02/05/2010

REV. TINA LESLIE, Executive Director, NHCM Canada

My dear ones,

At last I am in Haiti!

Angel Flight 44 flies again! In the darkness of the early morning, Glen Hyde and I got into a Super DC3 plane, loaded with medicines for Haiti.

Glen looked every bit in his element, while I was pretty nervous. It was something like stepping into an old movie.

Except, unlike an old movie, this was a journey my Father was sending me on, and the people whose lives are in danger are real people, not characters out of fiction. The little girl in danger of losing her life from infection or the people with festering wounds from the earthquake are very real people, with very real lives. And there we were, in an airplane, taking medicine for them, and me to pray for them!

I sat down in my seat, and found I did not know how to work the seat belt. Glen had to work it out for me. I was the only person on the plane who did not have a job. So I sat there and prayed.

Part way through the flight, Glen gave the pilot a break. Ron, our pilot, reached down into his duffle bag, and passed me his New Testament with Psalms. It had gotten light enough to read. He told me, “If you have something good to read, it will make the flight seem shorter.” What a privilege to be with men of faith, serving the Lord!

I felt as though I was in the company of ‘the mighty men of valour’ like in David’s time. These were men who would obey God before they considered their own welfare, and value the things of God above their own. Michelle and Tito, who own the plane, after all the trouble they had, put our medicine flight ahead of their own business. What a beautiful family our Lord has!

Benna, one of our Haitian brethren, met me at the airport in Cap Haitian, with a little rented pickup truck. What a ride we had! We drove through the tallest mountains I have ever been through. I would be sitting there in the truck looking down on villages way down below in the valleys, and looking above at the craggy tops of mountains unbelievably high above. And as we drove, I would find myself at the very summit of the mountains that that I had admired from below!

In Canada we complain about pot holes. I will not complain again for some time to come. We were in pot-holes bigger and deeper that the hood of our truck. And that was on the paved road!

I came to Cap Haitian, believing that we would be able to get some stuff off the airplane flights, and truck it back to the mission. We left at 11:30 in the morning, and did not get to the mission until almost 9:00 pm, sore, very dirty, and extremely tired. The road is so rough, that here at the mission, they expect the travellers to take the next day to rest and recover. O, but what a trip.

We brought with us medicines. One of the people we needed the medicine for is named Mary. Mary is absolutely convinced that God saved her life. She is with us because she had an untreated broken ankle. She is sitting up in bed, telling everyone how Jesus spared her life. Her roof fell in on her in Port au Prince during the earthquake, but in the very spot she was standing, only a tiny portion of the roof over her head remained. When telling me about it, she put her hands in the air, to show me the miracle of how it looked to her. She said she does not mind her broken ankle. She is going to get better, and get baptized. If God would save her life, she would give it back to him in a life of service.

There is so much to tell you about. My work downstairs demands that I stop writing to go down and talk, sing, pray, and comfort the wounded.

One of the ladies here in the recovery room is a twenty-two year old teacher, who got all of her students out of the school in the earthquake, and was hit by a falling brick. Now, with a fractured c9 vertebrae, she is paralyzed from her abdomen down. Our nurses cry over her. Even with a raging fever, she was able to smile and raise her hands to our Lord, and give Him thanks for His goodness.

But when the lights go out, the fear comes.

Praise the Lord for faith! We prayed, standing on the Word of God that the fever would leave her body. And it did. When the fever came back, we prayed again, and again the fever left, this time for good.

And when the fear kept coming like a rolling wave of the ocean – even then, we had the mighty words of our Lord, that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but the spirit of love, and of power, and of a sound mind… and the fear would leave.

Apparently, some group is training Boy Scouts in Port au Prince, to lead people in post traumatic stress recovery by teaching them to put their hand on their heart and say, “I am safe.” Then the victim is to look at another victim and say, “You are safe.” Then, the group of victims are to hold hands and say together, “We are safe.”

And while this seems to work, it all falls apart when another aftershock shakes the beds. How much more sure the Word which says, “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou are with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”

I believe that these verses from the book of Psalms have become the anthem cry of all:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
(Psalm 46:1-11)

Tomorrow, I will attempt to write to you some more of the stories of those we are ministering to. God bless each of you. Thank you so very much for praying. It is your prayers that sustain the dying, and help the wounded and suffering to feel the touch of Father’s healing love. It may be our hands being laid upon them but it is our combined faith – yours and mine – that is at work in the healing of their spirits, their souls, and their bodies.

In His very great love, Tina