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To
our dear ones at home, It seems impossible that it could be
Thursday already! I had hoped that we
could have written more this week. It
has been so busy. The team of young
Canadians has been serving in a wide variety of tasks. You would be amazed to watch them. Yesterday morning, they shared the
responsibility for leading worship for the missionaries and the people
assembled for different programs. A
group of them led in singing, and four different teens each shared scripture and teaching with the
very diverse people in the different programs. You see, around here, worship is a very
important time every morning. After
the missionaries worship, the staff begin arriving for work. The mission staff have a wide spectrum of
educational levels and vocations, from cooks and orphanage workers, to
doctors and nurses, cement mixers and tillers… But before they begin their day of work,
songs of thanksgiving and praise to our God are sung, prayers for the safety
and work of each, and the sharing of God’s word must be done. After that, the children who were once
dying from second and third stage malnutrition, and come daily for meals…
They and their caregivers have their devotions. There cannot be a noisier time of sharing
the Word and singing any where on earth!
And then, the team went down and led worship among the elderly people
who live here in our senior’s residence.
They love the singing, and usually begin dancing. It is so much fun, that it takes some
discipline to get into the Work. And
once the transition is made, something about their wisdom, life experience, and
love for God, makes sharing the Word with them even more fun than the singing
and dancing to hymns. This is what our
young people did yesterday morning. Hopefully
Geoff got some photographs, because, I was off to Tortuga Island and could
not go along with them. More about
that later.
Those from Peterborough/Lindsay, and
certainly those who help in loading the containers, may remember a white
kidney shaped table we were given. We
all stared at it quite a while. It
sort of looked to us like those ‘designer’ institutional furniture pieces you
see in hospital lobbies – things that take up more space than they
should. We actually debated sending it
to Haiti at all, not quite knowing what they would do with it. But when I prayed about it, it just seemed we
should send it. Then, when we were
loading the container, Georg said, ‘Why don’t we just send this, and let them
deal with it in Haiti?’ So, that is
just what we did. Then I forgot all
about it. Well, you can imagine what I will tell
you next. The table was found in a
furniture room by Courtney, the young lady responsible for all these special
needs kids. And she just grabbed
it. It has no hard corners for the
spastic children to bang their faces on.
And for the first time, some of our young physically handicapped
children, are beginning to feed themselves.
One young lady can only feed herself if she lies on the floor next to
the table. But with this kidney shaped
table, she is independently eating for the first time in her life.
Yesterday, I was privileged to go to the
island of Tortuga, where we are hoping to build a church and from that
facility begin a school, clinic, and nutrition program. I have worked in surgery, when many people
from Tortuga have come in, very very thin.
A team is there over the next few days doing house to house surveys to
find out what the people eat, what the best sources of water are for their
households, and how many children in each family go to any kind of school,
and everything else we can find. We know
that Tortuga is even poorer than here in the northwest mainland. The ground is a poor, rocky soil that
requires a pick-axe to work. And
though fruit trees grow there, they do not yield the volume that trees here
with better soil do. The real shock going over there, was
that we had to be carried out to the sail boat! There is no dock. It was not the most exciting part of the
trip, at all! We sailed, quite literally
by a patchwork sail boat with a boy to bail water (praise God the mission
provided us with life-jackets) the 17 km. across to Tortuga. Everyone there told me not to worry. We would not be carried on the other
side. I thought they meant there was a
dock there. O, me, the spoiled
Canadian! It meant that the water was
clean enough on Tortuga to wade to shore! I stepped out of the boat into water that
was actually much warmer than my skin temperature!
The Mayoral assistant and the Reeve (I
am not sure I understood the Creole word they used for him, being the local
municipal representative) came out to meet us, as well as the owner of the
land where we plan to begin working, and Pastor Mike, who is the director of
church planting at the mission. The
Mayoral assistant welcomed us and said that his office hoped that we would
feel that Tortuga Island was our home, and that we would find everyone most
joyful to see us. We hiked out to the
land being considered for the building.
I say hiked, because of the rocks and thorn bushes in the unfinished
road, and the donkeys (who bite if you get to close) coming home laden from
market on the sand road. Once the land
is worked, and the thorn bushes gone, it will be much easier. The place has a beautiful harbour as you
can see. I have sat through the night, day after
day, praying and watching, while our doctors and nurses have fought for the
lives of some very tiny, frail children from Tortuga. It is an answer to prayer for me to be able
to do something about this someday. If
we can keep those children alive who are dying, teach them to love God and
respect each other, to read and write to know His Word… these will change Haiti. God hasten the day! May
our Lord keep you in His wonderful love.
Thank you for praying for us.
Thank you for being there for us to come home to. Thank you for everything you are doing for
some very precious lives you have not yet met. In His great love, Tina July 9, 2009 –
Rev. Tina Leslie |
