I don’t know even where to start. The last 2 days have been a crazy whirlwind of events. God has been doing so much and I am currently standing in Awe of God and the doors He is opening.
Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to begin working with Fro Jonathan Sake Program. It was wonderful to begin this revamped ministry program. I had the wonderful opportunity to begin our time in worship and a Bible Lesson. I read from Psalms 139: 13-16 and talked about how God knit each of us together in our mothers womb and how we are all fearfully and wonderfully made including their children. That there children were not a mistake or mess-up but beautifully perfect to God. I also talked about how we serve a God who is close to us and loves us. How he thinks about us constantly. I then had the opportunity to explain to them how the program is changing and how I would be here for 5 weeks to work with them and when I live that the programs will continue to run. They were really excited to learn about the addition of the vocational program, the 1 on 1 therapy time, and the devotional time. I will be spending 1 on 1 evaluation time with each parent and child finding out their concerns and evaluating them.
Though For Jonathan Sake has been wonderful…there have been many hard moments of turning families away who have severely malnourished children but not disabled children, having parents say they can’t afford the tap-tap to bring their child to the center but knowing we can’t afford to give it to them right now even though we are working on adding that to the program through the sponsorship portion. It is hard when parents want you to take their kids from them, when they think they would be better without them. My heart broke so many times but the Joy outweighs it. Courtney has taught me so much the last few days in how she handles these difficult circumstances. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to serve under and with Courtney in this amazing dance I have been able to join he in, in Haiti.
We actually received a new little girl we are holding temporarily till Monday. Her name is Sydney. One of the Miriam Center worker got Courtney and told he she needed to come see this kid. She was not in our program but the worker felt Courtney needed to go. Courtney went and found a tiny little baby, after 15 minutes of conversation she learned the baby’s mother has been sick since she had her and that the baby is 6 months old and weighs probably 6 lbs. After further evaluation we believe the baby may have a genetic problem. We decided to keep the baby for the weekend and feed it and wait for dad to come and bring mom back to the mission to get looked at. She is so adorable and I had the wonderful opportunity to cuddle with her and hold her tonight. It is so much fun to watch the older Miriam Center children love on her like Den-Den, John, and Steven.
Thursday night Brandon hung the metal pieces so we could start using the therapy swings. So today the kids had a blast getting to start using the therapy swings. They were smiling from ear to ear and the metal plates we used to hang the swings from are working out great. Thank you Uncle Walt for making them! I can’t wait to post pictures.
It has been wonderful the last few days I had the opportunity to catch up with a good friend Beth who we met my first year into Haiti. It was also her first year into Haiti and we hit off a friendship. We both new we would be back and that God was calling us to something here in Haiti. Neither of us new how big BUT God did. Beth just finished up her first full year here in Haiti as the teacher for the one missionaries children. It has been amazing to see how much God has grown her and the passion and love for the children of Haiti He has given her. It has been an extremely rough few days for her as she has had to say goodbye to home here at the mission and go home for a few months. When she returns she will be located at our newest location in the Mole continuing to be the children’s school teacher. This morning was hard saying goodbye but It was fun to send her off with a present from the Miriam center children a book full of their hand and footprints and full of Courtney and my favorite Bible Verses.
Today I also had the opportunity to share a devotional with the Miriam Center workers. I had about 5 minute notice to prepare and went in thinking I was going to talk about psalms and ended up changing my devotional during the worship before hand and ended up reading verses about God’s love for the children. One verse I focused on was the verse that talks about how when we love the children we show our love for God. I wanted the workers to know how they love the children of the Miriam Center reflects God’s love for them.
I have been very busy completing evaluations on both the Miriam Center and For Jonathan Sake children. It is so wonderful to have the group from No Boundaries International here to help me The past 2 days we have gotten over 15 evaluations done out of the 40 some.
Today I have had so many BIG BIG BIG conversations. I don’t know what God is up to but it is BIG! Over the past few days Courtney and I have had so many talks about brainstorming for the future of the Miriam Center and what our dreams our. Today we had a group of 4 come in from 2 organizations orphans promise and making a difference children’s lifeline. It was really awesome because the ones from orphans promise are the ones who held our big meeting that was held in Cincinnati that I was able to go to. It was great to see them in Haiti and the share my passion for the program with them. Threw this connection and conversations today we have the opportunity to expand For Jonathan Sake to another area in Haiti, we are driving tomorrow (Sat) to walk the new land in Bono, found out we may start building as soon as July in Bono, and found out some great opportunities I may have back in the states when I get home. I had hours of encouraging, dream big conversations that God used to speak to me today. I have not had time to process everything fully but hopefully on the tap tap ride tomorrow out the Bono I can start. I am so excited to go walk the land where God is planning BIG and GREAT Plans!
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