Merry Christmas!!!
Dear brothers and sisters,
Living Water Christian Mission, my family and I wish all of you a Merry Christmas!
For the vast majority of you, this is the very first time you heard from me in over a month. When I left for the States at the end of October and stayed thru November this was my traditional schedule. But this year there were so many things going on, I did it to keep the engagements, but I really needed to be in Haiti for the most part. With the transition in Leadership there are so many changes and so many adjustments to be made, so when I returned I was overly busy. On top of that, my wife’s knee problems needed to be taken seriously. We went to Cuba looking for medical care and returned last weekend. The overall diagnosis is the same as we have had before, but the price of the procedure is vastly different. We will see what happens in the next four weeks as my wife Gine is applying the recommendations of the doctors.
Christmas break began for the whole school early last week. At the end of the trimester they organized Christmas activities for the preschoolers and had a blast. They were happy to have their photo taken with “Père Noel”/Santa.
Tomorrow will be my second trip to Marmelade this month. Several of us will be there to have a meeting with the teachers and staff. The administration will use the day to return the grade cards to parents for the trimester. On my last trip, in early December, I was very grateful to Dr. Mitchell and “On His Path” for providing the additional classrooms. You could see that we had to use part of the porch on the south side of the building to add a classroom whose walls are galvanized tin. The need there is great! The people there are thirstier and thirstier for an education.
We are confronted with the same space issue at our preschool in Gonaives. We have to think ahead so we started to lay block last week on the second floor of the preschool. We are trying to be ready for the next school year as people are making demands for their kids to be admitted to our preschool earlier and earlier. Thanks to two donations, almost 5,000 dollars, we were able to tackle this vital project.
On Christmas we had a wonderful service, a Spirit-filled service. Three of our choirs sang, including the grand choir. They looked great in their new choir robes thanks to Tarry and Poppy Koutz and Bonnie and co who made them available to us. The church was completely packed, even the balcony on the third floor was jam packed. It was obvious that we are already dealing with space issue there as well.
Last weekend we had 8 baptisms, ranging from 15 years old to 83 years old. We rejoice with these new believers and pray for them so that they can become authentic disciples of Christ.
Also this past week we harvested the peanuts. I was not in Haiti when the process began. I was in Cuba. But it was enriching to see what we were able to harvest, in spite of all the issues we had to deal with, especially the absence of a well for irrigation. We hope to turn the peanuts into peanut butter (mostly) and roasted peanuts. We will sell some of it, although I may turn myself into a customer too.
Thanks to all of you who pray for us. Thanks to all of you who have been generous to us. Thanks to all of you who stand by us through the years. May God bless you for our sake.
I know, you are reading this after Christmas, consequently Belated Merry Christmas.
Yours because He came,
Salonique Adolphe and team