It's Saturday...rejoice!

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Philippians 4:4-6

Back in the day, when I lived in Haiti my home congregation was Bon Berger Eglise Evangelique Lutheriene in Caredeux which is a suburb located about a mile off of Delmas 75 in Port-au-Prince.  Bon Berger is Haitian Creole for “Good Shepherd” and the mother and child in the attached photo live nearby and worship there too.  The photo was taken by Lori Wolfe-Beerenstrauch probably in 2000 while she was there with a mission team from Nebraska.  It has always been one of my favorites as the smile on the mother’s face exemplifies the above verses from the fourth chapter of Philippians. 

Her expression speaks volumes of gentleness...the Lord is near and don’t be anxious about anything.  If you knew where she lived, saw her small dwelling, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no ample supply of food or clean water…well you just have to ask how can she be so calm, at peace and happy.

When you see a group of school children walking to school down a dirty path in their clean school uniforms, coming from similar living conditions, with broad smiles on their faces…how can this be?  The mother has her child in her arms and is confident that God is taking care of her today and will again tomorrow.  The children walking to school are also delighted that they are heading to school where there is a promise of food, every day, and they too know that God took care of them yesterday, will take care of them today and will again be there tomorrow.

How often are we like this mother, at peace and comforted in the knowledge that our Triune God is taking care of us?  We are so self-dependent; we get our food whenever we are hungry, buy more clothes than we care to look at, buy our cars, home, are protected with health insurance and pay no attention to our electricity, indoor plumbing, clean water and heat in the winter and AC in the summer.

When was the last time you were in a crisis?  When was the last time you needed to take a COVID-19 test?  When was the last time you were on your knees praying for deliverance from the hole that you dug yourself into?  “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Every situation should be brought to our Heavenly Father in prayer.  Thank you for supporting Christian education in Haiti and for being His servants for His children in Haiti, providing food for them every day and continuing to rejoice in the fact that we are saved because of His Son.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Chores.

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:19

When I was a boy, one of my chores was to help my mom with laundry.  She had a small ‘antique’ Maytag washing machine in the basement and my job was to fill it with about six buckets of water, three hot and three cold and then fill the rinse tub that sat next to the washing machine.  I was told that when I was a baby, I was bathed in this same rinse tub.  That was in 1959 and I joyfully recall when years later my mom bought a modern washing machine that had hoses connected to the waterline and that put me out of the water hauling business.

For the two young girls in the attached photo it is laundry day.  They are on the east edge of Gonaives and walking to a drainage canal to probably help their mom with laundry.  No machine there, just a board or stones to rub at the soiled clothing.  No clothes dryer or line, there they spread out the clean clothes on the large rocks, bushes or gravel lined banks and let the sun bake them dry.

When I first moved to Haiti in March 2001, it became quite clear after just a few days that my North American “B-O” would soon become a problem for me as there didn’t appear to be a Laundromat in all of Port-au-Prince and my perspiration would soon become legendary if my clothes did not get washed.  I wore my salt brine like a scarlet letter.  I was told by Pastor Thomas Bernard that I could take my clothes to the dry cleaner and after a couple of visits there decided that was too cost prohibitive for me.  I decided that the best option for me was to return to my childhood lessons and did my own laundry in the sink with Woolite, ringing out my clothes by hand and then hung them up to dry on a piece of rope.  My needs were met, my mom would have been proud of the lessons that I learned hauling water for her. 

Just as the Apostle Paul wrote, “my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” the needs of the two children from Gonaives are being met, clothes to wear, shoes on their feet and a couple chunks of sugar cane.  Our daily needs are always met, maybe not in the way we expect or desire them to be met, but they are met by our loving Heavenly Father who gave His only Son to meet our ultimate need, forgiveness of our sins. 

His children attending Christian schools are saved, and are prayerfully making disciples of the lost in their neighborhood, bringing the saving message to them as well.  Thank you for supporting Christian education in Haiti through Trinity HOPE school feeding programs.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Hardships...challenges?

“But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:5

Enduring hardship, we have all most assuredly at one time or another asked how much weight we will be able to withstand before we crumble under the suffering that this world had dumped on us.  We all have different hardships as satan creates something special for each of us, knowing our weaknesses and finding ways to gnaw away at our patience.

Back in the day, while living in Haiti one hardship that continually gnawed away at me was walking with my artificial knees.  There were many times when I asked my Heavenly Father “Why me, why here, why now?” as my being there on a rocky steep slope seemed like such a cruel task.

The attached photo is one of those rocky paths.  This is the Haitian sidewalk that children take on their way to school at Chincheron which is high on top of the mountain North of Arcahaie.  It is a rural school and most of the 145 children attending there walk for miles on paths such as this day after day, getting their education, Spiritual growth and a noon meal of beans and rice from Trinity HOPE.

I made the trip to Chincheron several times and always wondered how many children have walked this path over the years and where there feet have taken them while sharing the love of Christ with others in their families and neighborhoods.  How many feet tramping in the sand and rock did it take to make this defined pathway?  I also thought about the poem titled “Footprints in the sand” as I had that poster in my office.  Identifying with the verses of that poem was easy to do as I questioned my hardships from time to time…daily!  Here is the 1936 version from Mary Stevenson. 

“One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.  Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.  In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.  Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was only one.  This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord, “You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always.  But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.  Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”  The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

May the hardships along your journey be manageable and may you always be reminded of Who is with us, every day, and every step of the way.  Trust always in Him, just as the children walking ahead of you, beside you and behind in Haiti do every step of the way.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

A really good photo.

“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him,” Nahum 1:7

Alexa tested my memory recently on her ‘Gospel Church Music’ format and I got to sing bass with “Leaning on the everlasting arms” and memories of Christian friends in Haiti came flooding back into vacant spaces that were not filled with the minutia that this world poured in during the past decades.  The words that caught my attention were; “What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms; what a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.”

Seeing a Haitian child in a school the size of a single car garage in North America, sitting on a board while tucked between two other students in a room that is 90 humid degrees, learning about geography, French and Jesus and beaming with an ear to ear smile is unimaginable to our way of thinking.  How can they possibly be happy?  We don’t understand their joy; they have the promise of a Savior and they daily lean on his everlasting arms.  They do not understand our reliance upon health insurance, retirement plans, savings accounts, three meals every day, a closet full of clothes, a cupboard full of processed food, an air conditioner, indoor plumbing, lights, television, the Super Bowl…they have Jesus.

“What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms?  I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, leaning on the everlasting arms.”  Too often, we drift away on our own taking on tasks that ‘we’ can handle and don’t lean or even think about leaning on Jesus; after all we can do it ourselves.  Too often, we only lean on Jesus when the mess we have gotten in to is over our heads. 

What a beautiful picture it is to see children leaning on His everlasting arms.  The children in the attached photo go to school in Cap Haitian and they stopped after school to have their picture taken.  They are happy, they know Jesus, it was His love through somebody like you that bought each one of them their lunch for two dollars and fifty cents.  Look closely at the young girl with one yellow sandal on her right foot and a white shoe on her left; she is just happy to have something on her feet, something in her stomach and a Savior that she can lean on and feel His love every day.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Out wandering.

“Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle.  They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away.  Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”  Psalm 107:4-6

Have you ever been out wandering in the wastelands, hungry and thirsty, freezing or burning to a crisp?  When deer hunting in the Pine Ridge of NW Nebraska during a November snowstorm, there were times that I was wandering endlessly for hours through the pine trees and deep ravines and canyons of Sheridan County but never do I recall feeling pains from being hungry or thirsty.

Back in the day, on one particular visit to a Lutheran school in the Jeremie District, our small group walked for several hours, through a river and then up a very long steep and did I mention long hill in intense heat and humidity and I did get really thirsty but I had a water bottle and drank frequently to replenish what I had lost on the ‘Haitian stairmaster’.

There are many children attending school in Haiti who are hungry and thirsty when they arrive for class.  Sometimes they saunter into class in the morning crying because their stomachs are empty and their comment is “Mwen gran goo” which translated ‘I am very hungry’.  I can only imagine that the only time I cried because I was hungry was 70 years ago when I was a baby and announced through tears that I was hungry.  In North American homes solving the problem of hunger is generally only a few feet away to the nearest cupboard or fridge and you will find food.  Such is not the case in many homes in Haiti.

The attached photo is of a girl at the Lutheran school in Ouanaminthe in March of 2010, before the Trinity HOPE feeding program came to her school; not a lot of energy, no bright smile to greet me.  It is easy to walk into a school in Haiti and know if there is a feeding program, just look at the children, shake their hands, pat their heads, look into their eyes, listen to their voice…tired, weak, clammy, listless and faint.  Hungry and thirsty; “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”  Matthew 5:6.

Trinity HOPE is now bringing a lunch program to over 52,000 children in 247 Christian schools throughout Haiti.  The hunger pains of those kids have subsided and their bodies continue to grow physically and their minds grow Spiritually with the Bread of Life.  Thank you for bringing them this lifegiving food.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Be courageous.

“…but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31

When you hear the word ‘courage’ what picture comes into your mind?  Often, we may think about soldiers, policemen and fireman; people who risk their lives to defend or protect us.  Is real courage restricted to such acts of heroism that they perform?  One definition of the word Courage reads “the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.  Courage is acting in spite of fear.  "Physical courage" is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death, or threat of death, while "moral courage" is the ability to act rightly.”

What about a wife and mother who doesn’t give up following their husbands sudden death or a person with terminal illness or the suicide on-line counselor?  Real courage comes from trusting in God.  The Creole word for courage is “Kouray” and these children who attend the Lutheran school in Dondon have ‘kouray’; much like the rest of the over 52,000 children in Trinity HOPE feeding programs exhibit daily.

Every day their witness is seen by their parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents and neighbors who still may be following the lies of the vodou priest; their Christian witness of the Triune God is seen daily as they confront the lies that have been woven for the past 200 years in Haiti.  Thank you for helping to strengthen their courage, their resolve…their witness.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Preparation.

“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way after supper, he took the cup saying, “This is the new covenant in my blood; do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  Now may this true body and blood of our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ strengthen and keep you in the true faith until life everlasting.  Amen.”  1 Corinthians 11:23-25

The above passage from 1st Corinthians should be very familiar to each of us; in Haiti you will hear the Pastor speak these verses usually in French and sometimes in Haitian Creole.  Receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion in a foreign country really puts the work of the Holy Spirit into a more profound setting; it reminds us of our commissioning to “go and make disciples of all nations…”

There is a song written by Carolyn Arends called “They’ll know we are Christians” that has some wonderful lyrics and here are just a few of them;

“We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.  And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.  And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.  They will know we are Christians by our love.  We will walk with each other; we will walk hand in hand.  And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land.  And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, they will know we are Christians by our love.”

Hand in hand; the hands in the attached photo belong to a Haitian woman waiting to receive Holy Communion at Bon Berger Eglise Evengelique Lutherienne in Caredeux which is a suburb of Port-au-Prince.  Where do you suppose her hands have been during her lifetime?  They certainly appear to be filled with much personality, probably have seen their load of trials, the earthquake, the pandemic, political turmoil, ongoing challenges and prayerfully there were also many times of rejoicing.

Look at your hands for a moment, where have they been during your journey on earth?  Have they toiled in the hot sun, done laundry outdoors on a washboard, labored in the garden, changed diapers, mended clothing, repaired equipment and seen moments of rejoicing at the direction of your journey?  Imagine if the photo would have shown the hands of Jesus; where have they been?  His hands worked with wood, changed water to wine, healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and speech to the dumb, raised the dead and were nailed to the cross for you, me, the Haitian woman in the photo, your family and over 54,000 Trinity HOPE kids.  Christ did it all for us.

When you next prepare to receive Holy Communion (tomorrow for me) and are standing at the foot of the cross with the Body and Blood of our Savior in your hands, take a long hard look at your hands, think about the hands in the photo and then think about how much His hands accomplished for you and how much you have accomplished for Him because of Him…we have so much yet to accomplish to further the Holy Gospel throughout this world.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Back in time.

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.”  Isaiah 55:1-2

Back in the day, when a medical mission team that I had led to Haiti was returning to our Hotel in Cap Haitian in October of 2010, one of the team members shared with me that at times, it seems like life here is much like it must have been shortly after the slave revolution in 1804; frozen in time.  When I was living in Haiti, that statement crossed my mind so many times.

If there were no gas-powered trucks, cars and busses or motorcycles it might seem like you had gone through a time warp.  I remarked to the team member, that we were seeing the more ‘urban’ part of Haiti in Cap.  If you spend more time up in the mountains away from populated areas the daily activities would even more resemble the early 19th century way of life.

The children in the attached photo are drawing water from the well near the school at Torbeck which is located about seven miles west of Les Cayes in the Southwest claw of Haiti.  At the time of this photo, the school and church were also home of Pastor Lafayette and since that time a Church has been built and the Pastor has him home back.

Not many schools with Trinity HOPE feeding programs have water wells on their property.  This well is not potable for drinking for you or me, but serves as their source for drinking, washing and bathing needs.  I really do hate to beat a dead chicken over a stump over and over again, but we sure take our comfy lives for granted…don’t we?

These students are at the top of their peers, a school, a feeding program, a well with a good rope and a risen Savior.  ‘They are truly delighting in the richest of fare.’  Some of these children may teach school here in ten years and perhaps one will be a Pastor and prayerfully each of them will bring another soul in their neighborhood into the Kingdom and away from the lies of the vodou priest.  Beni soit L’Eternal!

If you are interested in feeding children attending Christian schools in Haiti; please check out www.trinityhope.org and click on ‘How can I help’ tab and pray that your life may be used to impact a life or lives in Haiti.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Being a sponsor.

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.  I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.  Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.  I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.  I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”  Psalm 63:1-5

A few days ago, as I was going through another group of photos of Trinity HOPE children, the attached just leaped out at me.  At that same time, I was searching out Scripture verses for the April Prayer Guide and these verses from Psalm 63 seemed to be a good match with these children.

This group of children attends the school at Acquier which is in the Les Cayes District located in the Southwest part of Haiti.  There are 142 children attending this Lutheran school and it is sponsored by the congregation at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Franklin, TN.  The congregation raises thousands of dollars of support each year to bless this feeding program for the entire school year.

I wish my words could adequately describe the reverence of their meal prayer.  They are sitting at a table in their school, temperature is around 90 with matching humidity, the school has no running water or electricity and the majority of the children had nothing to eat since they left this table yesterday.  The plate in front of them is the ‘richest of foods’ and with the ‘singing lips of their mouths they praise our Heavenly Father’ for the gift they are about to receive.

These children understand how important this blessing is to them, how wonderful it is to have a loving God and how important the members of St. Andrew are to each of them.  If you would like to feed children in a Trinity HOPE program in Haiti, or find out how your congregation or organization can also feed a school and prepare missionaries in Haiti, please either go to ‘trinityhope.org’ and click on the ‘Our Schools’ to find a school without a current sponsor.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay

Blessings given.

“Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed.”  Martin Luther, 16th Century.

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”  Psalm 118:1

Last week, I shared the ‘Give thanks to the Lord…’ prayer in a devotion that my family generally used, and it came up again in my morning devotion so it will get another few minutes.  Did your school have a hot lunch program?  What are your memories of that noon meal?  I remember my class at St. John’s Lutheran in Seward, NE sitting down at the long table and reciting the “Come” prayer together.  Our Lutheran school had smiling cooks who placed our food onto our partitioned green plastic trays and then we picked up our small glass milk bottles with foil lids at the end of the line.  There were several children in my school that didn’t like their food to ‘touch’ one another, the green beans should not ‘touch’ the mashed potatoes; I was a ‘mixer’ and enjoyed the blending of the flavors.

We had five different items each day, always something different.  I don’t have any fond memories of the food that I liked, only the stuff that didn’t hit my taste buds with a pleasant note; canned spinach or peas always struck a sour note in the back of my throat.  They were always a magnet for my gag reflex because of their texture, not their flavor.

I don’t recall ever noticing kids in my school ever going to lunch “hungry” but rather it was just another activity of our day.  The majority of us had breakfast and would eat dinner when we got home and probably another something, before we went to bed.  Back in the day, giving thanks for my lunch didn’t really seem that important, it was always there, just like all the other meals.

In the attached photo, there are 24 plates of rice and beans on the serving table at the Bois Marchand school which is on the Northern edge of Gonaives.  These plates are ready to be served to one class of children who didn’t have breakfast and when they get home, there probably won’t be dinner waiting for them and nothing before they go to bed.  When these kids say their prayer before receiving this blessing, you can tell that this is something that really is important to them.  They will eat every grain of rice and every single bean on their plate this day, tomorrow, next week and next month.  No gag reflex at this table. 

Is there anything in your North American life that brings you to your knees to give thanks for these days?  Six dollars will feed the twenty-four children who received this blessing at their Lutheran school in Bois Marchand.  Six dollars won’t even get you into the door of a China buffet to eat food that you probably don’t need, but will provide each of these precious lives with the sustenance that they have been waiting for this day and every day.  The board of directors for Trinity HOPE and the children of Bois Marchand thank you for your continued prayers and financial support.

Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May God be with you…Jay