Dear Ones, beloved of the Lord,

I know that you talk to our Father regularly about the work that we do in Haiti. Thank you for doing this.

When we first came to Haiti, we were discouraged by the amount of work and resources we could pour into the work, and how big the needs remained when we went home. Some years ago, hoping for some kind of sustainable difference to be made in the country, I almost quit going to Haiti, because it seemed that the needs were greater than any effort could change.

Follow up:

Now, after a longer walk with our Father, I understand that I do not have to do anything big. It is not my job to change Haiti. Haiti belongs to Jesus. He paid for each person there with His own Blood.

Our only part is to go with Him and do what He tells us.

From His perspective, I believe, if only one life is changed, it was worth it all.

Within a few days after the earthquake, with the help of Glen Hyde of Angel Flight 44 and Buddy Shipp, of American Samaritan, I was flown to Haiti in a private aircraft with medicine and supplies. A surgical team was already there, trying to save people’s limbs which had been crushed or severed in the earthquake. Some of our patients would awaken themselves in the night screaming. There was nothing we could do but sit with them, and hold on tight until the screaming stopped, and the sobbing that followed had quieted.

There was one girl who had a particularly rough time. She came to us because her arm was hopelessly crushed. The emergency units had no other option but to amputate it. Somehow, she and her sister got to us in the north. The orthopaedic surgeon did what he could to put all the bone fragments she had together, and he sewed the arm up.

We prayed.

Every night, Tolma would awake screaming. Her entire family had been in the house with it fell. I would sit on the floor beside her bed, and just pray in the Holy Spirit all night, so that she would get a good night’s sleep.

Tolma gave her life to the Lord Jesus.

The day she left us to go home to a relative’s house, we prayed for Tolma and her sister. As I prayed, I felt led to tell Tolma that God had a plan for her life. It was not an accident that she was brought to us, or that she had found Jesus as her Saviour. I really believed, when I prayed, that the Lord was showing me that she was sensitive to His leading and that she could learn to walk with Him and do as He led her to do. So, I told her these things. With tears in our eyes, we sent them off -

Refugees…

Their next task was to find all their family members in the various hospitals around the country. Their only plan was to stay with a relative in St. Louis du Nord, until they could make a new life- a life after the earthquake.

We cried and Tolma and her sister and brother cried. And they left.

Not long after, a truck brought their little brother, Ked, to us. He had an ‘external fixator’. This meant that there were four long screws sticking out of his thigh, holding the bits of his bones together that had been crushed when the house fell down around them. Ked was brought to us in a truck up and down mountains in rutted dirt roads. By the time he got to us, he was beyond hysteria from the pain. We did not know if he would lose his leg. I prayed even more that after the exceptional pain he had suffered, he would not be permanently scarred. But by the grace of God, within a couple of months of intravenous antibiotics and surgery, Ked was able to go to the house in St. Louis du Nord to join his mother, brother, and sisters who had gathered there.

I know I sent you photos of them last year when all this was going on. (I am not including as many photos, because some of our rural friends cannot download the emails if photos are attached. I understand this, living in an area where high-speed internet is not available.)

That is where I lost track of Tolma and Ked and their family. Until now…

Johny and I were speaking to one of our patients outside the Recovery Room. Before we went inside, Johny indicated a tall young man standing against a pillar. He asked if I remembered him. I stared foolishly, but did not know the young man at all. Johny insisted that I did know him, that it was Ked. When I went to Ked, and spoke to him, His entire face lit up. The young man standing before me, much taller than me, really was Ked, the boy we had worshipped, prayed, and studied with last year.

We took him inside, where the surgeon had plans to do some corrective work where the bones had healed. And there, accompanying him, came Tolma. We hugged and glorified God together. Tolma is still looking to the Lord to completely restore strength to her hand. It has healed beautifully.

Then, Tolma’s mother began to talk to us. She said that a great change had happened to her family since the earthquake.

She said that they had been ‘Catholic’. That meant that they did what they had to be good members of the community, but no more. Then, Tolma accepted Jesus as her Lord.

Tolma, when she left us, went off to the local church. She began to read the New Testament we had given her – for herself. When her mother came with Ked, confessing doubt and unbelief in God’s ability to save Ked’s leg, she said, “Mama, you do not know what God can do. You need to know Jesus.” And she led her mother to Jesus.

Each member of her family came with their part of the crisis. To each one, Tolma said, “You do not know what God can do. You need to know Jesus.”

Tolma’s mother tells me that today, there is not one member of their family – not even aunts, uncles, and cousins, who is not a REAL Christian.

Because Tolma is not afraid to tell anyone about Jesus.

Then one day, someone came to church crying because they had cancer. It was a visible tumour. Every one could see it. Tolma said, “You do not know what God can do. You need to ask Jesus.” And just like we showed her in the hospital, in Mark 16, she layed her hands on the lady and prayed in Jesus’ name. The cancer was healed.

Tolma believes that she is called to the office of a prophet. So, with a brace on her hand, she goes with her New Testament to take the Word of God to those who do not know Him yet. She speaks faith to those who are afraid. She lays two precious hands on the sick, and they recover.

Today, because one girl accepted Jesus in a tiny hospital in a remote part of Haiti – many have entered the Kingdom of Heaven as children of the Most High God. Others are healed in their bodies. The church in their new community has been blessed and has greatly grown, because one tiny lady, with a brace on her hand, learned to cry out to God in the night.

O, child of God, thank you for being part of this. Thank you so much for helping me get to Haiti after the earthquake, for sending medicine, for sending food, for sending Bibles… for praying.

Haiti belongs to Jesus – one life at a time.

In His great love, Tina

PS. An afterthought, in Luke 18:8, it says, “when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

Well… He will find Tolma! :)

Tina.