Author: bryan@bmeyers.net (Page 62 of 101)

Friends of Haiti,

As usual, nothing is in the news about Haiti unless there has been a “natural” disaster such as a tropical storm, hurricane … or an earthquake. You would have to look deep to know there is a “political” disaster in the works now with the presidential election — or the lack of one. On February 7, the current president is constitutionally mandated to hand over power to the incoming president … but there isn’t one. Instead, Haiti will be ruled by an interim government until they can come to some sort of an agreement between the two parties involved. As it is, there are violent protests every day which have shut the country down. The people this hurts are, naturally, the poor, or those who can make some sort of living selling what they have, or those who sell for someone else in the market areas. Even those who drive the tap-taps have to stay at home. It also hurts the schools, because no one is willing to send their children to school as these things are happening. When a strike is called, everything is expected to close and there are consequences if you don’t.

Steve was to have gone there on the third weekend of January to meet with everyone, but the American embassy advised him to not make the trip right now. Hopefully after the 7th, things will get to the point he can go. Until this happened everything was running smoothly as far as ministry affairs go. All the schools were back in session after a long Christmas break and kids there (just like here) were looking forward to spring break. In Haiti it comes during the Easter period so if some, like Beaubrun and his family, want to travel they have time before school resumes.

February 6th marks the one year point since Terry had the stem cell transplant and on the 4th she will have a full body scan and extensive blood testing to check for cancer cells. She is still having a lot of leg and foot pain, and it has also started in her hands and back as well. Since it has been so cold, she has to wear gloves most of the time because her hands are cold … even when inside. So we hope everyone will keep her and that date in mind and prayer.

Thank you for everything you do to help make our friends’ lives easier in Haiti and for supporting the schools and feeding programs. We don’t know what they or we would do without your help and prayers.

Serving HIM together,

Steve and Terry

Terry and I hope everyone had a great Christmas and enjoyed the holidays. We did.

Over the last year or so, we’ve learned more about Terry’s health and what the future looks like. We had thought they were going to give her injections to boost her immune system but they have decided to let her body recover on its own. One of the many things she can’t do now is be in a larger group of people where we aren’t in “control.” Doctors have pointed out that church is one of those places. If you’re shopping, you can control what goes on around you and who you are around. In church, it’s hard to do that…so we do our Sundays at home watching our three favorite “TV preachers,” and studying.

Recently one of them opened his show reading the first several verses of Nehemiah. He then explained that Nehemiah was a person who was more than likely never in Jerusalem, but wanted to know about those returning there and the city. When told the walls had been broken down and burned, verse 1:4 says he sat down and cried:

¹The words of Nehemiah son of Hakaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa,² Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.

³ They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

⁴ When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Then the speaker asked the question, “What breaks your heart?” There are many things we could point at and to, considering our world today and all that is going on in it. But Terry and I agreed that the same things that broke our hearts in 1994 still do today — those in Haiti who still live in complete poverty; those who still hang on to the voodoo belief and reject the God we know because He is so distant; the constant political turmoil Haiti goes through and is going through at this very minute.

Through the years we, together, have made a very big difference in the lives of so many people and in some cases changed the world they live in, but there is still so much more we could do. There is more we have to do. Going into this in 1994 we obviously had no idea what would take place or where it would take us. This was a point the speaker made — “You have no idea what hangs in the balance of your decision to embrace the burden God has put in your heart”.

Our burden in 2016 is still doing all we can to help our friends in Haiti. It is our prayer that you to will embrace that burden.

Thank you for all you did in 2015 for them and for all you did for us as well. We pray the New Year will be very good to all of you.

Serving HIM together,

Steve and Terry