All are well

Greetings from a healthy House of Hope! Our cholera room is empty, and the rest of the house full of healthy people, for which we are extremely thankful. Many thanks for your prayers, it has been a roller coaster week for us and we appreciate you all holding us up in prayer and support.

Just wanted to tell you a story of a very dear pastor friend of ours. Pastor Emerable is 79 years old and came down with Cholera last week. He is one of our biggest fans, and supporters here in Haiti. He is the most amazing man I've ever known. He just shines forth the love of Jesus everywhere he goes, and lives a life of a servant to his fellow man. He spends his days hiking the mountains behind us and the neighboring town looking for people in need. It's not that he has a lot to give them. He himself is a stick thin man with almost no worldly possessions at all. He just knows how to help people. Bring them to the hospital if they are sick, bring them to the House of Hope if they are sick children, and share the love of Jesus with everyone.

We couldn't even begin to count the number of children he has brought to the HOH over the years, even hiking over 4 hours one way just to find them and bring them to our home. And once they are here, he doesn't ever forget them, he comes back at least once every two weeks to visit them and make sure they are ok. He is just an wonderful man.

Cholera took out a huge toll on his body though, by Wed. of this week, he was over the cholera, but his heart had been damaged. His family didn't want him to die in the hospital, so they asked me to drive him part way to his home. It was one of the saddest moment of my life. When they first put him in our vehicle, he was lying on his stretcher in the fetal position, skeleton thin and mostly unresponsive. When we reached our destination I went and took his hand; he grabbed mine. With a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye he said, "I sure do love you guys". I assured him of our love as well, and even more important the love of his wonderful Heavenly Father. It was such a beautiful, yet sad moment, as I was sure I'd never see this man again -- until we met up in Heaven one day.

Well, God had other plans. His family called us yesterday to tell us, he is doing extremely well, able to sit up, and even walk with some help. We never expected that and feel like it was just a gift from God at this moment. So I wanted to share it with you as well. Pray for Pastor Emerable, and for his family (his son is still recovering in a hospital in the south of Haiti from his Gillian-barre syndrome that he got after his run in with Cholera).

We had some visitors here from our supporting churches in Miami this past week; they left this morning. Now we are headed to the airport to pick up some dear friends and supporters from England today.

May you all have a blessed weekend, and I'll try to connect with you all again next week.

two more sick ones

Today wasn't quite so good. The hospital census went up a bit more, and two of our middle age kids came down sick as well. We aren't sure it's cholera, but we aren't taking any chances either. They are both doing considerably better than they were last night. The original 3 sick ones here at the HOH are all doing fine and have been released from the cholera room.

I've been put on antibiotics for an infection, and am without fever and feeling better today.

Thanks for your prayers for us, and please keep them up. God bless...

A better day

We are still doing ok as far as the cholera goes here at the HOH. We've managed so far to keep the others healthy -- thanks to your prayers and a great big miracle from our Heavenly Father! This evening one little boy has some diarrhea, so we are watching him closely to see if it turns into something more serious.

The hospital is doing better as well, they were able to release about 170 patients yesterday, reducing the numbers in the yard significantly. They also were able to get more tents set up, so it is looking much less like a horror from the civil war area down there. Again, thanks for your prayers.

I have been in bed most of the day with a high fever and generally feeling ill. None of my symptoms are cholera, so don't worry. I've been going full blast for several weeks now, and I think my body is telling me to slow down a bit. So, I've been resting most of the day.

Please continue to bring our needs before our loving and faithful Father. We have full confidence that He will provide for all of our needs. We were blessed by a group of Haitians from a Miami church today who came and brought some supplies to the HOH, and also spent time singing with our kids, they had a really nice time. They will be holding a evangelistic crusade in our town this week, so that will be a good and encouraging thing for the townspeople who have been through a really tough week.

Doing ok

So far there are no new cases here at the HOH. The 3 who had it are doing much better and were able to get off their IV fluids today. They are eating and keeping the food down, and in general are doing much better. They are preparing themselves for a barrage of teasing once they get declared healed and let out of the cholera room!

It is the start of a long battle for us, however, as our Doctor friend told us that once a person has had Cholera he is still able to infect others and re-infect himself for a period of 6 months. So we are busy pushing the rules to proper hygiene and food preparation techniques. Please continue to pray for us that we all will be wise in how we handle ourselves and be able to maintain a cholera free home. It is a lot harder than it sounds when you are dealing with over 100 people all in one home!Please remember our three nursing students: Phania, Dada, and Stephanie. They are all three volunteering their services down at the hospital. They are working long hours and helping with all kinds of patient needs. Pray for their safety, stamina and health.

Cholera at the HOH

In spite of our best efforts to keep it out of our home, cholera hit 3 of our family last night. It started with one and quite quickly moved to 3. We were bracing ourselves for more this morning, but so far today, these three are the only ones with it. They are all doing ok, we caught it quick enough, but it is definitely making life a bit more stressful. We've isolated a room in the house for all with Cholera, and are attempting to contain it as much as possible. Please continue to pray for us during this time.

The hospital is absolutely unbelievable. I was gone throughout the weekend and just got back this afternoon. I was overwhelmed by the masses of people spread throughout the hospital grounds. There just aren't words to describe it. They do have several different groups there helping them out with different things, and seem to be doing ok at the moment for supplies.

We were able to get a stock of IV fluids and clorox thanks to our colleagues in PAP. Many have asked if it is just in our area or all over Haiti, it does seem to be just in our area from what I can tell. I was traveling on the weekend and didn't see it in other places.

Many others have asked what they can do to help, and my response is: Pray, and if you are able to help us financially, that will help us meet the needs of the house at this time. Thank you all, I'll try and update regularly for the time being, so I might not always get the chance to send out an e-mail with the updates. Blessings on you all, thanks so much for praying, and for your encouraging messages.

Updates

I'm really busy as you can imagine, but my friend Jeb has described the situation here much better than I. So please feel free to take a look at his blog: http://doorofhopehaiti.blogspot.com/ . Please keep praying, the situation seems to just get more serious as we go along. It's so hard to know what's the right decision to make on some situations. So thanks for praying.

URGENT PRAYER NEEDED!!!

We are posting this blog update to ask you to pray urgently on our behalf. Cholera has returned to our area of Haiti, many times worse than it every was before. Our hospital yard is completely full of patients. Here's a picture, but honestly no picture can do justice to the unbelievable amount of people in the hospital yard. They are having trouble keeping count but it has been over 200 new patients a day for the past 2 days.There is a constant stream of people flowing in, and already there have been more than 15 deaths in the past 2 days. It is really bad, and we just need your prayers for the hospital, the staff, and for us. We are working very hard to keep it out of our home, but it isn't easy and we really feel the need at this time for you to stand behind us in prayer. We are trying to get the supplies we need in case it does hit our home. We already cannot get Clorox here in the markets around us, we have sent off for our colleagues in PAP to see if they can help get us some. They are also getting IV solutions for us and non-sterile gloves. I might be driving down to pick them up in the coming days, at that seems to be the best solution at this point to get the items here. Please just pray for us....that we'd find what we need, that we'd have stamina we need, and that financially God would provide what we need to get through these days. Blessings and many thanks. Jenny

A whole new me!

Well, here I am again. This is my third chance to write to you, and boy am I excited to show you my picture this time. I am doing so well, if I should say so myself. The TB treatment is really doing the trick, and I am feeling so healthy. Here I am doing my absolutely most favorite activity -- eating!!! Fortunately for me eating is very good for me right now, so I am doing as much of it as I can. You'll be able to see in this picture and some of the others that my skin pigment is smoothing out, the swelling is almost completely gone from my hands and feet, and I am just overall much healthier. The boys cut off my white hair, so I lost my "Father Christmas" nickname along with the hair. My new nickname is "Ti Blan", which literally means "little white".

Well, this has been another very busy month...which is why it has taken me more than a month to update you all on what's been going on. As you know the kids are almost all on summer vacation now. All except for Manno who is in his last days of writing his final year exams. All the other kids have finished their government exams, and now have to go through the stress of waiting for the results. I was able to take part in more activities this month, so are you up for some pictures to help you see what's been going on? I hope so, because I have a lot this month...

The first major event since we last talked was Tati Jen's birthday. Boy was that a big day, because it was a big birthday....but she won't let me tell you which one it was...you'll have to figure that one out on your own.
Anyway, we had a big party, and good food, and Birthday cake and presents, and singing and music and jokes and laughing. It was a good evening (actually I'm just telling you what they told me because I actually fell asleep before the whole thing started!).

The next big event was Lala and Ivinsky's graduation...from Kindergarten!! Yep, after 3 hard years of pre-school, they are now full fledge students. Lala even graduated with honors, coming in third in her class for her grades. We had a nice party for them after the graduation...boy was that fun, we had cookies and candy and juice. And we sang songs, and listened to music and showed off our dancing skills. They sure do know how to have fun around here!

After that came another graduation, this time it was a group of pastors who were graduating from Bible School. Tati Da was asked to be the "God-mother" of the graduating class, which is a really big deal here, and a big honor. She looked beautiful, so I just have to share her picture with you...Then came the really big occasion that happens every July here in our town. That is the big July conference, where over 5,000 people come from all over Haiti to spend a week in meetings. They have Bible studies, kids meetings, Praise and worship sessions. It is absolutely mayhem around here with that many people added to our village. Here' how it looked from around here...A few days before the conference started they older kids braided all the little girl's hair, and put beads on the braids...
It was such a big job, even the boys helped out. And the results were just great...The girls looked so good, I was quite proud to walk with them over to the campground where the kids' meetings. Every morning at 9 am and every afternoon we all dressed up for the occasion and headed out... We had to take our own benches to sit on, because by the time we got there all the seats were already taken up by other kids. But thanks to our older boys, we always had seats because they carried the benches over for us. Here I am sitting on one...We were thankful for the chance to sit, but boy was it crowded and hot! As you can see we weren't the only kids there...
In fact, we were only about 40 kids in the midst of 2,000 kids who came every day for the conference!!!
It was so much fun!! We sang and danced, and learned verses and our theme this year was "My eyes are fixed on Jesus". To learn the theme we learned a little chant to say, "My eyes are fixed on Jesus, his eyes are fixed on Jesus, our eyes are fixed on Jesus, and you? Are your eyes fixed on Jesus?" To learn the Bible lessons, we divided up into smaller groups, this was my small group...
Can you see me? Didn't think so. Here I am...
You can see I found the Bible lessons very interesting. It was all so much fun and I'm so thankful I got to be a part of the conference this year.

So that pretty much brings us up to date. The next few weeks are going to be so busy. We have a team coming in from Pennsylvania with our friend Jeb Bland. They are coming in to take care of us kids, while the older kids and Tati Da and Tati Jen hold a retreat for the House of Hope staff. Tati Jen is driving down on Friday to Port-au-Prince to pick the team up and bring them back here on Saturday. Then, all next week is the Staff Retreat.

They have the retreat every 2 years to give the staff a break, and to make them feel special and appreciated for all their hard work during the years. They take such good care of us, and it's our way to say thank you back to them. So pray for us over the next couple of weeks, it's going to be crazy busy around here, with lots of comings and goings. Pray for safety in travel, for good health, for good times in God's Word as our local pastor comes and shares with our staff and for just a great time of being together. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures to show you the next time I update.

Please continue to pray for God to provide for our needs at the HOH. Giving is still really low, and it is an added stress on Tati Da and Tati Jen. I know they trust God to provide for all of our needs, so please pray that He would do so. They almost cancelled the staff retreat, but are trying to do it anyway with what we have. So pray that God would open His storehouses and send us what we need to continue this special ministry. Til next time...Loveson