December 2010

Dear Friends:

It has been an eventful past several weeks in Haiti.   We have had many obstacles placed in front of us yet God has continued to prove that He is in control, bringing us through them all.

Pastor Dicksent’s heart surgery saved his life and a follow-up visit to his doctor last week showed that he is in good health and fully recovered.  The surgery has enabled him to continue to take care of the kids at Helping For Christ Victory Center.  The fact that he is there with our kids means they have a much better chance of survival.  He is using every breath he has to spread the Gospel and care for the kids.

We were able to get word to the Helping For Christ Center and warn them about Hurricane Tomas and how to prepare for the storm. We had to do this because, while the hurricane was heading towards Haiti, Pastor Dicksent was in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic for his heart surgery.

After just a few days of recovery from his surgery on October 30^th, Pastor Dicksent traveled across the Dominican Republic border to make it back to the Center just as the hurricane hit. We had over four feet of water inside the compound and our children and staff had to retreat to the second floor and the roof to stay safe.  They also took in 50 people from the neighborhood that were getting washed away in a torrent of water and had them huddled on roof of the compound with the rest of our team.  Thankfully there were no injuries and very little damage to the Center.

Our 77 kids at the Helping For Christ Center have been spared any deaths or sickness from the recent Cholera outbreak, mainly due to the water filtration system at the Center.  We unfortunately lost two children who were staying at the Bethel Baptist Mission in Jimini, Dominican Republic. We had to leave a number of children with the Bethel Baptist Mission when we moved from the camp to the Center due to limits on space and food supplies.  There are currently 80 kids that are at the Bethel Baptist Mission that were originally part of our school before the earthquake.

The elections were held on November 28^th and predictably they did not go well and resulted in much violence. The neighborhood where our center is located has had ten murders and two kidnappings since the elections.  The supply lines for food and water have been cut off due to the violence.  We anticipated this would happen and we had about a week of extra food and water at the compound.

A week plus after the election it looks like both World Vision and Food for the Poor will temporary discontinue operations until the security situation improves.   The staff at the Center have agreed to forego their salaries this month so the monies could be used to purchase enough food and supplies for everyone at the center for reminder of the month.  They also agreed to use the $5 per child that we sent to purchase Christmas presents for the same reason.

When we last communicated with Pastor Dicksent, he and his staff were staying inside the compound and hoping for the best.  They are without electricity however, thankfully they have a solar generator that was donated to them by Solutions For Science just after the earthquake.  Using the solar generator, they are able to operate their computers, satellite, and cell phones.

Despite all that has happened over the past several weeks – Pastor Dicksent’s heart problems and surgery, the hurricane, cholera outbreak, and the increased violence after the elections, and finally the breakdown of the supply chain of food – the people and children at the Center are exceedingly grateful for all they have been able to do as a result of your generous support of this ministry.   Below is an email from Pastor Dicksent (with only minor editing) expressing his sincere appreciation for all of you and the support you have given him.

Please keep the safety of everyone at the Center in your prayers.

Thank you for all you do for our people in Haiti!

Blessed be the name of the Lord
We are more than happy to tell you how happy we are for all the good you have done for us and also HFC Victory Center, we want you to know., With your donations, you help remove children in the street, … and Take affected many people in the world of God. We are a Haiti example, we help many people to change their lives and also know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have life eternal, we also learned several people that satan can not do anything for them and that Satan is the cause of everything that happens bad in the world

With your donations, in addition to helping our 77 children besides our staffs, it also helps more than 80 other children in Jimani, not to mention adults, with your donations, you help save several lives, including my own life , you had help in surgery to replace a defective valve, you’d also help buy disinfectant to protect us against the cholera, without your help, our children will have contact cholera

Our priority problem, we have completely change our orphans children that we have at HFC Victory Center, before they were street kids, and now ,they are son of God,the problem is ,in our neigheborhood, there’s always gunfire and kidnapping,when we first get there it was not like that ,it was a little calm but now,since the election period ,it getting worse,and also we are to close to sun city(cite soleil)even some other NGOs (Food For The Poor and world vison) are getting scare to come ,they even ask us to move cause they will not be able to take that risk for long.

our donors,we can not thank you for all that you have being doing and do for us at HFC Victory center,the only things that we can do ,it’s continue to pray for you ,always ask God to give you health ,protect you and reserve a place for you in His Kingdom

God bless you all