News For February 26, 2010

Celebration of God’s love

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings to all of you in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Savior, Our God and Our Lord!

We have been more and more busy here since the earthquake. We have had way more meetings than usual in response to the devastation of the earthquake. What we do is nothing in comparison to what God has done for us and what some of you had to do to keep the hope of the victims alive.

This is a way to celebrate God’s love. Paul wrote, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8, NASB). Who can forget the famous verse John 3:16? God gave His only begotten son for the world, because He loves much.

In celebration of God’s love we wanted to make the love visible. So after our previous distribution trips to Port-au-Prince, last Tuesday we went to Leogane. Our hearts ache for these Haitian brothers and sisters. They have known destruction at its worst. It is said that 90% of Leogane has been destroyed, but I honestly had a hard time finding the 10% that was not destroyed. Maybe the 10% is the sugar cane fields that are still in operation. Otherwise homes, businesses, schools, churches, and other infrastructure are destroyed.

But it was encouraging to see that the people are still hopeful in spite of all. It was encouraging to see that those who have something were willing to share it with their neighbors. That was probably the most touching thing to me.

We had 232 complete kits and about 50 others that were not complete. We call a kit complete when it had 32 lbs of rice, about 5 lbs of beans, laundry detergent, half a gallon of cooking oil, dry fish (herring), several packages of spaghetti, soap and other miscellenuous things. Those that were not complete may not have rice, but they have some of the other things. In the incomplete kits we had sheets, diapers, pollo shirts and all kinds of helpful things. We distributed 5,520 lbs of rice and over 1000 lbs of beans. I don’t know about the spaghetti, and the other stuff.

We went with two buses and about 20 people for the distribution. The first thing we did was meet with a local preacher and plan how we will do the distribution; where to put the bus and so forth. Then we went to the community to visit with the people; talk to them and encourage them and at the same time give them cards. We gave one card per family.

We divided into multiple card distribution teams. My team was made up of Rosemond and me. He came up with the best suggest of how we should distribute the cards to the refugee camps since we would not have enough cards for everyone. He suggested that we quietly and unassumingly sneak into the camp and gave a card to those people who are in their tents. This way we didn’t make a show out of it and we were not overwhelmed by people. We got this idea after visiting our first camp.

The distribution of cards went well. We told people the address and time of distribution which was one o’clock. I can hear some of you say “Haitian time.” Smile! We did start on time. Maybe 5 minutes late.

First the people stood in line. We talked to them and prayed with them and for them. Then we told them not to push other people, because we have kits for all the cards we distributed. We told them that unfortunatey we cannot do much for those who do not have a card. But Micah was smart and saved a few cards in case we found some people in extreme need, which we did and even more than we could handle.

The distribution went very well. But at the end those who did not have cards and who needed a kit really made us wish we had 2 or 4 times as much. But we knew that might happen. We did have one guy who wanted to cause trouble, but he was alone. Praise God for a great distribution and thanks to the people of Leogane for their warm welcome and their help in making everything going fairly smoothly.

It was certainly a celebration of God’s love. Because it is Jesus who taught us to love our neighbors, not the enemy, nor his followers. Thanks to all of you who started the celebration by giving to Living Water to make this possible. Praise God for IDES. Praise God for all the brothers and sisters who care. The trip ended up costing more than we expected, but that was not a problem, because in His love, God provided.

We have many, many pictures but we selected just these few. We hope that you enjoy them.

Our school principal informed me yesterday that they ended up taking 79 students in total from Port-au-Prince. We gave these students a uniform, school books, and funds for a pair of shoes. The last 10 or so the school staff has accepted have not yet received books and money for shoes. They have been issued a uniform, though some of them have not received them yet from the tailor or seamstress. Attached is a picture of some of the students with part of the staff of the school. We did all this knowing that God would want us to do it out of love.

Last Sunday, we had 680 people in the service. In the afternoon we had 38 people who were baptized into Christ. There is no greater love than loving and forgiving repented sinners. God does that. He wants to celebrate daily with repented sinners.

My friends, brothers and sisters and all of you who support Living Water, who pray for Living Water and who talk to others about Living Water, thank you. May God bless you as we continue to celebrate God’s love in serving our neighbors in the name of Jesus.

Please pray for our next distribution, which is next Tuesday. We will go to Petit-Goave. As I am writing, a group of ladies are in L’Estere to buy rice and beans and other items needed for the kits. Pray for us as we are working this weekend and into the next week in preparation for the distribution. Pray for the people of Petit-Goave as well.

Humbly yours,

Salonique Adolphe

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.” … “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple, his hands will also complete it.” (Zech 4:6, 9)

website : www.livingwaterchristianmission.org

Phone : 001 – 509 – 3767 – 5951