Living through disaster...

Recent update from Hans Meinardus, out friend at Frontier Camp
See Pastor Gersan Valcin's heartbreaking update below...

� There are so many exciting things to tell you about in Haiti. We have had the privilege of receiving several emails from Gersan and even a couple of pictures. These have all be placed on our Facebook Page. Anyone can visit the Facebook page and you can add your comments, pictures, etc. if you are a member of Facebook. We are so pleased that over 200 people have joined our group and are interested in the ministry of Gersan and Betty. We will probably start sending fewer emails and encourage you to visit the Facebook page often as there is up to date information posted there as soon as it is received. Please look under the Discussions tab to see the longer messages from people.

� The leadership team met tonight and it was decided that the group will be referred to as ECC Haiti Recovery. ECC is for Evangelical Community Church which is the name of Gersan and Betty's congregation. So don't be confused if you start hearing that name.

� Noelle was interviewed by a Houston TV station, you can see the clip online http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7225548

This weekend in Haiti brought the beginning of the total reality of what families in Gersan�s church, The Evangelical Community Church of Haiti, are now dealing with. A much smaller than normal group of believers gathered at church on Sunday. Through tears of grief, they also praised the Lord for many miracles that occurred. They shared their pain as they recounted the stories about those who are now on �heaven�s side� and also those for whom they are still searching. Gersan tells us best in his own words:

Friday the 16th

It's 9:30 pm and there is no electricity in the Port-au-Prince. It's unusually cold. Betty and I are in the van for our third night. All around us
on the street are people. Some are sleeping in their car and others just on the ground. We had a surplus of mattresses from last week
camp and we gave them all away. I keep in the Van one jacket just in case I might be called for funerals. So far, the situation is so bad that we don't have time for proper burials. People are just put in a common grave.

Out in the dark people are singing songs of praises making harmonies. I don't know how long they will sing, but it's beautiful.

Because of news about criminals breaking out of jail, we put cars on each side of the road and put a brigade overnight. We are fortunate to have water and so far the food we need for the day. We take one meal a day and save what we can because we don't know how long the situation will last. Each night

I pray for it not to rain. With so many people outside and no tent, it will be good not to have rain. God has been faithful to keep all the rains in Cap-Haitian area. We also need to pray for the people there because their crops are receiving too much rain and they will have a hard time this summer. We share everything and it's such a great testimony for the unsaved. One woman in our neighborhood starts to develop some interest in the Gospel. She realized how we as evangelicals we life our faith: how we care for each other and love each other. I shared the gospel with her.

Saturday morning the 17th

I left home to drop a family member to a place where she can take a tap-tap. After I dropped them in Petion ville, I turn to go back home. 4 people get into my car and ask me to drop them to where they were going. As they were in the car, I took the time to hear each one story and each one had a family member that was under the wreckages. One particular man who was silent all along started to tell his story. 8 family members are dead under his house and he was going to try to find a way to get to them. When he started, there was no emotion on his face, but when he came across the house he broke in tears and pointed to the place: here is the house; here is the house he cried!!! Tears came down all over his face. I stop and let him step down the car. I stood there for a few minutes hopelessly and looked around; but there was nothing I could do. He turned with his hands up over his head in despair. He turned around at lease three times and looked for help; but there was no help. That was one of the most painful minute of my life! There is nothing as painful as hopelessness! After this crisis, there will be need for a lot of counseling. People that seem to be strong now, when face with the reality of their lost will probably lose their mind.


Sunday, Jan. 18
Today at church, few people show up as this is unusual for Haitians, we knew that something has changed. Most of the people are out of their home and not able to travel because their car has been damaged. We have heard many stories of how God miraculously spared the lives of friends, family and coworkers in spite of the disaster all around.

We have also heard of some difficult stories. One woman shared how her husband and three of her children were buried aive under the wreckage of her house and she stood there crying with no help around. They all passed away and she was at church to share the story. Another father stood with his baby girls with almost not cloth sharing how his wife and her mother died. A young girl Regine Michel raised her only moving arm in the air to give praise to God for saving her life. Her left arm was broken in two places and no hospital wanted to help her because her wound was not life threatening. We praise God for one congressman that was present and that took her to the DR boarder in the hope that she will find help and they will not have to amputate her arm.

Like a sister wrote in her news letter, �this event has reminded us, once again, how fragile life is. We can be called home at any time and so we should live in such a way that we will not be ashamed when we meet Him.

Nothing in my life and training prepared me for a tragedy of that magnitude. That was the opportunity to turn to the Word of God. We read the third chapter of Lamentations and shared some words of comfort from the 46th Psalms. In the day a head, we will conduct symbolic funerals for the dead ones. Thank you for your prayers and support!

(Sunday evening)
This is the sixth night and again it may rain. So far, God did hold it back, but it would be a disaster with all the dead bodies out there and so many people sleeping outside. We pray again for the rain not to come. As the sun come down each day, I go to the refugee cam at the church to pray with the people before they go to sleep. This is a time they all look forward to. Before I get there, a tap-tap driver plays some Christian music and they are ready for me to come and pray with them. Using the Frontier Camp speaker phone we sing and recite a psalm and pray with them. On Saturday night, I had to pick up a team of Haitian doctors in Petionville and I was not able to make it back to the church. To night, the people at the camp shared with me how they missed that time of prayer on Saturday night. As I pray with them each night they always clap at the end. This is a way to express their gratitude to the Lord for just being alive. I see a lot of strength in them and I�m glad that they get their strength from the Lord. In Psalms 46:1, it is said that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. More and more people are finding their strength in God. I pray that Haiti will never be the same again!

Gersan

Share your experiences here...

Today we kicked off our church-wide campaign to listen through the New Testament in 40 days. Feel free to comment on your encounters with God and others as you let words or texts envelope you, meditate on them and pray them deep into the fabric of your life. Today we listened, or read, Matthew chapters 1 - 7. Anything jump out at you?

Note from AJ Brooks in Afghanistan

Family and Friends,

Things are going well here at Camp Bastion. The attached photo was taken mid-day (when it is sunny, I don't have to wear a jacket!) near where we do much of our work in support of medical evacuations, re-supply missions and close air support to the Marines on the ground.

The little "Charlie Brown" tree I am holding is obviously a little guy with a lot of Christmas spirit.

I appreciate all the birthday wishes last month and the great Christmas cards and care packages. Your letters have been a real blessing.

Morale here with the Marines remains high -- largely because of the encouragement, prayers and support we continue to recieve from the homefront.

Please continue to pray for peace on earth-especially here.

Semper Fi and God Bless!

Capt Aaron J. Brooks USMC
MALS 40 BASTION
AVN SUP DEP
UNIT 78369
FPO AE 09510-0839

Lingering in Hope

Christmastime is a time for lingering: lingering with friends and family around the story of Christmas, a story of family traveling together and lingering together for warmth in the promise of God, in the hope of God, in a place provided by God. The place God provided was humble, by any means, and it was not where they, or we, would hope to linger:
Smelly place designated for harboring of animals;
Lack of privacy;
Lack of amenities;
Lack of running water, heat and A/C;
Lack of lobby and fireplace to visit with other travelers!
This was not a place where the holy family, or our own families, would want to spend Christmas Eve.

But consider how many times we have had to linger in places and circumstances that were not of our choosing? How many times would we wish for the comforts and accommodations to be better? Perhaps like we experienced at some point in the past? At times we have found ourselves living in quarters and working at jobs that we would not have chosen. Or we may find ourselves a part of a family that is less than perfect, or realized that our lives are less than spectacular, powerful or relevant to the great needs facing the world and our community crises!

Christmas is a time to consider the blessing of lingering – lingering in Hope!
Consider the story of an apostle named Thaddaeus. There is a legend that Thaddaeus was a little boy hanging out, lingering, with the shepherds on that night when the angels visited them in the fields with the Good News of a child, who was to be the Messiah, who was to be born in a manger in the city called Bethlehem. The legend has it that Thaddaeus traveled with the older shepherds to behold this miracle. After the shepherds left, legend has it, Thaddaeus lingered. As he beheld the glory of God in this little babe called Jesus, Mary, the mother of Jesus, smiled and gently placed the baby into Thaddaeus' little arms. All because he lingered. Getting to hold the hope of the world in your very arms!

Thaddaeus’ story doesn’t end there. Some thirty years later, Jesus sees him and there is a strange connection, one that results in Jesus choosing Thaddaeus to follow him and be one of the 12, one of the elite, one of the inner circle to witness the life, death and resurrection of the Son of God, the glory that the world hopes for, and hopes in.

Consider a few others who lingered in the presence and hope of God, after the pomp and circumstance was gone; others who took the time to hang out in the background, in places where they did not find immediate satisfaction or look for personal notoriety:
• the women at the tomb: lingered after the work and witness of Jesus, by all reasonable accounts, was all over!
• Matthias: the apostle that was one of the original 70 sent out by Jesus in Luke 10:1-20, and later is the one chosen to replace Judas as he lingered with the 120 in the upper room just before Pentecost (Acts 1:15)
• Anna and Simeon: after the church had failed to deliver the deliverer, failed to give them the hope and consolation they were looking for, yet they lingered in the church, in the place of prayer, hoping in God rather in religion! (Luke 2:25-38)

How about you? Is it possible that if you linger, not only after the pomp and circumstance is over, after all others have left and gone their merry ways, and if you linger in faith that the Word of God is love and that God’s greatest desire is to rest not only in your arms, but in your heart, do you not believe that even after the end you may encounter the glory of God, the hope and consolation made known in Christ?

I believe so! I hope so! I know so! And so, I linger!
In the Hope of God through Christ Jesus!

Bless the Lord

I have been deeply grieving the news I received yesterday regarding a dear friend of mine, Bonnie Dixon. Bonnie and I went to seminary together in the first class of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond back in 1991. We also were a part of the first mission immersion team to travel to Zimbabwe, Africa in 1993, along with one other student. I envy the fact that Bonnie has returned to Zimbabwe to help the folks there dozens of times, including a three month trip there this summer. I received word Thursday afternoon from Bonnie's son, Aaron, that she had developed paricarditis and was hospitalized in Raleigh. When I called yesterday they informed me that she had suffered a stroke and is now paralyzed on her entire right side and is unable to speak.
Psalm 135 is a psalm that reminds the people of God what to do in the midst of exile, in the midst of crisis, in the midst of pain, suffering and more questions than answers, "BLESS THE LORD." This is where Job was led to after God finally responds (in chapters 38 - 41) to his questions about injustice in the world. God doesn't respond with explanations about divine justice. Rather, God speaks of his power and knowledge of all that is going on and how God is Creator. Job is reduced to silence and repentance for speaking about that which he did not know (see Job 42:1-6).
Sometimes it is enough just to know that God knows. I will try to be like Jobs friends in the beginning of the story, when they visited Job without words and were simply present with him in his grief. It was when they tried to explain it all that they began to get in trouble with their bad theology -- that bad things happen to people because of something bad they have done or thought. I will remain silent. I will be in prayer. I ask you to consider the same for Bonnie and many others in times like these!
Steve

Hurricane Bill

Is your stomach queasy? Are you getting glued to the Weather Channel watching and waiting to see what Hurricane Bill will do? It's a major hurricane right now, fluctuating between a cat 3 and 4. Having lived through Hurricane Hugo when my family and I lived in Charleston, SC gives a different feeling to big cat hurricanes. I also like to watch the wave buildup, and of course, surf those waves when it's not just "chop slop." Sunday the wave action is supposed to clean up and begin rapidly dropping from double overhead (13 feet) to waist high for a period of about 6 hours. I'll probably be in church when the surf is best, but I still get excited about it and will rush to the beach just in case there are a few good waves left.

What makes your stomach get queasy? Anything, anymore? Dr's appointments? Potential job promotions? Upcoming vacations or trips? Flying? A weekend alone with your spouse? Thanksgiving or Christmas with family?

I hope that each and every Sunday you get a little bit of a queasy feeling in your stomach as you go to your church. To encounter the living God in worship, discipleship and fellowship. To be in the body of Christ with the people of God still makes me feel a bit queasy, not to mention having to preach before God and humanity.

Look around you today and see the sacred beauty of God's creation. Give thanks. Feel queasy as you consider the power of our Almighty God.

Steve

Strings and Spider Webs

Lord, the more surface things that I am 'attached" to, the more they "bind" me to the surface of life, keeping me in the realm of superficiality. It is as if I weave a web unique to my own life and journey. It is impossible to sever all connections to the physical world. That defies the message and life of Christ. However, only those connections that glorify you and offer reconciliation to the world through Christ ultimately draw me into the depths where life becomes metaphorical of your presence. I cannot control what lands in my web to feed me, but the winds of your Spirit are so much more active when my strands multiply in glorifying you.

I don't know which it is worse for, the spider or the person who accidentally walks face first through a freshly woven spider web. Neither the person nor the spider is fulfilled by the experience. We we secure ourselves and our web of relationships to the wrong things at the wrong place in the wrong time, it is a setup for disaster. Any one of the things of this world that we fasten too tightly to, if not for glorifying you, can surely bring us down -- the entire web! Fastening one's web to sexuality, or ambition, or leisure... can lead to our whole world falling apart, IF THEY ARE NOT GIVEN TO YOU AND TO GLORIFYING YOU. Lord, have mercy on us and enable us to be secured to your divine will and rightly to neighbor, as Christ leads!

Dr. Fitz