Jesse's Mission Updates

Hey Everybody,

It's hard to believe that it's already time to send out another update to you to let you know what God has been doing here at Haiti Gospel Mission. This has definitely been one of the busiest months and also one of the hardest emotionally, but God has been with us each step of the way helping us and giving us victories over Satan.

A couple weeks ago we had a good friend of mine Rev. David Fulton down here to spend a little over a week preaching at 3 of our churches. The first church we took him to was Morne Rouge, the mountain church that is so hard to get to. I knew it was going to be a different kind of trip when we met up with some friends on our way up to the drop off point where we would start our hike up to the church. I was asking them how the church was doing since my last visit there and their faces got long and sober. They informed me that one of the infant twins that I prayed with (I had a picture of them on one of my last updates) had died along with another young lady I had prayed with who had gotten sick after giving birth. When we finally made it to the top of the mountain we were greeted by the orphans. I wasn't surprised to see that the number of orphans had grown from 25 to 28. It was a joy to get to spend more time with the people that I love, to play games with the kids, and grow closer to my friends. Every time I turned around though there was another desperate need staring me in the face. By the time we finally made it back home 4 days later I thought my heart was going to burst from the pain that came every time I stopped to think about the needs up on the mountain. God used Bro. Fulton at our Leogon Church and our mother church here in Depinos as well. By the time he boarded his plane to head back home about 8 people had accepted Christ as their Savior and hundreds more had been encouraged in the Lord! We praise God for those wonderful victories and thank you for your prayers!!!

The same day that Bro. Fulton left for the states a couple more friends of mine came to see first hand what God has been doing here and see how they might be able to get involved. It was a joy to have Matt and Garrett here with us helping out with the Bible studies and some odd and end jobs around the mission. They were such an encouragement to us and the people around here. Everybody here can't wait for the day that the white musicians come back to visit. While they were here I think we ended up having a Bible study every night. The one that was the most fun was our children's service out in Cocoyer. It was only our second service ever to have out there. We had right at 100 people show up and most all of them stayed to play soccer after the service was over. If your heart is heavy and broken and you need a break, let me suggest playing what turned out to be "keep away from the whites" with about 100 cute smiling little kids. Nothing can put a smile on your face like being shown up by a 7 or 8 year old boy with bare feet. We had a great time and were able to build some friendships with some of the people in that community at the same time.

While David, Matt and Garrett were here we took them by Yeman's house to visit and pray with her as often as we could. Many of you may remember me talking about the older lady with AIDS that had gotten saved shortly after Joel and April had moved here as missionaries. That was Yeman. She was in fact the first convert that Joel and April had when they got here. We have all been so excited to see her growing in her faith recently. She has been an influence with the ladies that live around her and through the Bible study that April has been having with her some of those ladies have recently been saved. Well to keep a long story short Yeman started really losing her mind a couple of weeks ago. The AIDS and the sicknesses she has been fighting finally started really causing her to lose control. She has been a warrior for Christ, facing things that most of us know nothing about. Men would come and surround her house at night with machetes threatening to kill her and burn her house down because she had left voodoo and was serving Christ. It was hard for us to see such a warrior in this new distorted mind set. She would wonder off to use the bathroom in the morning and not come home until late that night having no clue what see had been doing or why she had left. Well, the night after Matt and Garrett left we got a knock on the gate. It was about 10 o'clock at night and everybody was settling in getting ready for bed, so I didn't go to answer it. Pretty soon one of our workers Raynold unlocked the gate and came and got me saying Yeman has burned her head. I went and got April and everyone else and we headed out the door. Nothing could have ever prepared any of us for what we saw when we got to her house. I will not try to go in to any details but to say that in one of her moments of not being in her right mind Yeman had locked the door to her house, taken a bottle of gas, poured it over her head and all down her body and lit herself on fire. All she could manage to say to April was "please make it stop burning" and "I was asleep, it's not my fault." That was one of the longest most horrific nights of my life seeing her in such pain and not being able to do anything but drive the truck to get supplies and to pray. We finally got her wrapped up enough so we could take her to the clinic to try to treat her there. In all the pain she was in she asked us to sing hymns to her so she could try to calm down. I think it was about 7 in the morning when April was trying to change her wrapping again and Yeman had had enough. She got out of the bed and laid down on the floor and told April she didn't want help any more. I knew she was laying down to die and there was no more I could do but come home and start asking people back in the states to pray. Joel stayed there and read Psalms to her until she took her last breath. I didn't get far in asking people to pray before Joel came and told me she had passed away. I sat down to write this update just hours after coming back from the funeral and I would be lying if I said I haven't had a hard time with putting my thoughts into words. It has been hard on all of us here and we thank you for your prayers.

Through all of this God has been reminding me of some verses that I've been studying lately. These are a few of the verses that we wrote down and gave to Yeman just days before she passed away. Please read them carefully.

Romans 8:35,37-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

What a wonderful loving God we serve. We praise Him that every one of the people we lost this month had accepted Him as their Savior and were ready to meet Him in a much better place. We also praise Him for the souls that were saved this month and the ones that have shown signs of growth in the Lord.

Your Hands in Haiti,
Jesse Hales
Haiti Gospel Mission

Things we could use your help praying for:

1 We have 2 back to back large teams coming down in a few weeks. We are excited about the help, but ask you to pray for them that their trips will go smooth and that God will help souls to be saved through their labors here.
2 That God will provide a way for us to meet the many needs we face down here on a regular basis
3 For me as I head up to visit another church this Sunday
4 I have started working on the multipurpose / children's church building recently. Pray that God helps us to get that finished in a timely manner.
5 That God will continue to strengthen the new believers He keeps saving around here.

Hey everybody,

 

It is hard to believe that it has been a month since the last time I wrote to you.  Time flies by so fast around here it seems.  This last month has been an eventful one with lots of progress going on.  For one, I've actually got windows in my house now which is a big improvement and the addition to the other mission house is coming along at a quick pace.  We are very happy about that because the big teams that we are trying to make room for will start arriving in just a few more months.

 

Thanks to your answered prayers I'm also making progress in speaking the language.  I still have a long way to go but I'm actually having conversations with my Haitian friends now without having to ask someone to interpret for me every few seconds, and I was able to pray in Creole for the first time at church last Sunday.  I'm also learning my way around a lot better.  Joel's drivers license was stolen a few weeks ago so I've been doing all the driving which is helping me get used to where everything is around here.

 

Those things are great, but the most important progress that is being made is the souls that are being saved.  I've been trying to do my best to help Joel with the Bible study that he has been doing with the men in the area.  I've not been a whole lot of help yet but I'm praying that as I get better with the language that will change.  God is blessing the study though and we can see some of the guys are really hungry for God and close to getting saved.  April's Bible study with the ladies is going wonderfully as well.  I got a call from April a few weeks ago when she was having the study, she told me that 2 of the ladies wanted to pray to be saved and she wanted me to try to take some pictures of it.  It was such a treat to be there as those ladies each prayed to God for forgiveness and to see the smiles on their faces when they stood up as a child of the King.  I also got word that one of our other churches had a voodoo priestess get saved this Sunday and had a bonfire and burnt all the voodoo stuff that she brought with her to get rid of.  What a wonderful and amazing God we serve!  His grace is more than enough no matter how far in sin you are when He reaches you.

 

Another thing that is so amazing about our God is that He puts you right where He wants you when He wants to, even when we don't realize it at the time.  This last Sunday James was going to visit a friend's church and be a part of a special service they were having.  He was planning on riding a taptap to church like he does any time he goes there to visit.  Sunday morning just before James was getting ready to leave the pastor of that church called James and invited me to come with him.  I thought it would be nice to visit the church and decided I'd go alone.  I was thinking that Joel and April would need the truck to take the Bible study people to church so we were planning on still taking a taptap to the church.  Just as we were leaving April told us that the people from the Bible study had planned on coming on their own this Sunday for the first time, so we could take the truck if we wanted to.  If you have ever been in a taptap you would understand how happy we were to take the truck.  The service was great and the pastor invited us to stay for some food after it was over.  Close to the end of lunch the pastor got a call and ran out of the room in a hurry like something was bad wrong.  Pretty soon he came back and told us that he needed me to take his neighbor to the hospital.  I didn't know what to expect. I was thinking maybe she burned herself or cut herself trying to cook.  When I pulled up in front of her house they started carrying out this lady that looked dead to me.  I hollered back at James to find out if she was breathing or not as they loaded her in the bed of the truck.  He checked and she was, so we sped off to the nearest clinic.  It was closed so we rushed on down to a doctor's house who's front gate was open.  He was home so they carried her in.  I later found out that she had drank some poison to try to kill herself because of some family problems she was having.  James told me on the way home that he didn't know what they would have done if we had not been there to get her to the doctor.  God knew what was going to happen ahead of time and in His grace and love for this lady had worked it out to give her another chance.  She is doing much better now and is not so ready to die.  Thank the Lord for His amazing grace!

 

I also had the opportunity to help out with a mobile clinic that we had this past month in Leogon.  It was a successful clinic with around 75 people getting teeth pulled, burns treated, and sicknesses cured.  I praise the Lord for that, and praise the Lord for the successful trip of our first team we had this past week.  They were a tremendous help while they where here and we look forward to seeing them again soon.  Another thing I want to praise God for is how He continues to lay it on people's hearts to support my work here.  Most of you know that when I came here I had not fully reached 100% of my needed monthly support.  Since I have been here I have continued to get emails from people and churches that are interested in giving towards supporting my ministry here.  One more praise is that the God continues to work in big ways with our church that has been having some difficulties.  It seems like each week more progress is being made there and we don't take that for granted.  We know that it is only happening because of your prayers and the God we all love so much.

 

Things we could use your help praying for:

 

1    For those that have gotten saved recently, that God will help them grow close to Him

2    That everything will go smoothly for Joel when he tries to get a replacement Drivers License

3    For the lady that tried to kill herself, that she will find Christ as her Savior

4    My continued improvement in the language

5    God's continued help with the church that has been having some difficulties

6    That we will be able to get the Suburban we need so much into the country very soon

 

Thank you so very much for all your prayers and support!

 

Your Hands in Haiti

Jesse Hales

Haiti Gospel Mission

 

Here are some pictures I wanted to share with you from this last month:

 

 

This is Dede helping me with the windows in my house.

 

 

This is April praying with the 2 ladies in her Bible study that got saved.

 

 

This is of teeth being pulled at our mobile clinic in Leogon.

 

 

This one is of April taking care of a little girls burnt hand at the mobile clinic.

 

 

This is me and James working at the pharmacy for the mobile clinic.

 

Hey everybody,

I know it hasn’t been long at all since the last time I wrote to you but so much as gone on in the last little while that I thought I'd better catch you up on how Awesome our God is.  First of all and thanks to the help of my good friend Larry, we have a lot done on the rewiring of my house.  I actually had electricity for a few days straight but then my cheap generic inverter broke.  The receipt from where I bought it should be in the cargo that I am still waiting on.  As soon as I get that we are going to try to take the inverter back and hopefully that will fix the problem.

Now on to one of the awesome parts.  The first Sunday I was here we went to visit our church in Petionville.  It’s a tiny building with a “sanctuary” about the size of an average bedroom in the states.  One of the mission's goals for this year is to help the church find a bigger place to worship and to have their school in.  We had a great time there and then we went to leave.  Some of you know this story already but the truck would not start.  We were not in the best of neighborhoods and it was turning out to be more than a simple repair job.  After a few hours we found a way home for April, Emma and Larry ( my friend who was helping us out for a week).  After a total of about 7 hours the truck finally started up and we were on the our way home after dark.   God protected us as we drove through 3 voodoo celebrations that where blocking the streets and through several police check points.  When we finally got home we were all amazed at how God kept us safe through the whole thing.  Later that night I got on my email and found several churches and individuals had e-mailed me saying they had been praying for me that day that God would bless the work and keep us safe.  Praise the Lord, He loves to answer your prayers.  Thank you so much.

Well that was last Sunday, but the most amazing thing happened this Sunday.  Joel, I, pastor Wildo (the pastor of our Gonaive church), and James (my Haitian friend of many years who is staying at my house right now) all headed up to our church outside of Gonaive.  This was the mission's first visit to the actual church itself.  We were told it was going to be about a 5 hour drive up there and then a short 30 minute walk up the mountain to the church.  That’s what we were told.  About 5 hours passed by and we were coming out of the city of Gonaive.  We passed fields full of make-shift little tents where people were still trying to survive after the hurricanes and floods of last year destroyed their homes.  Pretty soon we made it to the turn off that would take us to the church.  About another hour or so of taking the little Mazda down roads that no truck should ever go on we finally found the very end of the road.  After sitting on a board in the back of the truck getting a real good sunburn, eating dust for around 6 hours and holding on for dear life most of the time,  you can imagine the joy that filled my heart when we reached the end of the road.  In my mind we only had a simple 30 minute climb left to go.  After eating a nice meal we headed out with our bags in hand.  It couldn’t be a bad climb, after all our guide was balancing a car battery on his head and some of the others that were with us were barefoot carrying coolers on there heads.  I shake my head as I remember how we started out running joyfully up the mountain looking forward to a good night's sleep.  I think is was after the second or third stream we crossed that the path we were following started getting steeper and steeper and we started going slower and slower.  By this time we were thanking the Lord for a bright moon and a good breeze.  A little ways more and we started seeing stars and I don’t mean the kind in the sky, I’m talking about the kind you see when you have pushed yourself too far.   About an hour in to our “30 minute” climb, James pointed back to a faint glow in the far distance below us and tells me “that is where we parked the truck.”  I could not believe we where that far away or that high up.  I was also starting to wonder if we were ever going to get there before my legs fell off my body.  About an hour and a half into the climb I started looking for a nice spot for my grave because I knew I was not coming off that mountain alive.  By this time all the Haitians with coolers and batteries on their heads were getting a big kick out of the fact that white people couldn’t make it to the top without having to take a few breaks.  After a total of about a 2 hour climb, we arrived at the mud house we were to spend the night at.  We were on the top of one of the tallest mountains around and every muscle in my body knew it.  Joel and I were the first white people to ever climb the mountain!  A lot of the people especially the kids had never seen a white person in their life.  Its amazing how a little bit of candy can make life long friends.  Pastor Marite invited us into his mud house and insisted that Joel and I were to sleep on the 2 beds they had while he, his wife and their 7 kids slept on the floor in the only other room.  After eating what I hope was goat liver and singing some songs, we thought it was time to turn in for the night.  Have you ever tried to go to sleep with about 7 or 8 people staring at you?  Well, if you haven’t, let me tell you it doesn’t matter how tired you are, it is hard to do.  In the morning they provided us with a bucket and a cup to use for a “shower.”  We later found out that the bucket we used to bathe in also doubled as the indoor bathroom at night.  Yeah, that was nice to find out.  As a pastor or a missionary you are expected to wear a suit and tie to church in Haiti no matter what the conditions are. So after getting ready, we all headed up another mountain to get to the church.  Yes, that’s right, we still had not made it to where the church was.  30 minutes of mountain climbing in dress shoes, suit and tie, we had reached our final destination.  The little mud church was a sight to behold with its bamboo school setting right beside it on the top of the mountain.  The church runs around 120 and the school 150.  The Lord blessed us with a wonderful time worshiping with our Haitian brothers and sisters.  We were able to see the walls that were destroyed by one of the hurricanes last year and meet the 25 kids the church is wanting to build an orphanage for.  As we finally started winding our way back down to the truck I kept thinking about how great our God is for not only creating such a beautiful place but for giving His saving grace to the desperate people who live there.  I am looking forward to my next trip up the mountain to the village of Maroughes but it will have to wait until the sunburn is gone and the sprained ankle is healed.  Thank you all so very much for all your prayers and support.

Here are some photos to look at

This photo is of our truck in Petionville.

This is one of the little tents people in Gonaive are still living in after last years flood.

This is the little mud house Joel and I spent the night in after climbing the mountain to Marouges (it was one of the biggest houses around).

This is the church and school at Marouges.  The church and little depot are on the left and the school is on the left.

This is some of the church people at Maroughes after Sunday morning.

 

Your Hands in Haiti

Jesse Hales

Haiti Gospel Mission

Hey everybody,

For the first time I am saying hello from Haiti! It still hasn't sunk into my head yet that I am really here, really in the country that God has called me to. It felt so good to get to hug all my friends once again and unpack my suitcase for the last time for a while. I got here on Wednesday. I won't be able to get my cargo out of customs for a few weeks but I can live without it for as long as I need to. There have been some great changes that have taken place here since I've been gone. After leaving the airport we stopped by our school in Despinos before going home. It was lunch time and the kids were all eating! I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it. It's been a desperate need for that school to be able to give the kids a hot meal each day, but we have never had the means to do that with until now. Because of God placing the need on your hearts and you responding to Him these kids are getting fed on a regular basis now (something most of them are not used to). We had a supporter start sending in money just for this need and we can't say thank you enough.

I wish there was a way that I could explain to you just how much having the new generators improves just about ever part of our lives here. It makes it so much easier to live and minister here when you don't have to spend money and time worrying about things like that breaking down all the time. Thank you again to all of you who had a part in us being able to get the generators. It has made a big difference around here. Something else that has changed is baby Micheal. He is growing up way too fast! He will be 7 months old soon and is one of the happiest babies I have ever seen. I praise God every time I think of how his little life would have ended up if it wasn't for our Lord's amazing grace. The difficulty that we have been facing and praying about in one of our churches is still there but God is changing hearts and it is looking better and better.

Some things still haven't changed like the mosquitoes that are biting me as I sit here and write to you, or the noises that are going on all night, every night. It's great to be back home in Haiti even if the mosquitoes are still everywhere. Thank the Lord for all the great changes that are taking place and for bug spray.

Please pray for one of the orphanages that we help out. One of the young boys died recently and the funeral is Sunday. It is hard on everyone around here that knew him and especially on the people at the orphanage. I'm sure they will be glad for your prayers.

Other things we need your help to pray for:
1 Continue to pray for the church that is having some difficulties right now
2 We have a lot of teams coming to help through out the next several months, please pray for God's guidance and blessing on them
3 That God will continue to help me with the language (it's clicking in my mind a little bit its just getting my mouth to do what my mind tells it to do, that is the problem)
4 That people we are ministering to will truly understand the meaning of salvation and come to know Jesus as their Savior
5 For God to give us guidance as we try to reach out to some of the areas around us that have not been reached yet.

Thank you again for your prayers and your faithful support!

Your Hands in Haiti
Jesse Hales
Haiti Gospel Mission