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We trust you are blessed!
We pray that our Father is blessed!
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Praises
Canada
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Last week students packed 5000 meals at the Ontario Christian Conference near Toronto, Canada. Taylor, Lifeline’s Operations Assistant, researched and completed the appropriate paperwork to navigate the meals across the border. The meals are now onto Haiti for the hungry families there!
Guatemala
- Pastor Deybee (top picture) and wife Yoselyn begin serving at our church plant in Guatemala next month. They are off to a wonderful start!
El Salvador
- A estimated 1000+ members of our El Salvador principal and house churches were present for a very exciting and upbeat 9 year anniversary service this past Sunday. Pastor José and all of our church leaders have done an exceptional job in leading brothers and sisters to Christ. (second picture)
Haiti
- The school and church upgrades/construction at Deuxieme Plaine and Laragal are going great! Our Haitian friends are really happy with progress and with recent visits from work teams. (third picture)
Honduras
- A new and much larger campus facility for our Bible Institute and the Ideal Christian Church in Honduras is now in use. (last picture)
Navajo Ministry
- We received a wonderful blessing for the Navajo ministry from an estate gift. The donation will help us bring up our facilities to ADA compliance and make the improvements we have been praying for.
United States
- Thank you! Last year, Lifeline received $300-400 per month from those in Central Ohio who participated in Kroger’s Community Rewards program! And, in April/May, it’s time to sign up or re-enroll your Kroger Plus Card to earn donations for Lifeline! Kroger donates a portion of every dollar you spend to Lifeline when you swipe your registered Kroger Plus Card each time you shop. Note: At this time, Lifeline is only registered and available to Kroger customers in the Central Ohio region.
- We had a nice visit and going away party with Kesaia, who just finished her semester at Johnson University. Keep her in your prayers as she spends the summer with her family in Honduras (Carlos & Paty, her parents, are Directors of the Omoa Children’s Home) and working for Lifeline in Honduras.
- Thanks to everyone who has participated in the new AmazonSmile program thus far! When you shop through AmazonSmile – which is the same great Amazon that you already use – Amazon donates a percentage of your purchase back to Lifeline.
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 Prayer Requests
- We ask for wisdom to know God’s answer to our work team housing needs at the Navajo ministry.
- Pray for our leadership seminars in Cuba this week, led by Andy Sims, Lifeline’s Leadership Development Director, and the team traveling with him.
- For Rob DeVoe (Bob & Gretchen’s son and Lifeline’s Database Manager), who continues the fight against stomach cancer. There has been one complication after another, but his spirit has remained high. Just this week his blood pressure bottomed out and he had to be rushed from home back to the emergency room. After being stabilized, he was readmitted to the intensive care unit. Please keep wife Jen and their children in your prayers, too.
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VBS & Summer Camps
Your Kids: Serving & Missions
Still looking for a mission for your VBS or Camp? Lifeline can help you out! We can provide you with materials and/or send a Lifeline representative. The staff & volunteers at Lifeline love to share the love of Jesus and the joy of serving through missions with kids!
Contact Matt@Lifeline.org or 614-794-0108 for details.
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Donations for Honduras
Need: Guitars & Microphones
As the churches in Honduras continue to grow, they could use some much needed instruments for their worship bands, such as electric and acoustic guitars. Equipment, including microphones, etc, would be helpful too.
Please contact Gretchen@Lifeline.org if you, your band, or church are able to donate any of these items to assist the Honduran churches.
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People, Projects & Programs
A Peek Into a Haitian Child’s Life
The day begins very early for most Haitian children. Since many families do not have electricity in their modest homes, children arise around 4:30 to 5:00 a.m. so that they can do their homework in daylight. Once their homework is finished, they may go to the nearest watering point to fill the buckets for their family for the day’s need of water (for food preparation, cooking, cleaning, and even bathing). Then a child (depending upon age) must bathe and dress for school. If possible, they will have a piece of bread or some other form of food before they go off to school.
The typical school day is just half a day from 7:30 a.m. to noon; in some cases the students may be in the afternoon session of school. Most teaching/learning is through the “rote” method where the students learn to memorize everything and then recite from memory such things as the alphabet, math tables, etc. Most Haitian children receive an elementary education through sixth grade. (In the past several years, the Haitian government has been working to provide more middle schools and high schools.)
There is also often Bible class, chapel, and recreation which can consist of soccer, jump rope, or basketball. Music is an integral part of the Haitian life; they learn and sing the national anthem and sing in class or chapel. Some schools are able to also provide opportunity to learn to play an instrument. They also have recess mid-way through the school session.
In many mission schools like Lifeline’s Christian schools, the students receive a hot meal prior to leaving school for the day. This one meal provides 70% of a child’s daily nutritional requirements, thus helping the families, who are so poor, to at least be guaranteed this nutritious meal every week-day.
Once school is over, the children return home to do chores, which often includes babysitting younger siblings while mother goes to market to buy some food for the main meal of the day. They must clean and often do laundry from a wash tub or take their clothing to the nearest stream or river. Most Haitian children love to play soccer and so there is time each day for some fun.
Although life is hard in Haiti, it is very simplistic. The children and their families don’t have a lot of material possessions, therefore they don’t have a lot of “stuff” to take care of. Most Haitians do not have their own gardens, although many raise goats and chickens as a source of income when they are sold at market.
Most Haitians who are Christians spend a lot of time in their local church. It is truly a center of activity and a major part of their life; not just a Sunday morning event. So it is quite common to hear something happening in church every night of the week. In Haiti youth programs are very important and many young people are part of a church, either through their family being in church or because the mission schools are associated with the church and it is where the youth go to participate, connect with other youth, and have an opportunity to be involved.
The day in Haiti ends early due to lack of electricity and due to heat. Early to bed, early to rise describes the Haitian lifestyle. And many children go to bed hungry at night because the parents could not provide a second meal for “supper.”
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Your Partnership
Additional ways that you can support and learn more about Lifeline…
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Memorials & Honoriums
Gifts given in memory and in honor.
In memory of Doug Corcoran, given by Terry & Shirley Mens and Lee & Laura Paskewitz.
In memory of Robert Gorsuch, given by Steven & Susan Williamson.
In memory of Herbert Gallop, given by his estate to benefit the Navajo ministry.
In memory of Shirley Pettigrew, given by Jack Pettigrew to build a “Home for Haiti.”
In honor of Dee England, given by her daughter and daughter-in-law for Mother’s Day because of Dee’s heart for the ministry in Haiti.
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Devotion
Forgiveness
February, the month of LOVE and the month of my daughter’s homecoming to Heaven, is now behind us. The conclusion of 3 years of emotional, physical and spiritual brokenness. A period of rebuilding and searching. A period of profound and powerful spiritual understanding. And the beginning of a new season of spiritual growth and discovery.
After three years of discovery, God is leading me to share my experience on a topic many have wondered but few have asked. Forgiveness. Why have I not written on this topic before? Simple answer: I didn’t really understand it and I wasn’t completely there yet.
Forgiveness is not a single event, it’s a process. For me, it’s a process that is more powerful than forgiving the errors of man. It’s a process for God’s grace to break ME, to grow me, to improve me, to use me, to sanctify me, in HIS power. **For me to truly find forgiveness, I had to stop looking for man’s actions to be justified, but strive to have my reactions sanctified.
Forgiveness is not a gift to the people who have aggrieved or upset you, it’s a gift of pure love. It’s a spiritual reward of freedom. Most importantly, it’s a gift BACK to the ONE who deserves it. It’s a ‘real’ display of the ‘gift’ given to us and our opportunity to give it back. That gift is authentic LOVE.
Whether that wrong you’re struggling to forgive is lies told, broken relationships, betrayal, persecution, addiction, theft, violence or even the death of a child, forgiveness is possible. Forgiveness is the action toward the freedom of releasing your mind and heart of the corruption of this world, and changing your perspective to see with the same vision seen by Jesus.
I’ve shared my discovery of ‘seeing’ and comprehending the search for beauty behind all ugly. It’s the level God desires us to see–deeper and more powerful. Seeing with the vision seen by HIS eyes. Under the ugly action of man is the beauty achievable by forgiveness. Forgiveness is powerful, forgiveness is freeing, forgiveness is beautiful. Forgiveness includes forgiving YOURSELF!
The ugliness of the action to be forgiven, intensifies the witness of pure ‘love.’ The more ugly the act is to forgive — the brighter the light of Jesus shines thru you when you show forgiveness. Forgiveness is LOVE. Not worldly love, REAL LOVE. RELEASE that ugly over to God and allow Him to manifest it into something beautiful. Give back the grace He gives us.
Shine your light, don’t allow the sins and errors of the free will of man to rob you of the freedom of forgiveness. Allow your hurt to pull you into a deeper relationship with pure, unconditional, unquestionable, unexplained, ALWAYS forgiving love. A love that cannot be duplicated. A LOVE that cannot be understood, a love ONLY found in the arms of our one and only Savior, and His name is Jesus.
by Becky Carpenter, friend of Lifeline, Women’s Team Participant and the mother of Skylar, who is waiting in heaven to reunite with Becky and family
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