Pathfinder Update February 2012

Greetings!

This past month has been great!  Thanks to good friends in California, Jessica was able to stay in the Mendocino area while Martie spent the month here in Jacmel.  It was awesome to have her serving at my side. 

Martie & Davidson (translator)

While Martie was here she taught a hygiene class for the children.  She also inventoried the medical supplies for the Alabama House.  We have both been seeking to hear God’s voice in our ministry here.  We have known that there was more to our being here than building an orphanage, as good as that is.  God has more in store for us.  She has been studying He Speaks to Me: Preparing to Hear From God by Priscilla Shirer.  I have been studying Experiencing God.  It is about the third time I have studied it and have taught it twice.  But we both felt the need to sensitize our hearing.  The last week she was here, we heard from the Lord.  Andy Birchfield, the co-Director of Children’s Hope, asked to speak with us.  It seemed that a Haitian pastor, whom we know well, had a dilemma.  He had started a school in September, organized and staffed it, and had 70 students in 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd grade.  Andy said that he knew we were busy, but would we be able to explore ways that Pastor Paul might receive some help in funding the school. 

Martie and I knew at that instant that the Lord had brought us here for that very purpose.  We immediately said, “yes”.  Henry Blackaby, author of Experiencing God, said that it’s not that we can’t here God when He speaks, it’s not that we don’t understand what He says, the question is will we be obedient and say ‘yes’.  We were already familiar with the New Missions ministry in Leogane.  They have been in Haiti for about 30 years.  They have planted 25 churches, started 25 schools, and opened 25 medical clinics.  They feed 10,000 children a day - that’s right 10,000 children!  They do much more.  One of the brothers sent an email saying “Charley, you can do this!”  I wasn’t even asking him if he thought I should, just asking him questions about their ministry. 

Martie, Pastor Paul, Charley

Last night I met with Pastor Paul and we signed an agreement between Pathfinder Mission and the Evangelical Baptist Church By Faith of Jacmel.  We have begun the process of raising funds for the teachers’ salaries for this year and next.  We hope to start a feeding program so the children will have a hot lunch every day.  It may be beans and rice, but many of the children don’t even get that every day.  In fact, most of them come to school each day without breakfast.

Another aspect of the work will be to provide free medical care to the children.  For the past several months, I have been talking with a young man who has been asking for work so he could feed his family.  Recently he approached Martie and me about helping him start a clinic just outside Children’s Hope.  It turns out that he is a nurse and has been taking mobile clinics into the mountains for several years.  He wanted to set up a clinic to help the people in the area around Children’s Hope.  Did I say that we needed the capacity to treat the school children?  Jehovah Jireh!  We agreed and are helping him purchase medicine and equip the clinic.  He has another nurse and a doctor, both from a local hospital, at the clinic each day. 

A team is coming in tomorrow from North Georgia to help put water lines and sewer lines in.  They are also going to work on our tractor and attachments. They have exactly the right skills to meet our needs.  God is Good – Bondye Bon.

Charley giving a Creole Bible to Junior

Another important part of our work is to share the Word wherever we go.  When we were in Mississippi we gave hundreds of bibles out to the people in the community.  Through the kind donations of friends to the ministry, we have Creole Bibles, Bib La, that we are giving to men and women in the community.  It is our hope that we can give bibles to the children at the school at some point in the future.

The work on the second phase of the orphanage will start picking up after they leave.  We are going to build three structures, initially: the director’s house and two houses for the current orphans and care givers. 

Last summer I was contacted by a reporter from Outreach Magazine, a Christian bi-monthly based out of California.  They had heard about our shed project in Alabama and wanted to know more about it so they could write an article.  I thought it was nice, but not needful.  Well, the issue came out last month and Martie told me that we got a couple of copies in the mail.  She found the article and read it to me.  It was complimentary and fairly accurate.  But I told her that the focus was primarily on the local church and the volunteers who had helped, and that is what I liked about it.  We are about helping the local church minister to people at the point of their need.  I told her not to expect anything to come of it.

Martie sent me an email today indicating that someone in Branson, MO had read about the sheds in Outreach Magazine, had gone to our website and emailed Martie asking about the shed program. If you recall Branson was hit hard by tornadoes recently.   I called the woman in Branson and told her that if she determined there was a valid need for sheds in Branson that I would see if I could get some folks in the U.S. interested in helping to build some sheds for them.    When I talked to the woman in December of 2005 about building a shed for her in Waveland, MS, I had no idea that I would be talking to another woman in Branson, MO in 2012, and from Jacmel, Haiti no less.

I will be in Haiti until the end of April.  Then I will return to Alabama for a month, most likely.  Then it’s back to Jacmel.  Martie will be coming to Haiti as she can.  She continues to homeschool Jessica.  The middle of March she is going to see an orthopedic surgeon about her hip.  She has a genetically inherited condition that is deteriorating.  Please pray with us that this will be resolved so that she regains her mobility and is free from the associated chronic pain.

That’s about it for now.  God bless you … Let your light shine!

Charley and Martie

 If you would like to support our work in Haiti visit our website to see how at   www.pathfindermission.org/donations.html

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