David Short's Sunday

Last night we had a thunderstorm roll through at about 2:00 AM. It rained so hard that our patio on the second story got flooded. I would guess that we had 3-4 inches of rain. As we drove out to the property that we are going to build on we could see standing water all over the place and a lot of areas where mud has starting washing onto the roads. The people of Haiti definitely need your thoughts and prayers as they enter into the rainy season. In another month the hurricane season starts and it will get even worse.

We started today off with church. As always the service was vibrant and joyful. Today they included a baby dedication ceremony. After speaking for a while about the dedication each of the babies were handed to a leader in the church as they were prayed over.

After church we headed out to the property where we will build our first house. The church is pastured by Pastor Pierre Paul and it is located in Merger, which is about another 15 miles out of town. The church has about 500 people in it.

We stopped by the area where they are holding their temporary church services. This is the same compound that the medical team used on the last trip for their clinic. The rain last night was so bad last night out here that it nocked down the tent that they were using for their church service. I gave them some recommendations for bracing the structure in the future that might help it stand up better. There are about 60 people staying in this compound.

We also spent about 2 hours in a meeting this afternoon with a local church leader (Pastor Mani) who is over 10 churches in the area and 4 of those pastors. They were asking us to help them with their churches and we directed them to begin the process by starting to work with Dony St. Germain who is the head of El Shaddai Ministries International and who I am working with here in Haiti.

Tomorrow we meet up with Arklie Hooten (MNA) and Pastor Dony as they prepare for a 2 day workshop with about 50 pastors and 50 deacons from the area to teach them about disaster response in preparation for the upcoming hurricane season.

Thanks...