Prayers and Answers (2)

What a difference a week and a half and some prayers make.... 

Thank you, God, for bringing healing and thank you, family and friends, for praying for Caleb!!!

Before....

After....

"The purest form of love is given with no expectation of return.  

Measured by this standard, earnest prayer for others is a magnificent act of love." 

~ David Hubbard

Prayers and Answers (1)

We've prayed for so many different people and over so many different things this past month and we've also asked you to pray about specific things here.  So many of you have been faithful to love on us through your prayers.  Whether it's for our extended family here in Haiti, our own children under this roof or for family back home you have taken on our requests as your own once again and we are so grateful!

We don't believe in chance but we believe that our Great God is the ONE who answers such prayers.  Sometimes the answers are what we want and sometimes they aren't but one thing we know (and He continues to confirm) is that He can be trusted and that He is good, regardless of his answers.

While I believe God calls us to share our prayer requests with each other (James 5:16), I also believe he wants us to spur each other on by sharing in the waiting and sharing outcomes, too, (Hebrews 10:23-25) so I want to share a little with you today.

Last week when we had the biggest scare regarding Caleb's arm, we circled around him in our bedroom and all together lifted up our prayers to God as a family.  Caleb cried, I cried, and the girls had lots of questions but in the midst of all the emotions and so many unknowns one thing we all knew was that we could talk to the ONE who understood.  When we finished, John just sat and held Caleb for a while and I went outside to pray some more...

I love going out on the back balcony at night... it's quiet and peaceful and dark (except the nights that the moon is out) and I just needed/wanted to talk some more to the only one who completely understood my heart...

I walked from one end of the balcony to the other and poured it all out.  I looked down and through tears and moonlight I saw this...

Yes... seriously...

I stopped praying and ran inside to get a flashlight to confirm what I thought I saw....

The contractors have been working on the balcony for weeks to finish the railing and columns.  This is no doubt part of the concrete scraps but I don't believe anyone here formed it and left it for me.  It's not consistent with any hand formation and it isn't smooth on any side.  I do believe, however, that it is without a doubt, a personal message from the ONE who holds my heart.  

Oh, MY God, YOU are so full of compassion!

I ran back inside and plopped down in the floor next to John and Caleb with the heart in my hand and said, "Look!!!  Look what I found right outside the door!"

Caleb smiled and later said, "It can only mean one thing, Mama... we are in His loving care!"

God knew we would need this concrete heart long before we did.  It was placed in my path... for me... for my family... for my heart that was broken!  (For those of you that know about my unique little heart conversations with God, you know this was without question the peace my heart needed at the time.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll share my 'hearts' with you in another post...my collection has really grown! J)

Caleb is doing much better and his arm is healing more each day!  We are trusting God, still, for complete healing and we thank God for you and your prayers and encouragement, too!  

Today, I am praying for you...  For each of you that reads this, I am praying that you will without a doubt hear/see/feel God's love for you today!  He may not communicate with you the same way he communicates with me but I do believe He wants to connect with you today!  God is a personal God and I believe that we DO find Him when we search for Him with our hearts.  Deuteronomy 4:29 says, "if... you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."
  
P.S.  We'd love for you to share with us what you're finding from Him today!

Update on Wall/Drainage Ditch

Many of you saw our post on FaceBook last week asking for prayer regarding the feud that started at 6am and went on for most of the day last Monday.  Here are photos that will hopefully help you "see" for yourself what we were talking about and some background information about the property...

At the back of the property where we live there are two drainage ditches.  They merge into one and exit at the front of the property. One ditch enters from the road and the other from the "neighborhood" on the back side of the property. 

Not long after we moved in, the wall construction was complete and we had the grates made and put in place to close up the holes for safety reasons.  While it is pertinent for rain water to pass through, it's not for people.

These (2) photos are from inside the wall behind Yehn Yehn's house (on the property).

 

(NOTE: This is the area where men and women were standing and yelling 

when I woke up.)

These (2) photos show the view from the "road-side" of the wall.

(As you can see, the road is pretty high at this section of the wall and we have discussed the need for several more rows of bricks to prevent more from climbing over.)

This is the 2nd drainage area at the back of the property where we wound up having to remove the grate per Mayor's orders.  

These next (2) photos show the drainage area at the front of the property.

We have had a lot of rain lately since there's a tropical depression coming from the Caribbean and the ditches have looked more like raging rivers than the gentle stream shown above but you get the idea. 

All of the ditches have approximately 3'x3' holes under/in the wall for the water to pass through.  When the rains are heavy, water and lots of trash wash down from the mountains. Some of the trash washed through the grates recently but mounds of leaves, trash and other debris from the street and the community clogged the grates and the water backed up. There are no drainage ditches in the areas behind the property and that leads to standing water during normal rains but when there was extra water it caused a significant problem - and (according to them) it was all our fault.  

Their recommended solution was to tear down part of the wall.  They didn't want to clean up their trash or construct drainage ditches near their houses because no one was paying them to.  After all, they "didn't have any problems when there was no wall there" and their trash could just flow freely into the river.

The argument continued for most of the day between the said neighbors and John, Yehn Yehn (and a few others that stood by our side).  By early afternoon, the local mayor showed up to issue a ruling. His decision was that all of the grates needed to be removed, rebuilt with hinges (so they could be opened during heavy rains) and re-installed. He did not, however, make mention that any others were responsible for their own trash or that they needed to work together to take care of the drainage issues around their homes. 

The perception of many around here is that because we are Americans, we have tons of money and can pay to have anything done. We explained that in spite of the majority opinion, among the trees on the property they do not include a money tree and we obliged to make the other modifications when we could afford to do so. We had to cut out one of the grates (as shown above) where the main flooding occurred and modified the one at the front.

Thank you for your concern and your continued prayers!  It is such a comfort to hear from so many of you and to know that you are praying for us!