Indeed

Anna-Lena, her family and team from Norway are on their second week here at Mission of Hope International. Lena and Latta have been working on dental patients and doing some physical therapy. There have been soccer games and building shelves, too.

The team from Norway traveled in style to visit a local beach.

We spent a day working with Dr. Rik in Morency

A quick stop at the International Festival in Aquin

Food for the Poor has been allocating food for MOHI to share with our students and others who are hungry. Madame Michel, who works at Food for the Poor brought her family to visit us in Grand-Goave this weekend. What a beautiful family! It was a pleasure to show them some of the work happening here at MOHI and to know that she too has a part in it all. The church this morning was so happy to meet them and to express their gratitude for all the help that she and Food for the Poor has provided.

Mr. & Mrs. Michel and their family

Did you see the total lunar eclipse and blood moon on Saturday? I got up bright and early…okay, dark and early, just to watch the moon. I am really fascinated by earth science and astronomy, plus the Bible refers to signs in the heavens, so I am even more intrigued by it all. I was disappointed when I got down to the beach, looked west and discovered I’d barely made it in time to see the moon at all. The eclipsing was very minor (just the upper left portion of the moon was a little distorted in its shape), as the moon was quickly beginning its decent behind the mountain.

Barely witnessed the beginning of the lunar eclipse before the moon dipped behind Morne Tapion

This morning’s church service in Thozin was alive – hot and humid, too. I think summer weather is upon us. Shirley, who has been a part of the church since very close to the beginning of the mission, recently gave birth to her third son. She and her husband Stanley have the most handsome little boys and they do such a great job of keeping them clean and healthy. It was a blessing to have the new addition to the family presented to the Lord this morning.

Stanley & Shirley presenting baby #3 to the Lord

For those of you who have been around MOHI since the early days, you may recall the difficulties we went through trying to help another orphanage. In the end we ended up caring for 32 kids ourselves and our new friends from the Hands and Feet Project came alongside to help support this new undertaking. After about three years, the Hands and Feet Project was ready to receive the children at a new campus in Thozin. It was a bitter sweet moment for us, but we are so grateful for the wonderful way in which they have cared for these kids. Several of the girls now sing on the worship team for our Sunday night English/Kreyol servive. They are all young women now, polite and beautiful – especially when they smile!

Some of our girls from the Hands and Feet Project

“Christ the Lord is Risen to-da-ay, Ha-a-a-a-al-le-e-lu-u-ah” has been rolling around in my head and coming out my mouth all weekend. Now, I have to admit that I don’t know the rest of the words to the hymn. (I was raised in a Jewish home and when I met the Messiah it was in a rather nontraditional setting, so I never actually learned many of the old hymns, just the more recent choruses.)

Friday I spent a lot of time thinking about death and how it seems so peculiar to refer to the day that Jesus suffered so deeply (spirit, soul and body!) as “Good” Friday. I have such an aversion to death and suffering that it just sounds so wrong to use the word “good” when referring to it. I think about what the disciples were going through. They left all and followed Jesus, only to watch him be so brutally beaten and killed? And suddenly they’re asking themselves, “Are they going to kill me, too?” I mean, seriously, it’s not just some ancient fairytale. These things really happened. Talk about having a bad day!

20/20 hindsight – it WAS a GOOD Friday! It was that Friday that created a way for me to call the God of all creation my Father. Romans 3:10 reads, “ As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” I NEEDED Jesus to sacrifice His life so I could be reconciled to God. It was that GOOD Friday that God the Father laid all the sin of the world on His son. It was that Friday that I was made clean by the blood of the Lamb. And on Sunday it was all completed, as Jesus raised from the dead.

Happy Resurrection Day Friends! He is risen INDEED!