A fun story with a SURPRISE ending :)

Hello,

Hope your day is going well. I wanted to share a fun story with you. This story has a surprise ending, literally :)

Mike tells everyone both in Haiti, the US and Canada, that we come along side of the Haitian people helping them to help themselves. In Haiti we are the only non Haitians in the ministry and we do not run anything, but truly just come along side to help and teach. We call the Children's Village, our schools, the medical clinic and our churches "life giving". And yesterday God must have been laughing to himself and saying I will show them a "life giving" experience. 

So the story begins in Perou, one of the villages we work in. A young couple came to Nathan and said they were in a serious relationship and that they wanted to get married. Marriage is not common in Haiti, but it is something that people are choosing after they receive salvation and see that marriage is God's plan for the family. After meeting with them a couple of times, they revealed that the girl was pregnant. Nathan advised them, that it would be best if they could have the wedding before the baby was born. They agreed and the wedding was planned. So, yesterday the couple came to our tent/church for their marriage ceremony. They began the wedding, but part way into the ceremony the girl started having contractions. After a bit it became obvious she was in labor. The couple said they wanted to continue the ceremony. By the time the ceremony was finished she was in the last stages of labor and was not able to leave the church. She had the baby 15 minutes after the marriage ceremony in the church. She had a baby girl. And, I can just see God smiling down and saying something like "that is life giving". God has a sense of humor :) What a day and what a memory. Please continue to hold them up in prayer as they begin a new chapter in their lives. 

We have a team traveling to Haiti tonight and tomorrow, please keep them in your prayers. They will be here for 14 days. 

Blessings,

Chris

Hard to see on dark skin in a photo, but they are covered in chicken pox :(

Hello,

I wanted to let you know that today Emmanuel has moved into our transitional home for aging out orphan boys. Emmanuel has been in our Children's Village for over 7 years. He has been sponsored since the beginning, by Kids place at NCCTK. Sponsoring him as a child literally has changed his life. We are excited and proud to welcome him into our home. By moving into the transitional home with us he will be able to continue his education and continue learning life skills. High school is out for the year, so he will have the summer to adjust before continuing his education in the fall. Please be praying for him.

On another note we have a bunch of polka dotted children in the Children's Village. The chicken pox has hit and is spreading like wild fire. Please pray for the children, pray against fevers, discomfort and infection. They should make calamine lotion in a brown color, not just pink. It seems like the older children come down with a worse case of the chicken pox then the younger ones, which is what I experienced with my own children. Thank you so very much for your prayers. 

Blessings,

Chris

Our newest boy moving into the transitional home for aging out orphans.

His welcome quilt compliments of my daughter Rebecca's church, Bethany Community Church.

Hello again,

I wanted to share some more stories with you. I also wanted to let you know that I posted some photos of Nathan in Whistler seeing snow for the first time, he also rode an open chair lift to the top of a huge mountain, another first for him :) You will need to scroll part way down the blog page to see the photos.

I also just posted some photos of a Baptism in Pass Rein. It continues to amaze me that God is still choosing to show up in Pass Rein and bring salvation. This past Sunday we had three more salvations. One of the men came forward with his wife and daughter and asked to be baptized. Pass Rein is still my favorite church to go to, they are so on fire for God. There also never was a church in the area of DeForce, Pass Rein before, so the church has no people in it who have preconceived ideas about how church should look, which I find so refreshing  When Mike and Nathan are gone that is where I choose to go, otherwise we go as a family to whichever church Mike is preaching at.  In Pass Rein they always worship with their whole heart and it feels like family, they always want prayer ministry afterwards, they are so open to kingdom ways, and have such faith.

The story I wanted to share is about the faith of a little girl in one of our Awana programs. For those of you that do not know what Awana's is, it is a international children's program for youth, they memorize verses, play games and learn about Jesus. Mike and a dear friend of ours, Gene Mulder, who has since gone to be with the Lord were instrumental in bringing the Awana program to Haiti. The little girls parents were not Christians at the time. She apparently became very sick and her parents were afraid for her life. They discussed taking her to a witch doctor to help her, which is very common among the poor. She said "no, I can't go to a witch doctor, I have given my life to Jesus and I trust him to heal me". The father could not believe that his daughter had such a strong faith as to refuse to obey him. He said he wanted to find out why she had such a strong faith, and so the whole family went to talk to the Awana leaders and the leaders explained the gospel to them and the whole family gave their lives to the Lord and the little girl was healed. God is so gracious and amazing. He honored her faith in Him. Thank you for coming along side of us and helping us to help the people of Haiti. 

Blessings,

Chris

Hello,

I was going to write this later in the week because I just sent out a prayer partner tonight, but I am too excited to wait, so you will get two prayer partners tonight. I hope you read both of them.

Tonight Mike went to the Marose church to teach bible study. It was blustery and starting to sprinkle. Because everyone has to walk to church, rain usually means no church, except in Pass Rein. So Claudy said, Mike probably no one will come you might as well go home. Mike looked into the church and said "well there are youth here so I will wait and see" he felt like God told him to not preach the message he had prepared, but instead to explain the gospel very simply for the youth. The average church in Haiti is so focused on rules and traditions that he felt like he should share with the youth the essential importance of a personal relationship with Jesus. After he finished talking for about an hour he told them they could ask questions, which they did for about 1/2 an hour. Mike said he felt a real move of the Holy Spirit. Then he asked if any of the youth wanted to commit their lives to Jesus and 12 youth from our children's village came forward and said they wanted to commit their lives to Jesus. It makes me so excited, these kids were really getting it. Please pray for them, because Haiti is such a hard place to grow up in, there is so much sin and deception.

Blessings, Chris

Baptisim in Pass Rein

Hello,

Hope you are doing well, school is almost finished and summer is beginning. Usually I share the stories and Mike the information, but this time Mike wanted to share the story so I will share the information. 

Over the past 9 years our home mailing address or the ministry's P O Box address was okay to use. In the beginning we lived in our home in Washington obviously, then Dustin and Melissa lived in our home for the first 2 1/2 years after we moved to Haiti. Recently they have moved into their own home and another son and his family have moved in to our home. With so many address changes in the last 3 1/2 years we are finding the need to ask everyone to either pay online or mail your donations to our P O Box in Lynden. 

The address being: New Generation Ministries

                                PO Box 42

                                Lynden, WA. 98264. 

For our Canadian sponsors, Wendy and Gary have just sold their house YEAH! The selling of their home will also bring about address changes, so if would be best for Canadian Sponsors to use the Canadian P O Box.

The Canadian  P O Box is: New Generation Haiti

                                            P O Box 144

                                            Milner, BC V0X1T0

Thank you so much for your help. Remember to check the address of any checks mailed online from your bank also.

And now for the story via Mike :)

It is such an amazing privilege that God lets us come along side him and experience the miraculous work that he does. We find it even more amazing that he in his generosity lets us also see the fruit of it.
   It is like a little boy who's dad says to him, come with me to work in the fields today son. I'll let you sit on my lap and drive the big tractor. At the end of the day he looks over the huge freshly planted field and says, " wow. I did all that?" Yes, son we did all that....
   We are very much aware of so many dedicated and hard working missionaries that see little or no fruit in their lifetime. They are investing in following generations.  
     .....GOD IS SO GOOD TO US....
Some of the people up at Pass Rien caught wind of a plan by a group of witch doctors who were unhappy at the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the miraculous transformation taking place up there. So the people of Pass Rein began to pray..... 
    A few nights ago when no-one was around these witch doctors came and set up shop in front of the tent we use for church, to send out demons and cast spells on the church. As they began their incantations the tent started glowing. Lights from inside the tent began to show so brightly that the witch doctors were scared to death and gathered their stuff and ran as fast as they could. The next morning the whole village was buzzing with the hilarious reports of how these witch doctors were no match for God's power......

Praise God who is all powerful!

Thank you sooo very much for your faithful prayers, without them we would not be able to move forward.

Blessings,

Mike and Chris