They're Home!!

Thank you to those of you who prayed for my friends the Daby family this last 2 weeks. They arrived on Monday night at the Rochester airport with Johnny and Marie. Praise the Lord, he is faithful to deliver!! Here is the video link to our local news that covered their return.

"Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him:
I will set him on high, because he hath known my name,
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him:
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him, and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation."
Psalm 91: 15- 16

Praise God for His provision, promises and deliverance for us all!

Johnny and Marie

I have the privilege of being acquainted with a wonderful Christian family named the Dabys. Joshua and Liz are the parents. Josiah, Emma, Johnny and Marie are the children. They are your typical homeschool family- lots of love, busy times, ministry work, homeschool group etc. There is one very disturbing difference between our family and theirs- while all of my children are safe under my roof this morning- Josh and Liz's aren't.

You see, for over two years, Josh and Liz have been trying to adopt Johnny and Marie from an orphanage in Port Au Prince, Haiti. When I first met Josh and Liz a few years ago, Liz told me at that time about the adoption and her hopes to have their kids here by the following summer. Josh and Liz have both done missions work in Haiti, and have a burden from the Lord for the country. Two summers ago, my sister and her husband had a vacation Bible school in a local park, and Josh and Liz were there ministering alongside a team of inner city kids. I so enjoyed watching Josh interact with the kids. He is a very talented percussionist, and in fact owns an African drum repair business. At one point, he had a group of these kids off to the side, laughing and smiling while singing praises to the Lord to his drum accompaniment. I think the fact that he's a totally bald white guy who can totally jam a traditional African praise rhythm on a drum shocked, and then tantalized them! It was so apparent to me from watching him minister to those kids how much love he has for them. When Liz talks about her kids in Haiti, the love she has shines through. Even Josiah and Emma talk about their brother and sister- who will some day come to live with them in their house here.

What I'm saying is that these kids are as much a part of their family as if they were here in the US. Now imagine your young children, half a world away, surviving an earthquake but unable to go back into their house for safety reasons- and sleeping on the ground instead. Imagine not being able to contact them. Imagine all your hard work and paperwork being destroyed (the government buildings are apparently all gone). Imagine wanting desperately to hold and comfort your kids, and not being able to. And then, please pray.

Pray for the safety of them and all the kids who are orphans in Haiti. In a country with so few resources, orphans tend to get thrown away. Pray for the Daby family to have peace and God's assurance of His provision for them and theirs during this time. Pray that the governments will be able to somehow expedite the adoption so the kids can come home. If you feel so inclined, please contact your US Senators and/or State Department to ask for emergency Visas for these kids so they can come home.

Here is the link to the interview the Daby's did on our local television news. (click on the link for "Greece family waiting for word").

Please Pray for Haiti

For some time I have been planning to start blogging again- but haven't had the time to get it going. I don't think anyone will still even be reading this at this point (except my friend Sue who tells me she checks every day for a new post! Hi Sue- bet you thought you were escaping the cold when you went to Florida this year-ha!), but I cannot give up any chance to plead for prayer for the Haitian people in the wake of the huge earthquake yesterday.

In 1999, I had the opportunity to travel to Haiti for a missions nursing trip with my college. I remember being shocked beyond belief out of my comfortable view of Christianity and missions. I have never seen poverty like what I saw there. To get through the airport alone was a major feat- as armed soldiers representing the government pretty much take whatever they want from incoming passengers. The team I was on was carrying many much needed medical supplies for a very poor region of the country, and we barely got through. Praise the Lord, He made a way for us- we weren't harmed, we lost none of our supplies, and we got out of the country right before another mini-revolution started.

How to describe the abject poverty? In the capital city (where the epicenter of the quake is) most common buildings are made of concrete. People sleep on the floor on mats, if they are lucky, and if not, just on the ground. Children there are not clothed until they are around 5 years old- and then mostly in just tee shirts. The city we went to (Desailline) used to be the capital of Haiti- and there is no running water, no sewer system, no central electricity, virtually no telephone lines. People literally go to the bathroom on the ground. The one river that runs through the city is the source of water for every use- I personally saw a woman gathering her drinking water in a pot just a short distance from the cow who was standing in the water getting a drink, right next to another woman washing her clothes. Disease runs rampant there, due to a lack of sanitation, little clean water, very limited medical care, no infrastructure, and malnutrition. People die there of things we haven't worried about in 100 years in the West- typhus, cholera, cancer to name a few. They don't even name their babies until they are a year old because the infant mortality rate is so high. Mind you, Port Au Prince (the current capital and epicenter of the quake) is better off in many ways than this- they do have some electricity and limited water- but all things being relative still one of the poorest nations in the world. If their capital is destroyed, any minute support that flows out of it into the poorer regions will cease, people will suffer and die everywhere in their nation. Not to mention that 1/3 of the population is in Port Au Prince and the surrounding areas.

What I am saying is they are POOR! Poor in a way most of us can't even imagine. Spiritually, there is a large Catholic presence there- but about 85% of the people still practice voodoo/black magic to some extent or another. Evangelic Christianity is hard won, and many cultural barriers must be overcome. The government is essentially a dictatorship- with whomever is strongest being in power. Oh, don't let the "elections" fool you- it is not a representative government with a President like what we have here in the USA. The military is the strongest branch of any industry there- and given that they have not had a foreign threat to their nation since pretty much the first revolution- I'll leave it to you to figure out what that military is needed and used for.

An earthquake like this will literally kill hundreds of thousands of people. They will have no where to go for help. There are very few hospitals, and all are built in the flimsy construction style of concrete with little if no reinforcements inside the walls. Many, many people will die in the coming weeks just of their wounds and lack of adequate medical care. Their government will do it's best to protect itself and its interests first (as it always does), and it will truly be up to the international aid organizations to save whom and what they can. I can't even imagine the rebuilding.

However, the hope is in the Lord. Even in the face of all that destruction and death, He is there. Please, please, please join me in prayer for the people of Haiti. God is there.

Here is a blog of a missionary family serving there.
This is the CNN link for the ongoing coverage.