21December2011
Posted by hpshaiti under: Personal walk.
Just got back from Haiti Sunday. As usual found a stack of mail to go through as well as a full Inbox. But this time of year it’s a little different. Most are Christmas cards and greetings. News of friends old and new. How special to have so many over the years who have enriched our lives.
The week before I went to Haiti I was working on our news letter and Christmas greetings. As I stuffed and stamped the envelopes the names brought memories. Many we’ve known for years and some have prayed for and supported us since the early days of our missionary career (38 yrs.). As I worked I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the blessing of the friendships the Lord has given us, a kind of extra along the way in our journey serving Him!
Our Christmas List of Blessing
Our Christmas list is more
than just a way to keep track of
the special people God has brought
into our lives to love.
It’s like a treasured scrapbook
filled with pleasant memories
of the times God has answered prayer
through friiends and family.
Every name is a touchstone
that leads to places and hours.
Where God has used another’s heart
to reach out and touch ours.
It may have happened years ago,
or maybe yesterday.
But each person on our list
has changed our lives in some way.
Through simple conversations
a warm hug or a shared meal.
Every personon our list
Has helped us grow or heal,
Or laugh or love or learn or smile
the blessings never end.
As God allows our paths to cross
as family and friends.
So please know that this greeting
Is more than a Christmas wish
It’s a thank you card to God
For putting on our list
Each and every one whose name
We’ve come to hold so dear
Those who’ve shown us Christmas joy
Each day of the year.
Taken from an insert in a Christmas card from one of our dear friends.
14November2011
Posted by hpshaiti under: Personal walk.
I got back from Haiti Wednesday. Yesterday Pat and I went to College Wesleyan Church. As always Pastor Steve DeNeff’s message was challenging to say the least.
Yesterday was the Sunday put aside on the church caledar to remember the persecuted church. So Steve spoke on suffering and gave us a veritable theology of suffering as seen in the New Testament, something that is woefully lacking in western evangelical circles. I’ll spare you the detailed Biblical development. (You can listen to it for yourself on CWC’s pod casts.) But toward the end he gave us four different ways that most Christians respond to suffering. They are avoid, resist, endure, and embrace.
The first two I don’t have much trouble with. By nature I’m not one to avoid suffering for the Lord and for my faith. I tend to rush ahead where angels fear to tread! And I’ve felt for a long time that much of the resistance of evil, especially in our country, is at best futile and at worst often even un-Christian. Too often we think we can fight for the faith and what is right using the devil’s tools!
But when he kicked it up to the next two levels I began to feel uncomfortable. My usual reaction is certainly ‘to endure’ evil and any kind of persecution. And my prayer, both for myself and others such as those in the persecuted church, has always been Lord deliver us, make it go away. However Dr. DeNeff pointed out that the highest and best response is to embrace the evil, to welcome the persecution, and subsequently what God is going to do through and because of it! In Acts after Peter and Paul are beaten they go back to the church and their prayer is not for retribution or even for protection but for boldness and for courage to face the persecution! That’s embracing suffering for Jesus’ sake, and out of that spirit the church mushroomed. That’s why many in China don’t ask us to pray for the persecution to go away but to pray for courage as they endure for Christ’s sake.
As I meditated on these thoughts, I was reminded of a struggle I personnaly had last weekend. And don’t be too quick to judge my descernment. I’m not one to see a devil behind every bush. But you don’t work in Haiti very long before you understand that the work of the enemy is more evident there. We’ve often been brought up short over the last 30 years by his tactics in the most mundane of affairs. Anyway, a week ago Saturday everything I did went wrong. Our main computer server at Radio Lumiere went down, and out. And everything I did made it worse. I didn’t know what to do and I only had four days to do it, before I had to catch a plane back to the States. The whole weekend went that way. Everything went wrong that could. I finally was able with the Lord’s help to get another server on line and get the Radio Station systems back up and running. But it was hard. I worked long hours under a lot of pressure. And I kept praying “Lord why? I need your help! Why is the enemy giving us such a hard time? This is Your ministry and you know its importance, and the time constraints. Please help us!”
After the message yesterday I realize I was ‘enduring’. I certainly wasn’t embracing the suffering! What if I had really understood the warfare going on, and that I was being given a chance to suffer for my faith? How would my attitude been different? And the outcome? And maybe the witness to others on the Radio Lumiere staff?!
“Lord teach me your theology of suffering, and how to embrace it for Your sake and for the sake of the Kingdom.”
27May2011
Posted by hpshaiti under: Uncategorized.
Be sure to keep checking our Prayer Updates in the column on the right. Just got this link working again. I write updates every couple of weeks.
27May2011
Posted by hpshaiti under: Personal walk.
Read Habakkuk in my devotions this week. Fascinating thought development if you follow closely what he is saying.
He starts out upset by the violence and injustices in his country, Judah. Been there, done that, many times in Haiti! Can be said of this country too.
But when he prays for change God reveals to him that instead of God bringing positive change to his homeland, God is going to punish his people by letting Judah be destroyed by the Chaldean’s! Now he’s really upset but still affirms his faith in God with the famous statement that “the righteous will live by his faith.” In other words he still trusts God to keep those, though they be few, who are living righteously and trusting God.
In the last chapter he prays a great prayer high lighting God’s power and all His mighty deeds in the past and then says, “I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”
But he says even if not and “the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” And in the last verse he affirms that the Sovereign Lord is his strength and “he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.”
I love that. Lord may I always have that kind of faith. Even when the world around me is in an uproar and the unrighteous flourish. Even when everything is going wrong and all looks lost. May I rejoice in You and may I find strength, not just to carry on, but to run like a deer and scale the heights!
26May2011
Posted by hpshaiti under: Personal News; Personal walk; Radio Lumière.
I am sitting here in my office with the rain coming down and wondering if
this weather pattern will ever pass and the sun shine again.
My mood reflects the gray day outside. I guess my Member Care friend, Twana,
would say I’m in transition. The beginning of last week Pat and I were motivated and mobilized to gather as many partners as possible so we could get back to the work in Haiti. I think we were also getting used to the limbo state we
were in of not knowing when or how that would happen!
Then last Tuesday WGM called and offered her a full time position in
accounting. Exactly what we’d been asking God for. And by the end of the week
the rest of our support was in and we were fully funded. What rejoicing!
But this week we are having to deal with transition. As I told her, the die
is cast. We will continue to live here in Marion so she can work at HQ and I’ll
be going back and forth. Already have my first trip planned for July 6.
Transitions means decisions. What are the next steps at Radio Lumiere? How do we find funding for projects? Work teams to build homes? How can I best use this day to help RL?
And, what about our partners? How do we keep in touch? Help them to grow
missionally? Keep them engaged, even if we’re not actively raising new support
or looking for new volunteers? Change and transition!
I do need to stop here and say a big thank to our champions. Some of you went the extra mile enrolling new partners. I wish we could get together and have a party! We won the election! And we moved lots of folks further up the road in their involvement in the Great Commission. Thank you! Thank you!
Now for what’s next. Lord give us vision and fortitude during times of transition. “Lead on O King Eternal!”
