Great things happening in the Petionville tent cities

There are currently 2 large tent cities in the Petionville parks. Last week Chris Lieb along with a few visitors from Hawaii and some youth from the local churches, went to share an evangelical film with the people in these tent cities.
It was great to see the responce of the people to this film and some were lead to the Lord as a result of seeing this film. We praise God for the work that HE is doing in the lives of these people who are living in these cities.
The Billy Graham Chaplains that are here are spending thier days in these tent cities, doing Bible studies with these new believers and working with local church leaders to get them involved in local churches.
Amongst all the bad news that can be heard about the tent cities, it is so encouraging to see how God is using this. As Chris went through the tent city he was amazed at how organized and clean it was. There are people there to maintain order, they have toilets, showers and people in charge of making sure that they are used properly. They have security guards and the police are helping with security also.
When Chris asked some of the people what they needed, of course their first answer was "I need food and water." Then he said, "No, really what do you need." They then shared the truth with him and said, "We have enough food, we have water, we have a decent place to live for right now. We just need a permanent home to live in."
This is another praise that at least in the 2 tent cities in Petionville people are being taken care of and God is looking after them.

In an effort to provide permanent housing for people, we are starting to build 2 houses this week. It is a slow start, but people are so grateful to see that we are trying to do what we can. Sand is difficult to find and we have limited materials, but we are starting with what we have.
Pray with us that God would give us wisdom as we continue to rebuild houses and that we would be able to get the needed materials for these houses.

Rubble clean up begins on the Conference center

Prior to the earthquake a team for Hawaii was planning to come to Haiti to help out in March. After the earthquake they decided that they still wanted to come and help out in whatever way they could.
It truly was perfect timing. It seems that the aftershocks for significantly slowed down and now we are starting to do clean up and thinking about reconstruction.
The team arrived on Wednesday, and Thursday they were already hard at work. They removed the roof of the badly damaged conference center and today they started clearing away the large amount of rubble. This is going to be a huge job. They are working along side some of the local people who work for the mission and they seem to all be enjoying it even though it is hard work.
Pray for safety as we continue to clear this rubble and prepare for rebuilding.

Blessing of food

Yesterday we were blessed with not one, not two, not three, but four large truck loads of food for some of our schools. This is a huge amount of food and today we already started sending it to the schools.
Schools have not resumed classes, but the cooks have agreed to come in and prepare food for the school children so that they can come to school each day and receive a good meal.
God is so good and we are praising Him for this blessing of food so that several thousand hungry children can receive food daily.

Aid continuing to go out

Yesterday 2 pastors came in sharing the needs of their churches and communities.
Praise God that we still have some food, shoes and tarps here that we are able to share with these communities.

One of our workers also shared a need yesterday for a small tent community that has been set up in his community. He was so grateful for the tarps and shoes that we were able to share with these people. Those tarps will be especially appreciated today as it is a very rainy day.

We are very thankful for the rain, but at the same time we pray that people will be able to find safe, dry places to stay warm and dry.

Thank you for your faithful prayers. Haiti isn't in the news as much now, but there are still such great needs and the people of Haiti appreciate your prayers for safety, peace and wisdom as they continue to recover from this disaster.
Continue to pray also that us as staff would have wisdom to know how best to help these people and that we would be faithful stewards of the gifts that so many of you have given to BHM.

Discipling new believers

Praise God for the things that He is doing here. It truly is amazing to see the large number of people that God is drawing to Himself.
We are starting to hear reports from Churches and hearing the ways that they are planning to disciple these new believers. Some are setting up small groups to meet with these new believers and help them grow in their new faith.

Pray for the pastors and church members, that they would have wisdom to know how best to disciple these new believers.

Pray for the new Christians, that their faith would grow and that they would find good Bible believing churches to become a part of and be discipled through.

We are back

Many of you are probably wondering what happened to the regular updates. My family and I took a much needed 2 1/2 week vacation and just returned to Haiti on Friday. It was my hope to still put some things up while we were away, but communication was very difficult with the field at that time, so it didn't happen.
Since we have been back I have heard many exciting stories of what God is doing and hopefully over the next few days I can share them all with you.
Here are a few updates of people that many of you have been praying for and following their progress.

Katiana: When we returned to Haiti we were very pleased to hear that Katiana was able to be transported to Tampa, FL by the US military to get the needed treatment. She was constantly fighting infection here since we could not provide the sterile environment that she needed to heal. Praise God that the report from last Friday is that she is up and walking and God is truly doing a miracle in her life. Continue to pray for her complete healing.

Aldine: She was a little girl who came to us from a near by orphanage. While she was here at the hospital we were able to get her to eat well and when she was feeling better she was able to go back to the orphanage and get cared for there.

Malika: Is the little 7 year old girl who was found by her neighbors and was brought to the hospital for treatment of some wounds. When she was released from the hospital we still had not heard anything about her parents. The neighbors took her home and they were planning on taking care of her as long as they had to. We pray that some how her parents were found, but if not we are thankful for kind neighbors who were willing to take her in as one of their own.