Let's Keep Praying...

Can you believe it's been a little over a month already since Pastor Nahum nearly died from his enlarged heart condition?  Praise God for protecting his life!  Today Pastor Nahum is faithfully trusting God as well as following the treatment plan of his doctors and is recovering slowly but nicely.  But something else has his heart aching these days.  Pastor Nahum is facing the real possibility of having to close Gilbert Christian School because he is losing teachers and after many prayers still there is no support available for him to keep his school operational.  Closing Gilbert Christian School will be tragic for the children.  These kids can’t just go to another school.  There are over 200 of them and they were all diagnosed with severe poverty at birth.  Gilbert Christian School is like their medicine and they have to have it…they depend on this school to nurture their needy souls spiritually, academically, and physically and through this they are given hope that one day they will be fully cured from poverty and able to make something beautiful for their future and the future of their children.

  

Deep down how do I know these kids are going to overcome their state of poverty and survive?  I don’t have an answer but the Spirit speaks and tells me to go look in that bedroom under the very same roof I’m sitting under as I write this blog now near my kitchen.  I crack the door and there my eyes feast on those twin Haitian miracle beauties…these two baby girls, my two baby girls, sleeping peaceful.  Pure joy floods my soul thinking how tomorrow morning I’ll wake to the sound of them speaking a messy mixture of Creole and English and oh how they call me mommy.  I stare deep down in their eyes and whisper back slow with a smile, “yes, I’m your mommy” and they believe it.  Even though they are only two and so tiny they still know.  They know they are no longer orphans.  I close their door and sit back down to try to put all of this into words and what it means for those sweet ones I love left behind in Pastor Nahum’s village.  The Spirit tells me to just remember.  Just remember what God has done and that He is always good.  I have to stop to say a prayer of thanks, “Yes, I remember, God.  You are good.  You are so good.  Thank You.”        

October 3^rd is coming fast.  It's the day Gilbert Christian School is supposed to open for the start of a new school year in Mirebalais, Haiti.  But the sun comes up and goes back down, another day gone and we are still praying that same prayer.  How do you keep breathing as another day passes and that sea of small faces who are no longer just a sea of faces but instead like your very own children still sit vulnerable in their dark world with no guarantee of  a response?  During the day when it’s hot sometimes I walk outside my small country home we built 13 years ago on the hillside just before our first child was born.  I’ll take off walking the hills on that familiar one mile curved path from my front door to our mail box and back.  My eyes look to the sky and I pray for Pastor Nahum and those school children depending on him.  I pray hard the same way I used to when I was asking God to bring Raphaella and Wana home.  When did my prayer become a wild and fervent soul cry for this small forgotten village of children?  It doesn’t matter.  All that matters is they need help.  They are children…no different than my 5 children under my own roof.  I want to fight for them.

I've never seen someone love children the way Pastor Nahum loves those children in his village.  And I can’t listen to that sadness dressed up brave anymore as Pastor Nahum repeats his same desperate need for someone to give him monthly support to help him keep his school open.  All I want to do is cry but I don’t and then I do.  Pastor Nahum is my papa and his school children are not some sort of rescue project.  They are real family and if you call yourself a Christian they are your sisters and brothers too.   

With my emotion pounding desperate and hard there’s a million things I’d like to say to Pastor Nahum as he shares his needs with me but I only manage to choke out who he is to me.  And it echoes sad and teary. 

“Papa…”

Somehow even with the Atlantic Ocean physically dividing us his sorrow drains into me and the moment it touches my soul it becomes untamed.  A silent painful minute that seems like an hour ticks by.  This isn't the first time this has happened.  He knows me well and I know him well.  My papa knows the chatty girl I am but he also knows I can never put words to this sort of untamed sorrow.  His voice, soft and comforting, rescues me from nearly dying in that moment of sadness.  There's still no solution but his whisper speaks to my pain, “I know…It’s okay…It’s okay.”   

We both love these school children and know they need us to fight for them like never before so we are grateful the One sitting enthroned above the heavens and earth is the One we call our heavenly Daddy.  The way Pastor Nahum’s faith shines always moves me, “Let’s keep praying," he says, "and see what God will do.” 

Following those words we say our good-byes in Creole, I hang up the phone and fall to my knees.  There at the feet of my Jesus I ask Him once more to provide, to give my papa the money he needs every month to keep his school open for his school children.  

Pastor Nahum needs $1400 every month to keep Gilbert Christian School fully operational.  I think of how many churches we have here.  Then I think of how right it seems for our churches to rise up to bear the tangible fruit of Jesus’ love in the lives of these needy village children by offering them the education they desperately need.  We can do this by providing Pastor Nahum with the monthly support needed to keep his school open.

If only just a few of our churches would commit monthly to support Pastor Nahum’s school with $400-$500 we could prevent these suffering village children from more tragedy.  On behalf of the children who are faced with becoming street kids if their school closes down, I am asking YOU to help me fight for them.  Be their voice.  Share this need with your church family or others you know and see if they would prayerfully consider supporting the youngest and most vulnerable of our sisters and brothers in Christ for the glory of God who is always good!

I leave you with the encouragement of Pastor Nahum:  “Let’s keep praying and see what God will do.”

If you would like more specifics or would like to read previous blog posts about Pastor Nahum’s school needs please click on these links:  They need this school and Gilbert Christian School Sponsorship    

It CAN BE just A FEW CHURCHES giving a few hundred but it doesn't have to look like that...it CAN ALSO BE more of us, YOU AND ME, giving just a little. It would be no small thing for 50 of us to give $30 a month. That would cover the expenses Pastor Nahum needs to keep Gilbert Christian School open which means the 200 plus school children in his village would be afforded the gift of an education instead of becoming street kids.  All glory to God!!