It has been a very busy week! Stacey's family has come and gone, and we had a WONDERFUL week! We spent Christmas day at home, and enjoyed very much being together. Wednesday we went to visit Hershneice and Mishlean and shared Christmas with them (THANK YOU, Hope!). We then went and spent the afternoon with Madame Gislaine, a good friend of ours from the Seminary. That was an awesome day, shared with friends, and, as Madame Gislaine said, remembering that in Christ we are brothers and sisters...the same children of God. Thursday we worked all morning cleaning out the destroyed classrooms from our recent storms, washing desks and putting things back together.
then took Stacey's dad, brother and sister out to see the new seminary site and to have lunch with some of our good friends here with OMS. We also gave them a tour of the other OMS ministries and introduced them to several staff at the seminary and several other good friends (everyone has been quite excited to meet them, and are convinced that Lisa and Stacey are identical twins. "All white people look the same!" they keep saying :) Friday was our vacation day...we drove the 75 minutes (8 miles) to the beach and spent the day snorkeling, playing games on the beach and enjoying being together.
It was SUCH a blessing to have our family here, and so good to have time with them to talk and laugh, work and relax. We feel so renewed having had them.
It was a beautiful week, but also full of heart-ache. We visited Mishlean and her children on Wednesday morning, and took "Christmas" with us, thanks to a good friend from Ohio. We brought corn, rice, milk, oil, peanut butter, and several small gifts for all of the kids. Hershneice was feeling a little bit better than she had been on our previous visit. Her favorite gifts were curly pink hair bands, and she was even strong enough to ask that I put several in her hair. She watched as her family opened gifts, and we were so blessed to be a part of all of it with them. 
Thursday afternoon we spoke with our Doctor about her again, and he told us that the future was bleak for Hershneice. "She could die due to 10 different reasons at this point, but all of these reasons are going to be very ugly," he told us. Three hours later he came to the house to tell us that Hershneice had just passed away. What symptom finally caused her death is unknown.
Though we expected her to pass away a long time ago, and though we have felt for a while now that Hersheneice's quality of life wasn't worth living for, we don't know how you ever prepare to lose a little girl, or how her mother could ever be prepared to face that. Please be praying for Mishlean and her family...and pray that we might be able to somehow be an encouragement and an example of faith to this broken family.
Somethings there just aren't answers for...so we're trying to seek Him instead...
Joyeux Noel and Bonne Ane! We will continue to uphold you in prayer as you minister. Wonderful to hear that your families are so involved in supporting the work. No snow sounds pretty good to the Haitian in my house, Kansas has had the second snowiest December on record. Yikes!
ReplyDeleteGod bless . . . Martin