Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Some News

Greetings to you all from the House of Hope.  Linda and the kids asked me to thank you specifically for your prayers for us over the past few weeks.  They are all doing well, the kids are in school and life seems pretty much back to normal.  The only fallout for us from the big hurricane that went through has been receiving more children into our home.  We've already received about half a dozen from the affected areas out west of us and we anticipate that going up even further in the next few weeks.  

Thank you too for your prayers as I traveled out to see some of our partners out in Western Canada.  We made it there and back safely in spite of having to drive through a pretty bad storm and counting semi-trailers stuck in the ditch part of the way along.  It was a bit of stressful driving -- but we made it and had a great time with our friends out there.  

An exciting story that came out of this trip is that while speaking at our partnering church in Banff on Sunday morning I shared the story of Lyse and our desire to find someone who could help us with her case.  Banff is a tourist town and they often have visitors from all over the world in their church services.   In the service that morning was a family from another area of Canada  They had family visiting from Brazil and they brought them to see this beautiful area of Canada.   So, turns out the father of the family just happens to be a pediatric doctor in a children's hospital here in Canada!  He offered to do what he could to help us with Lyse's case.  He has all her information and is seeking some answers with the other doctors in their hospital.  We are so grateful that our Heavenly Father cares so much about each of us that he coordinated all these events so that we would cross paths!  Keep praying for wisdom for the doctors and that we could get some definitive answers for Lyse.

On the same note of exciting news, we are so grateful for everyone who has sent in extra financial support for us over these past few weeks.  We have been able to make 2 significant payments on what we owe to the hospital and while we still have some debt left, we are feeling much better about it than before and are hopeful that the rest will come in as this year is coming to an end.  Our next prayer request would then be that we would be able to get some more partners to support us on a monthly basis so we don't go back into debt to them in the future.

 We have some prayer requests to share with you for the days and weeks ahead:
  • Linda had a fall last night and injured her foot.  She had x-rays today and the doctor said it wasn't broken, but it is swollen and painful.  Please pray for quick and total healing for her.
  • There is a medical team visiting our partnering hospital this week and another one heading there next week.  The team that is currently there will be doing skin grafts on one of our little girls at the House of Hope this coming Friday.  Five year old Neisha has been in our home for a little over a month now and she came with significant burns across her stomach.  We are grateful that this team has the tools and skills to do these grafts for her, and we ask you to pray for them as they do the work and for Neisha that she would heal nicely and that this would really help her.
A big thank you to everyone who has given and prayed for us -- you are such a blessing to us!

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

An Update

Good Morning Everyone.  First of all, very sorry I didn't get to write an update yesterday, I was not home all day.  I did keep in touch with Linda and the kids throughout the past couple of days to make sure all was OK. They are doing fine.  

We are located on the North coast of Haiti, so not in the area where the hurricane hit directly and where it seems there is much more damage.  I haven't heard anything about if there is damage in our general area, but I do know the HOH and all our kids are safe.  The had lots of wind and rain through the day yesterday; what scared them the most was how dark it got throughout the day.  Now it is calm but still raining off and on.  

Thank you so much for your prayers on their behalf, and please continue to pray for Haiti and those who now have to start cleaning up and helping those most affected. 

I'll update when I can, but I am heading out on a road trip today to visit with a supporting church in Alberta, Canada, to visit family and to attend the funeral of a friend of ours who passed away suddenly this past week.  While the HOH is dealing with rain, I'm preparing to drive through our first snow storm of the season!  So, I could use your prayers as well.

Thanks so much for all the messages of concern and assurances of your prayers.