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.