Tag Archives: Renault

Easter Sunday

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Dear family and friends;

We had a great camp while the Athletes in Action youth team was here. The campers love all the new activities at camp Mahanaim and it was a special time for several of them as they were challenged to a deeper, more consistent walk with God.

We had a situation happen three weeks ago at Renault (Easter Sunday). On that Sunday, we had the youth Athletes in Action team with us, and after the Sunday school, when all 1,300 children had departed, one of the local men moved his little car in front of the gate and blocked us in the yard. He was trying to force us to give him some money for repairs on his car, claiming that we had damaged it. The man is the son of Delmas, from whom we bought the land 8 years ago. Anyways, when we refused to give money, and then told him that I was calling the police to have his car removed, he then started throwing rocks at us. Big rocks. The youth team had to get out of the vehicles, and Deb gathered them in a back corner of the building out of reach of the flying rocks. The rocks made dents in the metal gate at Renault and also, dents in the roof of the Sunday school building itself.  When the police arrived, the man ran off and hid himself, and we were escorted out of the area. The youth team responded well and they didn’t overreact. We were so thankful that Katie and the younger Yordy girls had remained with the other missionaries at City Lumiere, for the Easter service, and they didn’t experience any of the incident. We are also thankful that nobody was injured, although a couple people were hit with pieces of rocks, and the vehicles miraculously were not hit either.
We have prayed and  discussed this with Myrlande a lot, and we feel that the Lord has a plan and we need to take a break for a time and wait on Him. We aren’t sure what changes will happen, or what the Lord will show us, but we have not returned to Renault since Easter Sunday. We have had several delegations of children from Renault come out to the camp and encourage us, and assure us that they are all praying and we have told them that we hope to return at some time, but we are waiting on the Lord, to see how He leads. We truly believe that this is of the Lord and that He has a plan and will be glorified. Deb and I have been wondering about the number of kids (1,300 plus) that have been coming each Sunday and how to better minister to them. We don’t know if that means buying a larger, different piece of land, or renovating the existing building. Scott Yordy already built us extra benches, so we honestly cannot seat any more kids in the existing space.

We haven’t shared this in hopes that it would be resolved quickly and we would be back at Sunday school, but the Lord has not directed that way. We would really appreciate your prayers so that we will know God’s will in all of this.

With rainy season on it’s way, we decided to do some heavy work at the mouth of the river, right beside the Camp Mahanaim yard. We hired an excavator and lots of
dump trucks and removed a lot of gravel that had built up in the river. We had some excitement such as the dump truck that went in the river, but it was a very successful
project and the river has a large opening and our banks are much better protected.

We have also started work on the “shop” project. Lord willing, this will be a storage / shop area so that we can remove most of the sea containers from the yard. The sea containers have served us well, but they are all rusting and leaking are no longer “critter proof”. The army truck still works great, although we no longer take it out of the yard. It is now 30 years old and still going strong, however very rusty.

We had opportunity to harvest some beautiful Eucalyptus trees from a nearby forest. Cutting them down was easy, but we used a group of friends as a skidder to get the logs out of the forest and loaded onto the dump truck. It was hard work, but they did great.

We are planning to take a short break back with family in British Columbia and will be leaving on Saturday, April 24th, Lord willing. We are scheduled to return to Haiti
on May 18th. We would really appreciate your prayers during this time, especially regarding the Renault Sunday school ministry.

Thanks for everything,

bye for now,

Love Rod, Deb and Katie

Peanut butter

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Dear friends;   

Thanks to friends who sent more than 1000 jars of peanut butter, we were able to give each of the Sunday school kids a beautiful wrapped Christmas present this year.              

                    

This lady is the oldest kid in our Sunday school.

These young men have grown up coming to the Renault Sunday school program and now they have become leaders and they do a great job.

Our volleyball girls received a special Christmas present also, in the form of a goat. Thanks to our friends who sent money to do this goat project. We have been very proud of our volleyball girls as they worked faithfully this Fall every Saturday to train about 150 younger children to play volleyball. The goats were a great opportunity to reward them.

It was nice for us to have our son Tim home in Haiti with us for Christmas. Katie especially enjoyed having her brother around. Many children enjoyed the Camp Mahanaim yard and facilities during Christmas also.

It is fun to have teams coming again and this year we have already done 3 mass weddings and we have another planned for this week.

Deb graciously serves at every reception, while keeping things organized at the same time.

A  neighbor’s house blew down recently, so with our team, we were able to build a new house for her and her children.

Thanks for your prayers and support,

bye for now,

Love Rod, Debbie and Katie

 

Three Brief Items of Prayer

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Hi All:
While I will not leave for Haiti til next weekend, I wanted to give you 3 quick updates/requests:

1. Rod Wray informed us that the police allow no vehicular traffic to be on the roads for the elections, so we will just stay at the hospital (the Wrays won’t even have the Sunday School/Feeding Program as not allowed to travel except on foot to the voting places). However, what that means for our patients who need to come to be seen and scheduled for/have surgery is an item of prayer please. Some may leave before the restrictions apply, but, given the violence that often accompanies activities in Haiti, the clamp down is reasonable but difficult for our patients. When one thinks of all the people in Haiti who try to go to school to better themselves, often at great expenses for the family, as “working your way through school” doesn’t seem to be a principle practiced, and there really are very few jobs available, it sets the stage for the “entitlement mentality” that makes it easy for those who seem to enjoy stirring up trouble to find people eager to join them for a time and cripple an already struggling economy. I suppose we have some of the same even in the US, it isn’t as widespread yet, at least.

2. Although the insurance again sent me a bill for expenses they feel I owe for chemotherapy and TPN of a bit over $16,000, my determined and helpful friend and coworker, Jory, at least has been able to get the agency to resubmit the bills with the promise that more should be reimbursed to them, again, like the doctors training in Haiti, we are thankful for the encouraging promises but would love to see the final decisions in writing.

3. This is one that I will just send on the request as informational technology was not a class offered in “Donkey School,” for me. With Drs. William and Adulte leaving the compound, John Vrooman, who is a long time missionary friend in Haiti who helps others with communication needs, asked me to see if I could get an “Old AT&T IPhone4S or I Phone 5 from someone that they no longer use and would be willing to contribute to the cause, he could hook that up so they can communicate with me through the Haitian Natcom and Digicel system” He just stressed that it has to be from AT&T as that is compatible with the Haitian systems. This would allow them to contact me if they had questions or problems (as we do with the internet phone we have at the hospital, doesn’t always work, but when available, helps with communication and resolution of problems). This also would allow me to arrange times with them when I could connect with them on my trips to or from the hospital through Port, as we can give them the finances we are supplementing their meager government salary ($140/month IF they get it and often not on time) so they can support their families, etc, plus other supplies for their work, etc, without disrupting their duties at the hospital. So, if that makes sense to you who are less IT challenged than I and you have an outdated phone and charger, we would gladly try to let John set this up for them.

Thanks in advance for all you all do to support, encourage and help us as we serve Him in Haiti.

In His Service,

Bill, Brianna, Butch, Dan, Dave, Margie, Paul, Tabitha, Teri and Tia

Merry Christmas

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Dear family and friends;

We wish you a very special Christmas as we remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus!
Merry Christmas from the Wray family.

Carly and Eylar Zielke and their three children, Wyatt, Sawyer and Ellyanna live on a beautiful acreage near Kamloops. Eylar is a carpenter and he works at the local gold mine. At 5 years old Wyatt takes the bus to and from kindergarten each day. Carly runs their hobby farm with the help of Sawyer and Ellyanna.

Christie and Dan Folkman live in Langley where Dan is a manager in an accounting firm and Christie continues to work as a R.N. Dan and Christie enjoy traveling and the outdoors and even spent some time in Lithuania and Norway this past year. Every weekend that they can, they enjoy hiking and discovering new places, together with their friends.

Tim is 24 and is attending the University of British Columbia in the Physiotherapy program. He had a great job this summer with the City of Surrey, and he continues to play and enjoy many sports especially basketball and volleyball.

Kara is 22 years old and has lived in Kelowna, British Columbia for the past few years. She is now moving to Calgary Alberta, and hopes to begin an apprenticeship.

Katie is 12 and is doing great. This year Katie changed to a new online school (Heritage Christian school) and she works hard each day to accomplish all her assignments. Katie is a very fun girl who enjoys swimming, volleyball, singing, crafts, playing games and helping host teams.

We (Rod and Debbie) are doing well. We are thankful for the Lord’s care and guidance in many ways throughout this past year. We traveled home to British Columbia a few times, including the most recent trip in November for Rod’s mom’s funeral. In October we
enjoyed going to a missions conference in Missouri and visiting many friends. In Haiti, it has been an exciting year, especially regarding the Renault Sunday school program. Being able to have the children come for a week at camp plus seeing their love and respect for God, has been a blessing.

Thanks for your prayers and partnership,
From all of our family to yours,
Merry Christmas!
Rod, Debbie, Eylar, Carly, Dan, Christie, Tim, Kara, Katie, Wyatt, Sawyer, and Ellyanna

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Missions Conference

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Dear  family and friends;

Several Haitian pastors have asked to hold baptismal services here at Camp Mahanaim.

We’ve had to do some emergency projects around Camp Mahanaim this Fall. We have lost all of our beach along about 200 ft of our main front wall and  the big waves have been crashing over spilling salt water into the yard each day. Also, we were concerned that they would dig under our sea wall. Rod had the idea of cutting up one of our older metal storage containers into pre-made forms that could be placed in the water.

The sections were heavy (1000 to 1500 lbs each), but with many hands the job was accomplished.

The work was hard and dangerous in the crashing waves, and the workers had to work quickly to place rocks in the forms.

Once they were in place and partly full of rocks, we poured concrete in them. Even after a few days, the Caribbean has brought gravel and started to replace our beach and protect the wall.

We are so thankful for the Lord’s guidance and help as he has brought the “Yordy” family along side of us with the Renault Sunday school ministry. The Yordys are ACC missionaries here in Haiti doing construction, and they help us each Sunday morning.  (they also have 3 daughters who are Katie’s friends). Today we gave the children clothes. These three girls have been coming to Sunday school for 7 years.

Please pray for us as we prepare to go to a mission’s conference in Missouri.   We plan to leave on Tuesday, but we are concerned about the road blocks and demonstrations that are happening in Haiti due to the upcoming elections. Please also pray for safety and calm at Camp Mahanaim while we are away. There were two large roadblocks with burning tires within 5 miles of us yesterday. The people were mad because one of the candidates paid to have all the people that were against him removed from the voting list. The elections will be held on Sunday, October 25th, so please also pray for safety in Haiti for all the missionaries and the children of Renault Sunday school.

Thanks for your prayers and care,

bye for now,

Love Rod, Debbie and Katie