moving forward...

Happy Birthday, Aunt Patty!
Things were resolved today at the school (THANK YOU for your prayers), but the tone on campus has sadly changed. The administration held firm to its principles and regulations, and the student finally complied this morning, after 4 days of tension and rebellion. While it is apparent to all that the school "won", this means that student finally "lost"...which shows a LOT of division. Please continue in your prayers for the seminary, that it might become peaceful again, that we may be unified, and that we may ALL set out again on our original goal: to win Haiti for Christ.

Stacey is sick with the congestion and fever many of the missionaries are currently suffering from, so we will try to spend Saturday catching up on work, preparing for the next week, and getting her rested up! Sunday we will be taking our 22 visitors (from Hamilton, Canada) to a Haitian church to experience what this is like!

Thank you so much for your continued prayers. We received a bit of a "crash course" this week in Haitian culture. There is a deeply rooted value here for "freedom" and a fear of being "opressed." Rules, discipline, structure and consequences are all seen as "Oppression." Doing what you want and getting what you want is seen as true "Freedom." As we realized that this was the mentality here, even for many Christians, we became more burdened for the people than before. The very foundation must be re-defined.

Christ came to set us free! Not from responsiblity or from discipline, but from ourselves...our selfishness, our self-destructive ways and our slavery to dead-end things: envy, greed, hatred. Freedom is found IN setting aside our own desires and taking on His desires for us. As we watch several of our students fight "oppression" such as consequences for wrong actions, we realize that they themselves ARE ALREADY so oppressed. Please pray for us as we seek to share His TRUE and life-transforming freedom with our students...many who we now realize have never actually known True Freedom...as hard as they have fought for it!

We continue to stand on His grace and faithfullness, and on your prayers and support. Thank you!