Praise the Lord for His goodness to His people!! The Team of 10 (Pastor James, David, Linda, Mike, Emily, Jake, April, John, Marcy and Daniel) left Orlando at 9:30 Thursday evening for Ft. Lauderdale airport and arrived a little after 1 am after experiencing light traffic and good weather. We settled in for a good night's sleep (Not!) at the airport before checking in around 5 am. After a light breakfast we boarded the plane and were off to Port au Prince, Haiti. We successfully made it through immigration and customs with no problems. Ben Hopp meet us at the airport and saved us from the throng of people who wanted to help us with our luggage. We traveled to the Hopp's home near Kaliko Beach on the mainland. After lunch we had our first debriefing and spent a few hours at Kaliko Beach. Lots of rocks and sea urchins (ask April and Jake for details). We returned to the house had a great dinner and we were all in bed asleep before 8 pm.
On Saturday we were up early, packed our luggage and the food needed for the week and then headed to Lagonav by boat. The port was an experience that we will share when we return. There are seven churches on Lagonav that Ben helps. We will conduct VBS at two of those churches. After arriving on Lagonav we were transported to the guest house that our summer Haiti mission team had worked to make habitable. We are enjoying the fruits of their labor. Thanks to Raun, Tim, Todd and Dan.
On Sunday we worshipped at Doglas, the nearest of the 7 churches, which was a 45 minute ride up the mountain. Pastor Lim preached with an interpreter. The gospel was powerfully presented.and we had good fellowship. We had a restful afternoon. In the evening we spent more time debriefing and reviewing what we were going to do on Monday for VBS.
Today, Monday, we left the house shortly after 7 am for a 2.5 hour ride to Bwa Pen, the first church at which we were scheduled to do VBS. We started out with about 45 children and ended up with about 65 children by the end of the session. We hope that all 65 will be in attendance for the entire session tomorrow. We presented the first 4 questions from the children's catechism, did some singing, played some games and complete a craft. Overall things went very well. We talked about some improvements for tomorrow and then at the next church on Wednesday and Thursday.
We, hopefully, will update you later in the week but if not, when we return.
The Hopp's have a challenging ministry in Haiti. The church is in dire need of good pastors, elders and deacons. Children are in need of instruction in the Bible. A biblical understanding of the role of fathers and mothers and husbands and wives needs much work. There are great opportunities in Haiti. Pray that God will pour out his spirit on this needy country. Pray that Ben will have wisdom in how to proceed with the ministry here.
We have experienced many of God's blessings - safety,unity, good health, good spirit among all, gracious hosts. Pray for us as we complete our work here. Pray that the gospel will go forth clearly and that God would raise up godly leaders from among these children.
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