Mike and Brenda: November 2011

Prayer Requests

Consistant work ethic and speed from the construction team; there is a tendency to slow down now that the job is coming to the end and.......
Funding for the rebuilding of the church - we need somewhere between $40,000US and $70,000US of church construction money to be gifted to CBF, and confirmed, before we can start the project and with the school coming to an end soon...see above.
Praise the Lord for His continued support through our Haitian family, our US church family and our personal family.
For rest and restoration, we are both tired and a bit sick!
Truck repair - see note below
The canter truck - it always seems to be on its last legs and it is a well used vehicle that we are reliant on; when it is off the road we are significantly slowed down!

News

We are just at the end of a busy time hosting volunteer Teams. We had the Lifepointe team in the last week of October then the Brindle teams, yes two of them, together, at the beginning of November and now we have just said goodbye to the Matthew Road team. Each team is different, but they all share a common purpose, to come and share both in the rebuilding of Haiti and in sharing Christ’s love with their Haitian brothers and sisters.

The Lifepointe team have posted an interesting video of their trip. It’s always good to hear from the teams themselves and to find out what they took away from their experience here. http://www.lifepointevictoria.com/web/?page_id=59

We enjoyed hosting two teams lead by cousins, Tim Brendle and Leonard Brendel (yes they do spell their surnames differently) the teams met up for the first time as their made their way to Haiti and by the time they arrived in Grand Goave they had become one close, caring team. They worked on rubble house construction and made lots of new friends along the way. We were pleased to welcome Josh back for a third time and Tim of course, our predecessor. We managed to keep the team at Siloë for the Saturday morning and they constructed tables and moved shelves around the clinic for Jenny. It’s amazing how much one team can achieve together in one morning. It is always a joy to see a team of Americans working alongside Haitians with both enjoying time together, and the language barrier quickly broken down.

Having just said goodbye to the Matthew Road team, from Texas; it is good to reflect that they were here this time last year and it was good to have 3 of the original team return. When they remind us of how things were this time last year we realize how much has changed, grown and improved, and that is not just Siloë School. It’s good to be reminded of that by other people who see the changes too. God is Good.

This was Matthew Road last year - http://mchbjh.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-ending-21st-november.html

The Matthew Road team did construction, medical and dental. Their interaction with the children at the middle and end of the school days was precious. Their rekindling of past friendships rewarding and their ability to be pack mules for us gratefully appreicated. As ever, like the other teams this team loved Mme. Moise's cooking - boy she and her team are the best.

We continue to hear encouraging reports from our SHG team. The trainers hosted a visioning event, just for women at Petit Goâve. 22 women’s leaders from churches from the local towns attended and we are hopeful that more SHGs will soon sprout, enlarging our area of work and helping more Haitians.

One point of frustration, relating our work with the SHGs as well as in other areas is our situation with our Pickup truck. It is still at the repair shop. Apparently the 4x4 part that we need to fix it is still sitting at customs, coming from the Dominican Republic. We rely of this vehicle to take us into the mountain area which our SHG trainers are keen to visit, as they want to encourage and help the new groups which have formed in these isolated areas. We are being as patient as we can be, but really look forward to having the vehicle back at work. It has been “being fixed” for over two months now!

We have received the architect plans for Temple Baptiste Church thanks to our friends at BCGT. We are praying that we will have the funds provided to us from churches in the USA and perhaps outside the USA, to begin the project in the New Year. The Temple Baptiste congregation is vibrant despite its temporary meeting place and it is indeed growing. Last year, for example we had just one Sunday school class for adults and one for children. Now we still have a children’s class, and the adults have split into, young adults, new believers and adult class, which is very encouraging. Also thanks to the generosity of some of our volunteer teams we have a growing percussion group and a superior keyboard. As music and singing is such a vital part of worship we are thrilled to have these additional instruments.

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