How faithful our God....

I thought I knew yesterday morning what I would say on my first blog, but as the day progressed, God redirected my heart  and my thoughts away from me and on to Him instead... 

I am never surprised by what God can do, HE IS GOD, but I always always stand in awe of what He does.  My God is always faithful...He hears my prayers and He continually shows me He is here, that He is so real....

Two weeks ago, I sent out an email to several people with a list of items for projects that were on my heart from my first trip into Haiti back in April. I prayed over this letter believing God would answer,  and answer He did. I went to bed last night thinking of Eph. 3:20, "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." You see God even answered my secret prayer, the one I never listed in that letter...And I stand in Awe!

Much of my first trip was spent hugging children, passing out snacks, but mainly I just observed....I was not surprised by the living conditions of Haiti, it was like I had pictured it in my mind after hearing the stories of those that had gone there before me. The layout of the ophanage was different than what I had pictured in my mind, but mostly everything else was  just as my minds eye had seen it. The workers do the laundry for all the orphans in shallow dishpans held between their knees and then lay them out on the rocks to dry, and they
have one 5 gallon bucket that they use to carry water from the well across to where they sit to wash the clothes. It is a long long process....Each little bed has one sheet on it, no pillows, no cover sheet or blanket. Since the laundry is such an ordeal, the sheet on these beds only get washed once every several weeks. Some of the children are bedwetters....and the air is hot and dusty and there is no doors or windows on the concrete building that houses their beds.

My hearts desire is not to see them Americanized, but simply to see them moved ahead into at least my grandmother's generation, where, quite frankly, many times I would like to see us move back to.....clotheslines instead of rocks for drying clothes, (although my grandmother removed some of her toughest stains by laying them in the grass. Unfortunately there is no grass at the ophanage, only dirt and rocks.) and washtubs, in place of shallow dishpans. I want to see at least one more sheet for each bed so they can be changed more often, and pillows to lay their little heads on each night. I have a desire to see a garden at this orphange. Maybe it is because I am a gardener and nothing makes me happier than to dig my hands into dirt, to plant and watch it grow, and to enjoy the fruits of my labor during the harvest months. We live in a country where food is readily available, they do not. I was told that under those rocks and top layer of dirt, there is good soil...the problem is the one shovel they have is broke in half...not the handle but the shovel part. I want to see them have a shovel that is able to do what it was design to do, dig.

My secret prayer was simply this...to see an abundance of money come in...that would not only buy the shovel, washtubs, pillows, and fans but to have enough left over to pay the 12 teachers that continually come to the ophanage to teach. By the time the basic needs are meet for the children, there is no money left to pay the teachers. Yet they continue to teach, hoping someday the money will be there. Cathy told me a good wage for a teacher would be $100 a month. I don't know a teacher anywhere in this country that would teach for $100 a week let alone a month. So that was my prayer...and God has faithfully answered it. Late into last night the calls continued to come in to let me know that checks had been mailed and  the amounts  they were for and I went to bed praising God, for He never fails...

Now I want to simply say thank you to each of you who gave...of yourselves and of your time and money. What you allowed God to do through you will help people whom most of you will never meet and my prayer for you is this......That God will bless each of you.... 'abundantly above all that you could ask or think'....