SIX O'CLOCK BLESSING. This morning Scott and I drew straws (figuratively): one would get up at dawn and drive Pastor Sony Joseph downtown to catch a transport back to Gonaives. The other would get kids off to school. I "drew" the former got the bigger blessing. I want to encourage all of you with the story told to me by Pastor Joseph. He is the pastor of our LaFontaine church. Scott reported to you already about the destruction of the church building and the lost of life there.


"Over a year ago," said Pastor Joseph, "I felt God impressing on my heart an urgency to increase our evangelism efforts in our area of town. We began to hold evangelistic campaigns and to go from house to house preaching (40 houses at a time). God blessed our efforts and people asked Jesus to be their personal Saviour. I give God glory." Then Pastor Joseph continued, "Some of the people that were saved, died in the flood. God gave them a chance."


I asked him if and where the church met for worship since the flood. He replied, "We meet in the yard where the church used to be." Then he went on to say, "When we were evangelizing our neighborhood, some people did not accept Christ as their personal Saviour, but since the flood they have come to the yard where our church meets now and over 50 have accepted Christ."

HURRICANE RELIEF UPDATE. The students have collected over 2,000 pounds of clothes, food, and supplies for the victims of Hurricane Jeanne. They organized collection points at several local Nazarene churches as well as on the main campus. The school's cafeteria was almost overrun as donations started coming in. The items were repackaged and on their way to L'estère, a town on the outskirts of Gonaives. From there local Churches of the Nazarene will distribute the donations.

In addition to the dry goods and clothes, cash donations came in as well with over 35,000 gourdes (approximately US $1,000) given. This is an amazing response, given the current economic situation in Haiti. Our students are having a hard time making their tuition payments, but they have dug deeply into their own pockets in addition to soliciting donations from others.

Luxonne Fils-Aimé, a senior and one of the leaders of the student collection effort, said: "At first we thought we would just collect from among ourselves, but then we quickly became involved in the neighborhood. Everyone has been coming by to drop off items, believers and non-believers."

Reports of Nazarene pastors and congregations have been slowly tricking in. Joseph Sony, a Nazarene pastor and Bible College graduate lost virtually everything in the flood. He and his family escaped through a window and crawled on top of an adjacent building. From there they watched as their home, possessions, and most of their neighborhood washed away. In the aftermath he discovered that 15 people from his church had died, including nine students at the church run elementary school. The current students prepared a large box of supplies and several boxes of clothes for him to take back to his family in Gonaives.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

LOCAL RELIEF FOR JEANNE VICTIMS. Must of you have heard about Jeanne, which recently struck Florida, but earlier caused tremendous damage in the northern city of Gonaives. Our Bible College students have been active in collecting clothes, soap, money, and other relief supplies. They have organized collection points at local churches and canvassed our neighborhood, soliciting contributions. We are still receiving reports from our Nazarenes in Gonaives, some of them very difficult to hear.


Second year student, René Saintilma helps organize donations for transport to Gonaives on Wednesday.

CINEMA JAMES. James Arbaugh has been a big help to me over the past several months as we set up extra security and content filtering on the campus-wide computer network. In addition to that ministry he also shows evangelical films, including the Jesus Film in the evenings. Tonight James worked with one of our recent graduates to show Le Combat to a local youth group. Over 200 attended with many more peering in from outside, not sure whether it was safe to come in a church or not! He also produced our deputation video. Thanks, James for all you do. He has a nice website as well: MissionaryJames.


James with his new, lightweight equipment showing an African film he produced in Kreyol.

HURRICANE JEANNE. While she didn't hit directly, a tropical storm from this system hit the Northern town of Gonaives early Sunday morning. The devestation is incredible, and we are just now getting reports from family and friends of our students and workers. The flooding is intense and over 600 confirmed dead, probably more than that. Most everyone has been affected, many having lost literally everything in the rush of water. Dave Blowers is planning a trip tomorrow (Thursday) to try to contact our District Superintendent and our pastors to evaluate the extent of the damage to our Nazarenes in that district (and their are a LOT of Nazarenes in that area!). Pray for strength and wisdom as the Haitian Church and the International Church responds to this latest crisis. For a new article on the flooding click here: BBC News Coverage of Gonaives Flood

LOTS OF GOOD NEWS. Recently we've gotten some news of gifts! A friend of the work here in Haiti (not sure he wants to be named) is working to ship in our new campus generator. This thing is huge and it is expensive to bring in, and we are grateful for this help. Not sure we could afford it otherwise! The Kentucky NMI president, Tim Caudill, recently donated shirts and caps for our students as Christmas presents. They arrive with Seth, Dorothy, and Art first week of October. Yeeeeees! and as if that weren't enough, we heard from another Tim C. (Clem) who worked on our campus master plan. He sent in designs for two much needed buildings. Jim Koster and I are excited to get estimates and start publicizing these projects! We are going to be looking for teams to come in and start building! Interested? Talk to me! Thanks to all these folks and the rest of you who support us so faithfully!

DAVIS FAMILY JOINS THE 21st CENTURY. My good buddy Stan Davis finally has a website. You should visit and make him feel welcome: www.DavisOffline.com . (Don't ask me why they have the .com extension, because I haven't figured it out yet.)

CHARLEY, FRANCES, IVAN. Though we have had nothing compared to what Florida is going through, we sure have had enough of these hurricanes. All three of these major systems dumped water on us, and we're looking to get more tonight. We all bought extra water, trimmed trees, and prepared for Ivan to strike, which of course guaranteed that it wouldn't come our way! So for the many folks who have asked, we are doing well here in Haiti so far. We'll keep you posted.

MISSING LINDA, PREPARING FOR CHANGE. Linda will be in the States for two weeks taking a class at Nazarene Theological Seminary. We miss her a LOT! She is taking Hebrew in preparaton for starting a Ph.D. program. That's right, she'll be Dr. Linda before long (at least we hope). Let me give you the details, since this may be the first time most of you have heard the news. We received permission from Nazarene World Missions to take a three year leave of absence for Linda to do her studies. She is applying to four schools. We are hoping for Vanderbilt, but if not then Emory, Drew, or Boston. We are not moving out of mission service, just taking a three year period for her to get her degree. We all hope to return to Haiti afterwards, though we do understand three years is a long time! Watch this blog for updates!