Prayer Request

Dear All,

I am really late in sending this out but things have been pretty hectic here with Manis and I moving, getting the Lemuel house cleaned out for a team next week, and trying to figure out how best to help Bonita - that is where our prayer request comes in...

Last Thursday Bonita started not feeling well.  She had just finished her antibiotics from her tooth infection so it was kind of weird that she be sick again so soon.  We watched it for a few days but she only seemed to get worse.  On Monday we decided to call the plane to come get her as she was too sick to take the road and too sick to stay here.  She was kept in a hospital in Port-au-Prince for most of the day yesterday and was given IVs as she was very dehydrated, despite drinking constantly.  Last night she was allowed to go home with Schmids (missionary friends of ours) because a doctor who lives near them was going to continue IVs for her.  They have been unable, however, to find a vein so she is on oral rehydration fluids. 

This afternoon they got the results from her blood tests and it is confirmed that she has Dengue fever... a miserable virus that wipes out your immune system and takes months to fully recover from.  My heart aches for her as she has had one set-back after another since she got here.  I know she would greatly appreciate your prayers right now.  I am not sure if she is able to check emails but any words of encouragement in the comments below or to her email I am sure will be appreciated when she can read them. 

Thanks everyone for walking with us through all of this and for the support of your prayers.

Update on Bonita

Thank you all for your prayers for Bonita and her tooth.  I will copy in what she had to say about it in her latest email

My tooth started to hurting a few weeks ago. I am used to tooth pain, so I ignored it (note: learned not to do that again!). The day before our BIG New Year’s celebration at the church I had pain shooting up my head and my face started to swell. My whole body started to ache with fever. Deborah Dennis, from Emmanuel Church (a partnering church in Canada), came for the celebrations. She helped raise some of the funds so the church here could hand out food packages to over 100 families in our community. I really wanted to be a part of this celebration but instead I lay in my bed listening to people singing and worshiping God. It not only is New Years here in Haiti but it’s also their Independence Day. For the church it’s a reminder that in 2004 Haiti’s 200 year contract with Satan was over and the churches prayers were answered when the rededication DID NOT HAPPEN!

The following days my condition worsened and soon we would need to decide if I would need to go home or not. We have no access to medical treatment here and in Port I wasn’t assured that they would be able to remove the tooth as it was a back molar that has been capped already. People here in the community really started to pray. I sensed I wasn’t to go home but things were looking rough. Yesterday morning around 4AM I felt a tapping on my head. I got up to see what critter got in under my mosquito net! I saw nothing. Then my face got really cold and then it felt like it was coming out of numbing from dental work. I got up and touch my face...the swelling was gone and I was out of pain! I’ve had so much energy these past two days...it was like I was never sick!

Praise God!

Now that she is feeling better I will be formally introducing her on the blog soon :)

For those of you who were looking for the video Deborah Dennis mentioned, I am sorry but it wouldn't upload with our internet here.

Hope you all are enjoying the first week of 2013!!!

PS Somehow the time that it says I am posting is really off... it is currently 6:54AM... not three something in the morning!

Bonne Annee Haitian Style

I arrived in Haiti in 2012 and already it is 2013..Bonne Annee from Haiti. It just seems like I was packing and preparing for my travel to visit Lemuel and already it is Tuesday, January 1st, 2013. My name is Deborah Dennis and I am visiting Lemuel on behalf of my church, Emmanuel Baptist Church, in Canada.
How did you spend your New Year's Eve? Here in Haiti New Year's is the big celebration. Last night around 9:00 pm.the church community and people from the wider community gathered in the church and outside the church where they sang, prayed, shared testimonies and also had a cultural part to the program. Manis preached and played guitar while Lukeson took me to the service and made sure I had a nice time. He is a very nice young man who wants to study in the Dominican to be a doctor and told me some men from my church who have been here on work teams, Josh and Russ are his best friends. Mark too.
Judy, Manis's wife, lead a Haitian style song during the service and below is a video of her leading and the congregation singing along. You can tell Judy knows Haitian style as she grew up in Haiti as a missionary kid.

Although I left around 1:00 a.m., they continued to celebrate until late into the night. Then, this morning, the church committee handed out 150 food packages to the community. Each bag contained bags of rice, flour, sugar, oil, beans, and some bullion cubes which would give each family several meals. As January First is both New Year's and in Haiti, their day of Independence, Lemuel wanted to give out some food as a thank you to the community on this special occasion.

On Sunday, the day after I arrived at the Plateau I got up early with the sun around 7:00 and got ready for church. I don't usually dress up too much at home but here I was told that Haitians were their best to church. I was prepared to be very hot but with a nice breeze it was surprisingly comfortable. For me, being in the church was made more special as I knew the work team from Emmanuel had helped put up the roof and put in the doors. Sam preached and Manis lead the worship. I could sing the songs in French which made me appreciate my high school French classes. They also sing in Creole which is similar to French but not enough for me to be able to sing them. Here are a few pictures from the service.

Looking Back

This afternoon I took some time to look back at the blog posts from this past year.  I was amazed to remember where the school building was at in January!  Only by God's grace have we been able to make so much progress in just one year.

Sometimes the going is so slow and gradual that you don't really see the change.  It is interesting how many things God established in the Bible to help us look back and remember His faithfulness.  The rainbow, the rocks by the Jordan, and Communion are a few that come to mind immediately.  God wants us to not only be looking ahead, but to look back too and remember how faithful he has already been to us. When we do, we do we have more strength to face whatever may come.

Tonight we will be having a program in the church to thank God for His protection, provision and work in us over this past year, and to commit 2013 to Him.

Deborah Dennis, who is visiting from Emmanuel Church in Exeter, has kindly agreed to write a blog post about the program tomorrow... so you can read all about it then :)

On another note, please be in prayer for Bonita Sparling, our new team member (I will be posting a bio on her in the next week or two).  Over a week ago she began having pain in her tooth that has developed into an infection.  She is now in a lot of pain, has been having fevers ad swelling and is just generally not feeling well.  She is on antibiotics now and we are all praying that they can clear out the infection.  If she does not start feeling better soon we will have to look at getting her into PauP or she may possibly have to fly home.  We would greatly appreciate your prayers for healing for Bonita and wisdom for us.

Thank you and may God bless you as you close out this year!

Christmas Eve Program

On Monday the school, church and youth group presented the long-awaited and hard-worked for Christmas Eve Program.  It took from 8:00 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon to finish all the decorations and final preparations, but their work paid off.  They did a beautiful job.

  Blowing up balloons...

 

...balloons...

 ...and MORE balloons!

 Still blowing up balloons... and doing other prep work.

 

 Mezou, president of the youth group, has been planning this program for months.

 

 That's what all those balloons were for!

 

 They draped red material over the whole wall behind the podium.

 Things starting to come together...

The cooks preparing a LOT of chicken.  500 people were invited!

 ...and all their hard work paid off!

 

 The program we beautiful and fun.  

Manis gave a brief message on the meaning of Christmas.

 Looking through the star bedecked window

Singing "The First Noel" Haitian style...trust me, it is very different from the one you know :)

Each class from the school presented something.  

This is the first grade class and their teacher, Andiose, performing a song.

  MCs, Almais and Wiltha did a great job keeping things fun and moving along.

There was also a singing competition which I unfortunately don't have pictures of :(

At the end of the program (about 11:00pm) each person got a plate of food to take home.

Thank you to all of you who participated in making the Christmas Program happen this year.  A special thanks to third grader, Julia Nause, who sold bracelets to family, friends, teachers and peers to raise money for the Christmas program.

 Julia, we hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
Thanks for helping to make it special for the kids here too.

In Loving Memory of Anna Elgby

Tonight we received news that our dear friend, Anna Elgby, was killed today in a car accident.  Anna, along with Jon Stitt, was part of an internship program here on the Plateau in 2010.  She had such a sweet spirit and kind heart but at the same time had a great sense of humor and was quite a prankster!  What a joy she was to have here!  She brought so much life and laughter.  Anna befriended people that most of us had given up on.  She saw the good in people that nobody else saw.  Over two years after leaving Haiti, Anna still regularly kept in touch with friends she had made here. 

One of Anna's closest friends while she was here was a girl named Enide, a brilliant young woman who had had to drop out of school after having a child at a young age.  Anna promised her that she would do whatever she could to help her finish her schooling and she kept her promise.  Not only did she sacrificially help Enide, she would talk to Enide on the phone almost every week and encouraged her in her walk with God.  Just this week Anna had spent time praying with Enide over the phone that God would provide for her.  She always told Enide that she wanted her to know a "BIG GOD."

Anna had written to me on Monday, but I did not see the email until tonight.  My heart broke as I read how excited she was to spend Christmas with her family.  Our hearts go out to her family at this time and to those she was closest to and our prayers are with them.  Particularly I want to thank Anna's parents for allowing her to come down to Haiti and to be a part of our lives for those seven months.  You raised a wonderful daughter and she was a great blessing to us.  I cannot imagine the pain you must feel right now and I know there is nothing I can say that could alleviate that.  Please simply know that your brothers and sisters here on the Plateau are and will be upholding you and your family before the Father in whose arms Anna now rests, her Beloved Father. 

Wisconsin Team (Plus one from Minnesota :)

We have a team here right now from four different churches in Wisconsin/Minnesota.  For pictures and updates from there trip please visit their blog at http://hearts2haiti.wordpress.com/