Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Happy New Year !
We are so very thankful for your faithfulness this year. Your prayer support and financial support have been so important. We are so grateful for partners who love the Lord and the Haitian people. You are definitely making a difference in the kingdom.
We are very excited to share some of the end of 2024's fruit with you. This year has been a great year, 580 Haitian's have given their lives to the Lord. Also, there have been at least 220 Baptisms. We have seen 36 couples who had been living together and who have children decide that they should make a commitment to each other and God and get married. This has been a really significant step in each of their lives. There has also been an increase in healings, especially from cancer. We have also seen many set free, with a very high rate of witch doctors coming to salvation. They are seeing the power of God and claiming that the power of satan is less. Which is a huge statement as they are choosing God, knowing they will no longer have a way to make an income.
Along with all of these statistics we have had over half of the orphans from Bercy, that we took into our Children's Village give their lives to the Lord. We are so very thankful for all He has done. And so very thankful for you.
Have a very blessed New Year,
Mike and Chris
Sunday, November 17, 2024
From The Children
We wanted to thank you for your prayer support. Your prayers made it possible to rescue the children from the Bercey orphanage. Some of the older children that were rescued were able to share a little bit about their experience. We wanted you to hear some of their stories.
I was among the first group of kids that the staff brought out before the gangs surrounded and attacked the orphanage. At first we were put at the top of a mountain, but we couldn't resist from all the gun sounds, we were so afraid that the staff went to hide us in a house before the helicopter brought us here to the Good Shepherd Children's Village.
When asked how she felt when she was rescued, she replied, I felt happy and okay, because there was no longer noise and sounds of gun shots. I am eating and sleeping very well. I go to church and to school here.
She said that she loves God and her favorite verse is James 4:6 “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Natacha said she appreciates your support and will pray for you.
When asked how he felt when he was in the Helicopter being brought to Gonaives? He said, I felt good and different because we were delivered from the calamity and the bad news that the bandits or gangs would come to kill us at the top of the mountain.
When asked how he is doing now, living in the Good Shepherd's Children's Village, he replied, I feel good. We have enough food to eat, clothes to wear, sandals to put on and we go to school and church without any problem.
When asked about his family he states that he is here with a sister and that his parents are dead.
The Bercey orphanage was surrounded and attacked by gangs with big guns. The responsible men and staff had already brought the first group of children out of the orphanage to rescue their lives. But, we were still there and had not been taken out yet, because the staff was waiting for a few minutes of temporary peace to escape with us to the mountain to save our lives.
When asked how do you feel after being rescued, he shares that he feels relieved, at peace, and happy. We were so scared at the top of the mountain with the sounds of guns, bandits and the bad rumors (news). He says he feels peaceful and healthy here in comparison to Bercey, where gangs and guys with guns are killing people, abusing people, and making them suffer a lot.
In the Good Shepherds Children's Village we eat on time and good, we are provided with clothes, shoes, and we go to school. Jacob says he has one brother and one sister with him and that he would be happy to stay here for ever? He would like to become a medical doctor.
Thank you for continuing to pray for these children, we appreciate the support very much. You are an important and vital part of this ministry.
Blessings, Chris
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Follow Up
We wanted to send a follow up on the children that were rescued. We are trying to return some sort of normalcy to the children's lives. We have been bathing them and feeding them, also finding bedding for them and clothing, as they ran with just what they were wearing.
Our children in the Children's Village have been very welcoming and are playing and sharing well. On Monday, we will also be fitting the ones of school age into our classrooms. All of this is a bit difficult logistically, but everyone is cooperating.
So many of you have said that you are praying. We appreciate your continued faithful prayers. We also ask that you would please pray about helping financially, as this has increased our financial burden drastically. Again thank you so much for coming along side and helping the Haitian people.
Blessings, Chris
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
The Rest Of The Story
Good News! Praising God!
Thank you so much for praying. God answered prayers. The children and staff were found and rescued, the first helicopter landed in Gonaives around 11:00 AM this morning. We then waited MANY hours before receiving a report that the remaining children were successfully rescued.
The orphanage that originally was going to take the children in was not able to help at this time. So, they have landed in our Children's Village for now. We are thankful for God providing a way to safety. The children and helpers have been fed. Mike, Nathan and their director will be assessing the situation tomorrow.
Please continue praying for the children for comfort and peace. It is hard to imagine the trauma they have walked through. Pray for wisdom and compassion for the adults that will be ministering to the children. We are so very grateful for your faithful prayers.
Blessings, Chris
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST
Hello,
We urgently need your prayers for tomorrow morning, Wednesday.
For a week the citizens of Arcahaie, Cabaret and Bercy have been fighting off the gangs, there has been killing, rapes, burning buildings and utter destruction. The gangs have finally taken over. Friends of ours had an orphanage in Bercy, which is about two hours from our main village in Marose. Their orphanage was looted and destroyed by the gangs taking over. Our friend and seven of his nannys and cooks, along with 39 children fled to the mountains. Soon as he could, our friend called Pastor Nathan for help. They are hiding in a safe spot, but have nothing left. We offered to take them into our Children's Village. The problem is the few main roads are not safe to travel on. So, we have been working with them to come up with a solution.
Praise God! There is now a helicopter from the Kenyan UN troops that will be trying to fly into the mountains where they are located and rescue them. This is supposed to take place tomorrow morning, Wednesday. Nathan knows another orphanage about 20 minutes from us that only has a few children left in it, so they will be flown there tomorrow morning, if all goes as planned. Nathan will be waiting for them on this end. We will be helping to provide food, clothing and bedding.
Please be praying for the helicopter to be able to find them and safely transport all of them. Pray for peace and comfort for the children, helpers and our friend, they have experienced a lot of trauma.
Thank you for faithfully praying. We appreciate it more than you know.
Blessings, Chris
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Stories From The Kids
We wanted to encourage you with a few more stories from the children who attended the Children's Summer Program.
This is Lissienda. She is 10 years old. She is in good health and is in 2nd grade. Lessienda says that she struggles in school making good grades and asks for you to pray for her. Her mother died long ago.
Lissienda came to the kids summer program at Poteau. Because of the summer program she is attending Good Shepherd Church now in Poteau. She says that she really understands God's Word in the kids program. Lissienda shared that she was so happy they prayed with her for salvation in Jesus. She thinks the bible stories are interesting and relevant. She shares them at home with others. Lissienda would like a bible. She says she loves Jesus.
And this is Jaceline. She is 11years old. Jaceline has 4 brothers and 1 sister. She is in 3rd grade. She shared that neither her mother or father are Christian.
Jaceline was also in the kids program at the Good Shepherd Church in Poteau.Two of her brothers came to the program with her. She shared, " I just accepted Jesus Christ today, because of the good story of the word of God, that they shared with us". Jaceline says that the stories are good and make sence. She loves Jesus and hopes that we have the summer program every year.
Please lift up all the children that attended the Children's Summer Program. Pray they keep attending church and continue to grow and learn. Please pray that they will share about Jesus and what they have learned with others in thier familes and community. Pray for thier protection, provision and faith.
We really appreciate your faithful prayers and support. You are helping the next generation to experience a better life. Thank you so very much.
Blessings,
Chris
Thursday, September 5, 2024
Stories From The Kids Summer Program
We wanted to share with you about our Kids Summer Program and a really cool story from it.
We asked 9 of our churches in different villages to have a Kids Summer Program. We asked that they reached out to the poorest children, the ones that do not go to church and do not go to school.
We had a 3-day training class for all of the pastors and leaders. We had over 3,000 kids in attendance.
Many kids came from broken homes, with one parent, no parent, and even some from voodoo camps.
We fed them, taught them the simple Gospel message, shared Bible stories, and taught health and hygiene.The program was 3 days a week for 3 weeks.
Along with the Kids Summer Program we also sent prayer teams out to their homes to share the gospel and pray for parents and grandparents. We saw healings, deliverances, and hundreds and hundreds of salvations. We saw kids, and whole families, even witch doctors and their families come to salvation in Jesus Christ. It was such a blessing.
One of the cool stories that came out of this time was when one of our Pastors and a couple leaders went to the home of a child attending the program and knocked on the door. A teenage girl answered and said that her father was not home, and to come back later. When they turned away, they noticed a woman waiting. When they talked with her she said that she was sick and was waiting for the witch doctor to return. They asked if they could pray for her, she said yes and when they prayed she was healed. This led to them leading her to salvation in Jesus. Then the teenage girl came out to see what was happening and also accepted Jesus as her savior. Then the girls father, the witch doctor, returned home and joined in the conversation, and surrendered his life to Jesus as well. Then they all helped the father clean out his house of all the demonic and vodoo items and he burned them in the street. Praise God!
We are so thankful for your faithful support, both financially and prayerfully. It truly is changing lives.
Blessings, Mike and Chris
Sunday, August 4, 2024
A Tap Tap Driver
We hope your summer has been enjoyable. For us it has been going by way too fast. I am trying to treasure the moments though.
I wanted to share a encouraging story with you from Mike this time.
Last Thursday Mike shared a teaching on the difference between a "servant and a son" with over 200 of our pastors and leaders. It was his last weekly teaching for our School of Ministry for this school year and he combined the teaching with the bi-monthly teaching for our larger group of pastors and leaders in our churches. After the ministry time, it was reported to him that one man had given his life to Jesus as a result of the message. He was thrilled of course for the conversion, but was also concerned that one of our pastors or leaders might not have felt completely saved, and he wondered what might have been the reason.
After inquiring further as to who this man was? Mike was told that it was the Tap Tap driver (taxi driver) who had been hired to bring a group of leaders from the Denonville church. The man had been sitting on the porch listening to the message and when people were invited to receive prayer, he came forward and said that God told him to surrender his life to Jesus. Praise God! This is the 'rest of the story'.
Wildor Jean shared that when he was a little boy his father would bring him to an Adventist church, but his father died when he was very young and the whole family stopped attending church.
He said that he is 45 years old now and tries to make a living as a Tap Tap driver. He is not married, but has a woman who lives with him. He has tried to have children with two other women in the past, but is still childless. He shares that he has been a gambler and visits witch doctors.
He also shared that some of his sisters had tried to tell him about Jesus, but it was not the right time. He said that today when he brought some of the leaders and pastors to the conference for the teaching he decided to sit on the church steps instead of in his vehicle. He said that as Pastor Mike shared he felt the necessity to "come to Jesus now".
He asks for prayer for two things, the first being that he would have the strength to stay with Jesus forever and the second need was for his truck to keep working as it breaks down frequently. Will you join with us in praying for Wildor Jean?
We also want to thank you for your faithfulness in coming along side this ministry and the people of Haiti. We so appreciate your faithful support.
Blessings, Chris
Friday, June 7, 2024
Well, Wells, Wells!
We wanted to update you on the current well projects we have been working on.
One of the wells is located in Perou. Perou is the second village we started ministering in. Many of you have visited the church and school in Perou. There have been many prophecies spoken over Perou. Nathan recalled one of them spoken by our son many years ago, it was about a leaf floating down a steam, it represented revival and the word of God coming to Perou. Because of that prophecy, Nathan felt he was called to spend the last three months pouring into the community of Perou on daily basis. This revival has caused a 100% growth in our church in Perou.
The well in Perou has been a challenging well to drill. They hit large rocks at around 40 feet and struggled to get past them. They succeeded in getting past the large rocks at 50 feet.
There have been some additional new challenges in digging wells lately. One has been avoiding being noticed by the gangs. Along with that, another challenge has been getting solar panels for the agricultural wells, which are a higher volume and much wider and deeper, from Port-au-Prince.
We also have a new vehicle that we purchased a few months ago that we have not been able to successfully deliver from Port-au-Prince.
We would love for you to partner in prayer with us to be able to get our solar panels delivered and to be able to bring our vehicle up from Port-au-Prince. Please also pray for the safety of our team and the equipment we have for digging wells so that they will not be noticed by the gangs. Clean water is so important for the people's health and the farmer's crops. Water is life.
We are so thankful that you have joined us in supporting the people of Haiti.
Blessings, Chris
Sunday, April 14, 2024
The Kingdom Is Moving Forward!
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Friday, March 29, 2024
Prayer and Fasting This Good Friday
Hello,
I am writing to remind everyone that we are asking for you to join us and others around the world in praying and fasting for Haiti today, Good Friday.
As we have shared in past emails Haiti is in the midst of an impossible situation, but God.
We believe that God is calling us to join with Him and seek His intervention for the people of Haiti, putting our faith into action by fasting and praying for the country and people of Haiti.
Please join us today. I have linked the brochure we have shared with other ministries, churches, and other countries.
Click Here for Brochure
Thank you and Blessings, Mike and Chris
Friday, March 8, 2024
The Battle Going On
Dear Friends;
At this point, I feel like my heart is being ripped apart by the current situation in Haiti. You have all heard me speak many times of the deteriorating political unrest in my country over the past several years.
In the past week, the current Prime Minister has declared that;
- He will not step down as his own people have demanded.
- He will not hold new democratic elections, as the International Council has required.
- He traveled to Kenya to help solidify a deal to bring Kenyan Military Police to help fight the gangs.
In the same period, the gangs have united in their determination to take over the country.
- They have taken over the airport to prevent the Prime Minister from returning.
- They have taken over the Palace.
- They have taken over most police stations in Port-au-Prince.
- They have taken over 3 major prisons, releasing over 4,000 criminal inmates.
- They have taken over the capital city.
The Prime minister was turned away from landing in America, indicating that the very government that America set up would no longer be supported, and then he was turned away from landing in Haiti, indicating that his own country would no longer accept him.
We have heard that yesterday an emergency UN meeting was called, but there were no details given as to when they would meet, or what they would do. The US has maintained that it will not send troops to Haiti.
The situation is not just terrible, it is violent and completely out of control. No government at all, only heavily armed gangs. No power, no gas, no schools, no hospitals, no food, no banks. All we can do is pray, and fast, and pray.
We must pray with confidence that God is bigger than all this. We must check our hearts to not be judgemental towards a situation that we don't completely understand, we too could be caught in something like this, and we would certainly want our Christian brothers and sisters around the world praying for us. Thank you for standing with us.
Mike
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Hello,
I wanted to share something with you that is on our hearts. Mike feels strongly that he is to organize a day of prayer for Haiti. He believes it is to be across different ministries involved with Haiti, across International borders, and involve multiple people groups.
Haiti is in the midst of an impossible situation. The gangs are controlling and inhibiting the access to both fuel and food. Many are looking at the circumstances from a worldly perspective and believe Haiti is hopeless. But God is above all rulers and dominions.
When we consider the story of David and Goliath, the Israelites believed the situation was impossible from a worldly perspective. Sometimes worldly wisdom appears to be true, but partnering with worldly wisdom and/or with fear can lead us to inaction and we can become paralyzed. David saw it from a Godly perspective and acted in faith.
A declaration by Steve Backlund that has impacted me lately is this “Our forward movement causes Red Seas to part”. It says in 1 Samuel 17:48 “The Philistine arose and drew near to David, and David ran toward the army to meet the giant.”
I believe as David partnered with God, put his faith into action, and moved forward, the ‘Red Sea’ did part, and the Philistine army was defeated that day.
We believe that God is calling us to join with Him to seek God’s intervention for the people of Haiti, put our faith into action, move forward and fast, and pray for victory with Him. Will join us on Good Friday, March 29, 2024.
Blessings,
Mike and Chris
Pray for Haiti
A Global Gathering
A Global Gathering; for prayer and fasting for the people of Haiti
WHEN
March 29th – Good Friday, the recognized day of prayer and fasting before our Lord Jesus Christ
WHY
The situation in Haiti is out of control, and being further manipulated by people and forces above the people trying to live and survive there, especially the poor.
HOW
Contact, connect, and network with individuals, organizations, ministries, and all those who care about the current situation and people living in Haiti; to gather together in prayer, fasting, and repentance, and humbly seek God’s forgiveness, deliverance, and for healing of Haiti.
Whatever your opinion of what is happening in Haiti right now and why, it is certainly bigger than us, but never bigger than God…
Over and over God shows His great and undeserved grace and mercy, when those who are called by His name, would humble themselves and pray and seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways, then He will hear from Heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.
Now is certainly the time for prayer. We see God moving more powerfully now than ever before in the rural areas of Haiti. Despite all who have turned their back on the people of Haiti, God has not, and He is moving among the people in amazing ways, drawing hundreds to Himself through small organizations that are preaching the true gospel of Jesus our healer, our deliverer, our Lord, and Savior.