October Prayer Letter
Critical Construction Project for Evangelical Baptist Church of Hananeel
(Hananeel means the “Grace of God” in Hebrew)
A few months following the earthquake of 2010, the Lord opened a wonderful door of opportunity for Hosanna Ministries. In the lovely valley community known as Mont Flueri (only 35 minutes from Jacmel), a group of community leaders made a visit to Pastor Dieupie’s office with a request for an evangelistic church-plant. “We have Voodoo temples and Pentecostal churches in our community, but no Gospel or evangelistic churches.” So Pastor Dieupie organized a church team to canvass the area with door-to-door visitation. At the end of the week, a tent was erected for a Sunday service. To everyone’s delight, there were 120+ in attendance, and 28 people came forward to make professions of faith. The attendance continued to grow and more were saved as time went on.
Then after some months, the same leadership who previously had approached Pastor Dieupie now requested that Pastor go with them to make a plea that some community property be given so a church building and (eventually) a school could be built since the nearest school was over one hour’s walking distance. In the providence of God, the request was granted. Since having school in a tent would be very difficult, and since funds for a church/school building were not available, a temporary wooden structure was erected in 2012 with movable classroom separators that could be pushed aside for Sunday services. Then in 2014, a Non-Government educational Organization (NGO) took an interest in the school and built two beautiful buildings for the children. The school now has 160+ children.
However, the wooden church building has become a favorite hangout for Mont Flueri termites that have grown fat and happy over the past five years. Our trusses and plywood walls have been ravaged by these little critters. MFH now realizes that it’s time to take the initiative and erect a cement block building before something unfortunate happens. Therefore, we are making construction plans for this winter.
Thus, MFH needs skilled and unskilled workers!
Our project will begin with Haitian masons. They will lay the foundation and build the walls. Then MFH will complete the trusses and the roof with our volunteers. Our lead man is Craig Dehmel from Mayfair Bible Church, Flushing, Michigan. Two weeks have been set aside for this project – January 6-13 and 13-21.
Saved from Tragedy by the Grace of God
On Sunday morning, September 23, Assistant Pastor Aly preached a powerful message at Hosanna Baptist Church, and five adults came forward to accept Christ as Savior. The first one to step into the aisle was a young man in his mid-twenties. He shared an amazing testimony. He testified that he and five buddies had become obsessed with winning the lottery and decided to seek out a very powerful witch doctor to help them achieve their goal. (Seeking a witch doctor to help achieve any kind of goal is not uncommon.) They traveled a great distance and located such a witch doctor near Jacmel. The five buddies spoke individually with the witch doctor to ascertain the cost. When finished, the buddies very quickly disappeared. The remaining young man suddenly realized that this was a setup and that he had been chosen by his buddies to be the required sacrifice. He leaped up and made a mad dash into the night. He ended up in Jacmel, and for several days wandered the streets, listening intently to Hosanna Radio. Feeling compelled to attend church to thank God for saving him from tragedy, he asked around and God led him to Hosanna Baptist Church. When the invitation was given, he couldn’t get down the aisle fast enough! He accepted Christ as Savior! (Note: We have not heard from him since he left us. Please pray for his safety.)
With thanks and gratitude to God for you,
Tom and Sarah Bennett
