Good morning from Haiti.

I have a little neighbour, it seems. I have told you about my tent. Last night, when the rain started, I opened the inside door of the tent, so I could close the rain flap outside. I noticed that something about three inches long was running down the wall of my tent. I really rushed to zip the door back up, lest I have some creature in my tent in the dark. And then the mystery began. The generator was on late, because we are trying to build up enough water in our tank to begin surgery next week. Each patient will need a shower. This all means that there was light from down the way, filtering through the walls of my tent. And between the rain cover and the tent wall, a tiny beast was exploring.

I realized how much knowledge we acquire growing up in a land. I know much about the creatures that live in trees and grass and creeks at home. But, here, in Haiti, on a roof-top, beside the green canopy of a mango tree… I know almost nothing about what might live here.

Follow up:

Once, Maureen and I were preparing the operating room for surgery, and we saw a banana spider. It had taken up living in the corner of the surgery. It was about six inches across, and quite harmless. Of course, nothing is permitted to live in the operating room, so we had to get rid of it.

When they were digging the hard packed earth in the courtyard, here, last year, Moleon who is sort of like a security guard/butler dressed in camouflage t-shirts and baseball cap, caught a live scorpion. He told me it was the little scorpions that were the most dangerous, not the big ones.

And then, there was last year, when digging a foundation, they found a tarantula.

So, last night, in my tent, on its little cement pad amid a small sea of rainwater, listening to the pouring of rain on my canopy, and the sound of the wind in the wet mango tree, I lay on my mat, with great uncertainty, watching the shadows of the little creature who had taken up living so close to me. I was confronted with my total lack of knowledge about what it could be.

I have decided that my little visitor must be a tree frog. At one moment, he worked his way out in the darkness to lay against my screen window. I lept from my mat, flashlight in hand, to see what he was… and he fled!

But one thing I know: he is a little frog with big feet.

God is so very good. It was not a tarantula, and not even a banana spider. It was only a frog.

After all, what else can I expect living among the branches of a mango tree?

This week, each of my days has had the same schedule. Up at 4:30 for prayer. At 6:30, I wash and dress. I have a plastic can of water I fill at night, so I have water in the morning to wash in. And at 7:00 I go downstairs, and we eat breakfast. I work on my computer, and shipping issues until almost 11:00, when I go over to the Birthing Centre and worship, share the Word of God, and pray with the new mothers.

I have really wanted to photograph those new babies for you, but have not been able. So many of the babies have had these beautiful receiving blankets made of blue flannel with yellow stars all over them. I am certain that it is one group from Canada who has made them all. You will know who you are. Thank you so much for the layettes and patient care kits you have made for these precious mothers! They dress and re-dress those tiny babies over and over, and then lay them on the bed. The mothers just sit and watch the babies breathe and admire how beautiful they are. It is soooooo sweet to see.

I have told you about the ministry we do at the federal prison in Port de Paix. There is one cell of women. One of the women was expecting a baby. She is in prison for being accessory to a kidnapping. A little while ago, a pastor, a Haitian national, had his baby kidnapped for ransom. The police got his baby back alive and well. But the lady in prison was the one they took the baby to, and said, ‘Here. Look after this baby for us.’ She insists that she knew nothing about the kidnapping, but her boyfriend, her own baby’s father, was actively involved. So, she has spent almost her entire pregnancy in prison.

On Monday, we got a call saying that she had gone into labour and was bleeding a lot. The prison sent a guard, and brought her to the birthing centre. The young mother’s family want nothing to do with her or her baby because they believe she brought shame on them by kidnapping the pastor’s baby. The guard and the new mother stayed overnight.

Tuesday morning, at 11:00, I went down to the birthing centre for worship. Against the wall, on a cot, was a young mother who had no family around her. I totally forgot about the prisoner. They are all just new mothers… innocent children of God, with tiny new babies. We sang. I read them about the good Shepherd, and how to have a soft heart for the Lord. I prayed with them to repent of sins and having a heart too hard to hear the call of the good Shepherd.

When I was finally leaving, I noticed that the family visiting the next bed, was helping the lonely mother. The young father helped her move her IV pole so she could go to wash. The new mother helped her dress her baby. They had begun to be a family to this precious young mother, a lone woman and her tiny baby, who has made some wrong decisions, but is coming back to Jesus.

Things like this make me cry.

The police car came back to take her and the baby back to prison. We would have kept the baby for her, in the baby orphanage, until she got out. But the guards said she has a hearing before the judge on Thursday, and she has a better chance of getting out of prison if she has her baby with her.

Please pray for her. Pray for that tiny baby girl in a blue receiving blanket covered in pretty yellow stars. Pray that she will grow up in a Christian home, well loved, raised by those who have been washed in the Blood of Jesus and have a new start on life… a life of love.

We have been getting ready, here for surgery. There has been lots of construction, and so everything, in every room has been piled on the hospital beds and moved. Even the operating rooms have been used for storage rooms. Every afternoon I have been down in the hospital wing helping Dennis and Lorrie wash the dust off of everything. I do not see how He can do it, but by the end of Friday, that mess is going to be a hospital where broken bodies are mended, the sick in heart and soul and body are healed, and the love of God is the song we sing together.

There is a sight that will forever stand in my memory as a holy moment. Before each person has surgery, I am permitted to pray with them, and get to know them, and help them get closer to Jesus. It is a time to just love the patient.

Then, every night, our patients who are still in their beds at 7:00 pm, before the nurses tuck them in for the night, all have a time of hymn singing and the Word. The Haitian interpreters come and help us sing the songs in Creole. One night we were singing with great reverence, our hearts raised in thanksgiving before the Lord, when I looked up to see the row of beds for the people who were still now awake from their anaesthesia, - with hands raised toward heaven in praise.

These are holy times. It is such an honour to be here to be the hands of God’s love to minister to these precious people.

Please pray for Geoff, Dr. Dan, and nurse Jacquie, as they travel from their homes in Canada to join us for this surgical team. I will try to get photos taken of them.

Our God is so very good.

This morning, an unusual Psalm really spoke to my heart. It has been the melody of my work this morning, the comfort of the Holy Spirit that has been working in my heart as I work. It is Psalm 45. The first eight verses speak of the King, the Bridegroom, who comes out of His ivory palaces, for his wedding to His bride. My heart was longing for His appearing to catch us away this morning. The book of Hebrews in the New Testament, quotes verses 6-7 about Jesus:

Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.(Psa 45:6-7)

But the second nine verses speak of His bride. It is an admonition to her. Verses 10-11 are addressed to her, in all her finery and robes of spun gold, as a teaching on how she should direct her heart:

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him. And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favour. The king's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the king's palace. (Psa 45:10-15)

My dear ones, the Beloved of the Lord, today, you wear garments of spun gold. A tiny baby girl, the daughter of a repented criminal, went to prison in a blue blanket covered in little yellow stars. Her mother had underwear, and towels, and soap, and clean hair for the first time in a very long time. And tomorrow, clean, and well loved, with angels all around them, they will stand before an earthly judge.

This morning, many line up downstairs for the medicine which you have sent for them, and next week, many will receive surgery.

You, the Church in Canada, are dressed in glorious robes of spun gold.

The admonition to this glorious Bride, the one entering the palaces of the great King, this morning, is “Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.”

What He is saying, is forget all that stuff you learned in the world… What we are doing is not about CIDA grants, multinational corporations, or bigger warehouses. Put your eyes on Jesus. O, beloved of the Lord, don’t get lost in the systems we learned in ‘our father’s house’ . The father of the world, the father of lies, the father of this failing world system, whom we once all served, is an enemy of our Lord and our new Home. Our God is not a God of humanitarian aid. He is a God of Love.

Look to the Lord, who loves that precious baby no one else cared about, loved her enough to send you all the way from Canada to be a family to her abandoned mother, and to dress them both in new clothes.

I am so honoured to be here to see the mighty works of love our Lord is doing through your hands. I love you.

O, what a Bridegroom, and O, how much He desires you today.

Tina