Hi from Haiti,

Thursday morning.

I do apologize for being out of touch past week or so. I have been so busy I have not had time to even have a cigarette. (That is for those of you who think I am losing my sense of humor.)

We are in a phase of going from 5am to midnight and very, very busy. Part of that going though INCLUDES family and the needs they have and the time they need. We also have had a couple of large groups here helping so much. Currently, we have friends from Seattle. Yesterday they sorted several thousand pounds of food that we had donated to us.

Today my board of directors arrives. They were originally scheduled to come two days after the quake but rescheduled for today. Because of the air mess, they are coming in 5 different flights at 5 different times so we will be doing some running. Add working with the group here, having a family and making a rice run for 100 boxes of rice...it will be quite a day.

Last night, a dear pastor friend of ours, Pastor Victor Honorat was taken to his Heavenly home. Pastor Victor is the pastor of the church that our church, Victory Bible church rented for 4 years. Pastor was a bear, over 400 pounds, 5' 9" but a very powerful man of God. I have not met many better in my life. He pastored the Wesylan Church, has 10 children, runs a school and....................was Jesus every day. I can't tell you how many times I would "catch" him in Cabaret, preaching and loving on the homeless people, when nobody was watching.

The Quake destroyed his church and so they held worship on the front steps every Sunday from 6-9 a.m. Every Sunday, as I would drive by on the way to our church, he would be there preaching and always would wave to me, while preaching. Then at 10 a.m. he would lumber down and come to our church. This morning, the villages are shedding large tears for a large man who did a large work for a large God. Pastor Victor's reward will be large. (My one prayer is they have coke in Heaven.)

We will be trying to help his family is some small way-- we are already reaching out to his church to see what we can do. They are only a half mile from our church. Pray for a very hurting family, a very distraught congregation, and a village in mourning.

Now some better news. This past Monday we started, are you ready for this, might need a drum roll..... We started our permanent feeding program at the New Roads Garbage dump. We have been feeding them when possible off and on but now, as of this past Monday, 80-some people will eat 7 days a week, until Jesus comes, if God wills.

A young man named Alex from Seattle Washington, had a dream to make this happen. He started a fund raiser called "Simply Haiti" where he challenged people to eat only rice for one week, then save the money to feed the folks at the dump. What he didn't know when he planned this fund raiser last year for the week of January 11th, was that the next day an earthquake would hit, putting his fund raiser on the front page. He hoped to raise $5,000. In a month, this project raised $30,000 with every penny going to feed these people, every day, for a very, very long time.

This week I have been to the dump every day. Tears were hard to fight back as, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIFE, they knew they would eat every day. Their whole attitudes have changed so positively. Life has just handed them the golden goose: they get to eat. What a joy to be a part of this. We went from providing 10% of their daily needs, to 100% concerning food and water. We have already been bringing a truck load of water in weekly. Thank you Alex, thank you Seattle, thank you God for loving these folks and allowing us to be Jesus to them.

I wish I could go on and on for what God is doing. Because so much has changed, this weekend the board and I will be planning the next couple years out. The one thing we know has not changed and that will not change now or in the future is what we were doing on January 11th: Giving hope to the hopeless! Preaching the Gospel, making disciples of Jesus, and teaching them to do the same. Some of the rules changed, the game is the same.

Someone said to me we have to make sure we are on top of our game because all the new donors of relief will expect this and that and.................I simply said, we have always done it right, we have always been good stewards, we need to change nothing. Just keep being Jesus to these folks. Only difference may be, instead of feeding 500 with our fish and loaves, we may now be feeding 5,000.

Please don't stop praying, don't stop helping our relief fund, don't forget our general fund. We are rolling and have everything at top speed. We can't afford to slow down a bit, especially because of a lack of funds that God has already placed in our pockets for this.

I am off (no not mentally) physically I am off to get rice then airport runs then meetings tonight from 6-9 and then driving and then maybe some sleep. Pray for this weekend and the next few days. This will be an exciting time for all of us. Tuesday, I promise to take a day off, maybe even Wednesday.

Love you guys, and do me a favor will ya? E-mail me and tell me about your "Anderson" that God has used you to reach out to this week, or last.

tominhaiti