Mission Moment: June 19, 2012
It had been many months since Climbing For Christ had visited the village where our entire ministry to Haiti began nearly 7 years ago. “The church was in joy waiting for me,” said missionary Miguel Rubén Guante, who represented C4C in Gentilhomme last weekend.
“The church felt very blessed. Example, it was about one month that there was not rain. The corn and beans are perish(ing) by the dry season, and once I arrive there it start to rain from (Saturday) night and (Sunday).”
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The church at Gentilhomme on Sunday, June 17.
Miguel returned from the mountain village of Gentilhomme with news of great need: the church — the first we built in April 2006 — is in need of serious repair.
“The church’s building is very damaged in the floor, doors, windows, paint,” Miguel said. “It needs a repair as soon as God provides for it.”
We are praying for His provision of US$3,700 — the estimated cost of rebuilding the floor, the front of the church, the doors and windows, and repainting the entire structure.
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Additionally, there is a need for fertilizer — at US$31 per bag — to help the coffee plants (photo above). “The coffee looks nice and in its first production,” Miguel said, referring to plants that started as seedling provided by Climbing For Christ in 2008.
“I had brought a bag of rice and cooking oil and some bags of sugar for Pastor Trezin's wife to share with other people. It was very, very welcome because there is nothing to eat.”
There is so much work and so much need. Pastor Blanco from Climbing For Christ’s Haitian church in the Dominican border town of Jimani was readmitted into the hospital last Friday in Santo Domingo, where he likely will undergo surgery on his thyroid, and Saintela still waits to be taken from Malasi for treatment of her oral tumor.
Here is the problem: we will NEVER fix all of the physical needs in Haiti. We can only work on addressing the spiritual problems. To do so, however, requires physical assistance. We recognize that our battle against hunger and poverty is a spiritual fight, not a physical or social one. The evil must be cured before the sickness of poverty can be resolved. The only weapon is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We will continue to deliver His message as we seek to serve the least of these in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Please pray for this work and, if you can help, consider donating to the financial need that has reduced our indigenous missionary to tears. “I'm crying because I'm desperate,” Miguel said.
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