Thursday's Thoughts from Haiti

Eyeglass Team

Today was an emotional day in the eyeglass clinic. The atmosphere was quite calm this morning--an answer to prayer. Around noon we weren't able to admit any new clients for about 2 hours because of crowd control issues. The desperation to get into the clinic was evident, and we are thankful to the staff and volunteers at Christ the King, Merotte, for keeping everyone safe and orderly. But for us, that meant seeing fewer clients than we could have. Even so, we saw over 80 people.

Each of us on the team felt emotional today as we encountered situations beyond our resources or control. There was the little girl with the cataract already, the boy who was blind in one eye because he had been hit in the eye with a rock, the girl who collapsed in pain while in line, and the teenager with cerebral palsy. In all of these situations, we felt privileged to share the love of Jesus with them, but our hearts were tugged in difficult ways.

Our team is learning the meaning of flexibility and is functioning beautifully in these circumstances. Our prayer for tomorrow is that God would have us to see who he wants us to see in the clinic. We know he will bring the right people.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

VBS Team

Today’s Bible lesson was the story of Joseph, specifically when he had to forgive his brothers for the wrongs they had done to him. Joseph’s great line to them was, “what you intended for harm, God meant for good.” He was able to see the bigger picture—that God had a plan for his life even when things were difficult. It was encouraging that the children already knew this Bible story.  We really enjoyed singing with the children today. We sang Father Abraham in English while the kids sang Papa Abraham in Creole. A little glimpse into singing around the throne in Heaven!

The children made cross necklaces, which they loved! It was very cool to see all the children wearing them all afternoon. My guess is that we will see them wearing them tomorrow as well as we wrap up our week around the theme, Team Jesus.

Our prayer is for the students. We pray that they would be able to recall the stories from this week especially during times of trouble or struggle. We pray they would know Jesus is always with them.

Construction

Mike Thomas and the bossman, Claudy measured the wall that will be finished by tomorrow afternoon. This week the men have built a wall that measures 390 feet long by 10 feet high. That’s quite a wall! We were able to figure out that we will need to raise $6,000.00 to complete the wall on next year’s trip!

We are praying that the people in the community and in the church would see this wall as God’s protection—that Christ the King is a safe place and that God is their refuge.

Lisa J