proud of my staff for getting the job done.

We bought 6 new pews last week, and I have 6 more being built for this week as we speak. There will be no more room for benches after these 6 are in. We think that we can squeeze 600 in our tent, max. Not sure what we will do when we hit this number in oh let's say 3 weeks.

We have built a lean to for the kids about 50 yards from the tent and we had 150 kids in junior church Sunday.

And yes, the other points of light are still here and thriving.

My home: This past Saturday we took in a 15 year old boy who I have known for 10 years. He was kicked out of the mission orphanage he was in, and we gladly took him in. His name is Berthony and a real joy for us to have him in our family.

Good Samaritan orphanage: Kids are doing well, healthy, still needing lots of love but doing well.

New Roads and Merjay: We purposely took a break for September/October here. We knew the tent would keep us busy and we had just finished English class for the summer and kid's club. We still meet with our leaders there and will resume weekly ministry in November.

Grace Emmanuel School: Going very well, I check the attendance every day since I am a numbers guy and we are at 95 out of 100 kids present every day. I think that is good.

Victory Bible Church: What I told you above about the numbers are fun to talk about and makes us feel good that what we are doing is working and God is blessing. When God saw that many people, I bet he smiled. BUT, when God saw 7 young people come forward to accept Christ after the message, he probably jumped up, high fived Peter and jump started a grand ole party. The attendance numbers are fun, people coming to know the Lord is why we are here.

One of my board members said to me "Tom, I now know why we have been slow building the church, this is God's plan. He wanted us to see how small we were thinking in building an 800 seat church. If we already are pushing 500 in a tent............................

This Friday night, missionary Joel Trimble, from Haiti for Christ is showing the movie "Incomparable Grace" in our church and we expect over 500 for this showing. We are trying to figure out lighting as we speak.

Lots more but my proof reader gets on my case if I go over 800 words, says people lose interest. Have you lost interest? I haven't, I am excited for what God is doing and for what lies ahead. Thanks for your prayers and finances to make this happen. tominhaiti