Hi,

Sunday at church, we surprised everyone by giving every family a ticket, red, white or blue. Each color represented what day they came to mission to get a surprise.

The surprise was a water filter system that works great. I demonstrated in church, pouring in very dirty water, and then drinking the water, as did my staff.

Monday my 20 boys and I packed and put 100 systems together and filled them with food. We filled the bucket system with: rice, spam, toilet paper, juice, veggies, cereal, dry milk, crackers, potted meat, cookies, tuna and other surprises.

Tuesday early we loaded the three trucks and headed to the mission. At 9 a.m. 100 families began to come. They sat in church and sang while we brought them to the school tent.

We had a table set up with Pastor Roger, Altimae and myself. Each head of the household came to a private area and sat down. We then affirmed that person, asked how they connected to our church and asked some their testimony.

It was awesome. One man said "I drove by your mission every Sunday and finally said I had to check it out, it looked interesting. The first service I came to I accepted Christ."

Another man actually was on a tap tap when Roger got off. The man got off and asked, "can you tell me how to become a Christian?" Roger led him to the Lord in front of our mission, and he hasn't missed a service yet.

We did this to encourage and affirm these folks. What happened is we are coming away more encouraged and affirmed than them. What an absolute joy to embrace these folks, tell them how much we appreciate them and love them, then listen to them.

For many, we prayed with them if they were sick or needed prayer. Then we gave them their bucket with probably a month's salary of food in it, and money for charcoal or whatever else they needed.

The joy on their faces and the appreciation are something I will never forget. We met with 100 Tuesday, 120 families Wednesday and another 100 on Thursday. We make up the buckets the previous day.

After we gave them the buckets, we loaded 10 at a time on the trucks and I had two of my drivers take them home with their stuff.

There has been lots of excitement in the village all week from the people who already received their system and food, and the ones yet to come. Of course a few people are not thrilled that they weren't at church and missed this bonanza. Pastor Roger is putting together a list of a few families' who were not there, but are a faithful part of our church.

This has been a busy, tiring, but great, great week. That is just part of my week. Our target of opening our new Children's home is next Monday the 22nd. By the way, we do not have a name yet for it so if you would like to submit one, I will consider it. Click here to visit our website and suggest a name for the Children's home. My board doesn't like my names: The house that Tom built, Tom's Palace, Tom's Tots, King Tom's place......

I interviewed a married couple, and was so impressed; I hired them as house parents. They move in this Friday. Their names are......Anderson and Mona Jeanty. Yes, the same Anderson I just told you about a couple weeks ago. How God works, wow!

This young couple is so excited about this and Anderson told me "We have been praying how we could minister to more kids." God answered their prayer.

Claudy and Manel and I have been running buying beds, tables, couch, chairs, fans, pots and pans, rugs, etc. for the house........... you name it, we are getting it. I couldn't find a stove but found a fridge that was out of my price range, about 700 US dollars. I will continue to look.

Pray for the new Children's home. Pray as I meet with the 5 young ones from my home that will be moving there. I don't want them to feel unwanted. I will make this a win-win. I am hoping to buy a couple of bikes, to give them the first day there. They have never owned a bike. We are very, very excited!

My family is doing really well. I am so proud of my boys as they continue to amaze me with their love for each other, for me, this ministry and their people. We have started picking one of the boys each week to teach the rest of the boys a Bible lesson. Sonal and Dearson have led the teaching so far, and have done great. Sonal was so funny, I asked him to teach, and even gave him an outline to use.

Sonal asked me later that night, "Poppy, how many hours do you want me to teach?" I said, "well 30 minutes would be okay." He had a hour long lession.

Today we had 600 at Wednesday prayer meeting. How many did you have at your mid week prayer meeting.......................what, you don't do this, that is outdated? Sorry.

We have another baptism this coming Sunday with 18 more getting baptized and another 3 week new member class has started. Roger asked me if churches in the states had baptisms every month. I didn't answer that one. I did tell him the New Testament church did baptisms daily so we had a way to go to catch up.

Okay, done for now. I haven't forgotten about the stuff we have planned for the future that is coming. tominhaiti

p.s.- I have been only getting emails from my board. Please, I need some fresh air. I would like 100 personal emails in the next 5 days. Can you do it, Elisabeth, Patti Jo, Morri, Robin, Barb, Becky, Minnesota, Tim, Bud, Carolyn, Bobby, Linda, Len, Jason, and the rest of you? Come on, rock my world. Tell me about your family and how you are being Jesus where you live, will ya?