36 Hours

Dear Friends, 

This coming Thursday the 14th I am headed to Mare Rogue Haiti in the NW mountain region. I will be meeting up with Dr. Greg Bunn from Bolivar, and together we will be staying with Terry and Carolyn Routon who are full time resident missionaries to the area. 

Here is our itinerary so you can know how to pray on specific days:

Thursday the 14th departure to Haiti, overnight in Port-au-Prince

Friday head up the mountain (8hrs)

Saturday, rest and do final preparations for pastors' conference 

Sunday 17th we will be preaching in a few different churches.

Monday 18th- Wednesday 20th we will be teaching about 40 pastors for about 6hrs each day. 

Thursday 21st wll be a day of rest

Friday 22nd-Saturday 23rd we will invest on a more personal level with the pastors (I will specifically be with widowers and singles)

Sunday the 24th we may be preaching again

Monday the 25th we will head back down from the mountains to Port-au-Prince

Tuesday the 26th we will head back to the states. 

Some particular prayer needs:

-Safe & Healthy travel (specifically concerned about chikungunya)

-Open hearts from the pastors

-Evangelistic opportunities

-That God would watch over our families and church families while we are away

-For the pastors who will fill our pulpits while we are away

-That we could be immune from too much homesickness (I am typing this while watching my kids play in the backyard

-That this mission would inspire similar opportunities of service in Archie, Bolivar, and beyond. 

SPECIFICALLY I would ask that you pray for us on Sunday morning. We will only be one hour ahead of Central Time, so Sunday School would probably be a great time for lift us up. Also, on your way to work or back from work we should eb starting and ending our daily meetings with the pastors.  

You can read more about: 

Chikungunya here: http://www.cdc.gov/chikungunya/

The Routons and their ministry here: http://routonshaitiblog.blogspot.com/

Check for occasional updates here: http://showmehaiti.blogspot.com/

and here http://gregorybunn.blogspot.com/

Looking forward to telling you great news upon our return.

Grace and Peace friends, 

JP 

The Fire Beneath Me

The Parable of the Great Banquet: Luke 14:12-24

¹² He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

¹⁵ When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” ¹⁶ But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. ¹⁷ And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ ¹⁹ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ ²⁰ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ ²¹ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²² And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. ²⁴ For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Friends,

This passage is the fire beneath me on my journey to Haiti. There is a potent reminder from this passage that God reaches out to all souls, but takes special care to include the least of these, the overlooked, and the undesirables. 

The first century Palestinian world was driven by an engine of honor and shame. As a patron, one way you could gain prestige was to throw big parties and those who attended would become clients who would owe you a favor at a later time (think, The Godfather). I have read that an invitation to these feasts was normally issued in two stages. There was a sort of pre-invitation extended to get some idea of what the host (patron) would need to have ready, and then on the day of the event, the representatives of the patron would be sent out to fetch the people who had already agreed to attend.

Those invited to the feast in Jesus’ story all began to decline their already accepted invitations, and with pretty flimsy excuses. We could analyze them each, but we would risk staring at the kernel instead of the cornfield. Suffice it to say that even as a city boy I can recognize that you don’t buy land you haven’t seen, or a tractor without testing it; and if you are so embarrassed of your new wife that you cannot take her to a party, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place!

The host now has this situation: his banquet is spread out, and the people who RSVP’d have all snubbed him. No one likes to be snubbed. So the host does something remarkable; in an age where you typically only ate with people who were good for your image, he sends out his servants to bring the invalid and the indigent to his banquet. The servants bring a train of orphans, fatherless, and widows with the crippled and blind lumbering in their wake, seat them down at this feast, and the servant reports,  “Here you go… um, sir! But, there are still some seats available.”

So the master then sends the servants back out, this time to increasingly outer circles of the community. The highways would be something like hitchhikers, people who could not find hospitality in the community; maybe transients, maybe outcasts like the town wine-o. The folks in the hedges are hiding out, trying to stay out of sight. The hobos, the guys on the lam. The servants beat the bushes and flush them out to invite them to a stately dinner.

The master declares succinctly, “None of those men who were invited shall taste of my banquet.”

Theologically, this passage holds a significant meaning. Those who should be coming to the banquet at the end of the Age in the Kingdom of God (in this case, the religious leaders around the table, cf. Luke 14:1&ff) are not answering the invitation Jesus is extending. So, the invitation is being extended to the unthinkable, the undesirables, the unclean, and the outcast.

God seems to have a special place in His heart for strays. I am thankful for that for “I are one”. 

As I sized up the situation in Haiti, I was immediately drawn to this passage, along with James 2: 1-12, Gal 3:28, and a flurry of texts that make it clear that there is little if any room for humanly devised structures of stratification amongst the People of God.

My heart breaks for these pastors and their families, as they are being looked down upon by their own brothers(?) in the ministry; but this is to their eternal reward, for the least in this age will be the greatest in the age to come (Matt 20).

Please be in prayer for these “little pastors”, for their families, and for their church families. If not for the Routons and others like them, they would effectively be alone.

Also, recall that one key point of this parable is that none of us can give anything in return to the Master who has so graciously invited us to his table. He has everything (Ps 24:1) He did so without any strings attached, and if we receive his invitation; by grace through faith and repentance, our offering of grateful service is our “return of favor”.  Our works do not save us, but they show that we are saved (Eph 2:8-10, Matt 25, Jas 2:14-26).

Greg and I have both a tremendous opportunity and a terrible burden in this endeavor. When you are teaching pastors, you are teaching their congregations, and perhaps subsequent generations. He and I both feel the weight of James 3:1, that exhorts that “those who teach will be judged more strictly.” Our offering to God will be to use our time and God given talents to His service. May he multiply these efforts exponentially.

Grace and Peace,

JP

Show Me Haiti! (FINALLY!!!)

In just under 90 days, I will be on an aircraft somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean Sea. Our destination is Mare Rouge/Bellevue, Haiti in the Northwest mountain region. Our purpose is to encourage and disciple local pastors in a remote region of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

We will be working with my friends Terry and Carolyn Routon who are fulltime missionaries to Haiti. They have been working with communities around Mare Rogue teaching the Gospel, providing basic education to local children, supplying material needs when they can, and equipping people towards economic self-reliance through teaching trades.

Some local congregations have been supportive of their work, but they have encountered a culture of exclusion in the Haitian church. Established Hatian congregations often seem uninterested in reaching out to their own people. Unfortunately, this extends to the relationship between pastors as well.

In Haiti, there are so-called “big pastors” who have some schooling, a little money, and prestige. Then, there are “little pastors”, who are not as well resourced, lack education, and often preach in buildings we would not store our lawn mowers in. These men are generally disregarded by the religious powers that be; this immediately brings to mind James 2, and his warnings against favoritism. Furthermore, I am reminded that in the Kingdom of God, the last will be first and the first will be last (see attachment).

These men and their wives are hungry for encouragement, and hungry for the Word. So, fellow pastor Greg Bunn and I will pour truth into these “little pastors” and their wives for five days. We will “love on them”, pray with them, and do all that we can to build them up and equip them to raise up leaders from their own congregations to send out into the harvest field.

We will depart August 14th, be in Mare Rouge a total of twelve days preaching and teaching, then head back home on August 26th. I am trusting God to provide for this mission in every respect.

Please join us in this journey by praying for the following:

¶       provision of financial resources

¶       traveling mercies (smooth and safe travel)

¶       wisdom on what to teach and preach

¶       opportunities to reach people with the Gospel

¶       good fruit from our labors

Please contact me using the information below if you have any questions.

Grace and Peace,

  

JP Williams

Luke 14: 12-24

You can reach me here:

PO Box 195

Archie, MO

64725

816 430 5515

PRAY FOR MARE ROUGE

encouragement mission to local ministry families

August 14^th – 26^th

 

The encircled area is an approximation of where we will be spending our time. Mare Rogue/Bellevue To the top, Terry Routon (hardly able to be seen behind interpreterJ) encourages some of the “little pastors” in the personal walk and their ministry.  Below, Greg and I and the Routons. Please post this somewhere prominent in your home and remember to pray for us over the next few months, in particular August 14th - 26th. http://www.routonshaitiblog.blogspot.com/

                                         

Door of Hope May Mission Delayed

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

Once again Paul's writings in God's Word seems to relate to our situation. We believe God is blocking our return to Haiti in May and changing our plans to go the month of August. Our desire is to be obedient in all we do. As bad as we want to go in May, we are waiting upon Him. PLEASE PRAY for us as we seek His plans for August and that God will provide the dollar amount needed to begin working on finishing and repairing the Bethlehem church/school building. God has blessed us with very nice church buildings here in the United States. In Haiti they have very simple buildings made with cement blocks, cement floor, tin roof and simple wooden benches.

Your prayer support is so important to us.

Carolyn and Terry

Haiti Mission/Bethlehem Church and
Pregnancy ministry (Poorest of the Poor)
200 Gunsmoke
Clinton MO 64735
660-924-3344/885-4399

PS: if God lays it on your heart to help your brothers and sisters in Haiti with their church building, please make your check out to:

Good Hope Baptist Church Haiti Mission Fund

then send to above address.

Update from Door of Hope!

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

1st Qtr Haiti update: March 2011

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is when you don't know where you will get your next meal for your family and you take in 4 orphans or widows because God told you to.

Where is your faith walk with God? Are you willing to take a step of faith when God says to GIVE, GOor DO? Are you willing to scarifice your time, money or yourself for others?

The Haitian christians walk by faith every moment of every day. Sometimes they don't know where there next meal will come from and they take orphans and widows and elderly in and feed them too. They DON'T have regular access to bibles, schooling, houses that don't leak or have floors, food, water etc. Some walk for miles to attend church and are very faithful.

Because you have been faithful to give over the past few years the christians of Bethlehem Baptist Church have been able to grow gardens, collect water, receive bibles and songbooks, start a goat and garden ministry, help young ladies learn a sewing trade, reach out and help young pregnant ladies, elderly, widows, orphans and the lost with the gospel; also send us to help disciple and evangelize. Many have come to Christ because you have given sacrificially.

Galatians 6:9 and 10 Let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity , let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Terry and I are going to Haiti the last of May for about 6 weeks. We believe God is sending us back for a longer stay to help the church with evangelisim and to do more needed discipling. Also while we are there we want to begin working on their church and school buildings. The shape they are in if we don't get them finished and/or repaired over the next couple of years, they will start to deteriorate.

We have scheduled a golf tournament for April 16th, noon to 4:00pm at the Meadowlake Country Club Golf Course in Clinton. ALL PROCEEDS GO TO HAITI. If you know someone that likes to play, we need 18 teams of 4 per team for a 4 person scramble. Please help us get 18 teams or hole sponsors for each hole. We are setting the fee at $300 per team (which includes the cart and green fees) but if you come up with more awesome. You could ask for sponsors to help you raise your fees. The hole sponsor fee is $25 per hole or $400 to sponsor all 18. We will put a sign with your name or business name at each hole you sponsor. Please pray about giving sacrifically to help us raise $15,000 needed for our trip in May to:

*pay off the motorcycle

*begin work on the buildings

*expenses for the trip (while there will be discipling, evangelizing, equipping, helping share the sexual purity in schools because they school thru June, the pregnancy ministry, soccer evangelism, vacation bible school and whatever else God opens the door for)

Quote: "The Bible was not meant to fill our minds with a lot of biblical facts but to change lives."

For the glory of God

Terry and Carolyn

One Year Later

Today, a quarter of a million people died. The foundations of the city of Port Au Prince and the surrounding towns and villages trembled as the magnitude seven quake violently shook the ground beneath them as people fled to the safest place they could. Over the next few weeks, more than fifty aftershocks hit the decimated cities of Western Haiti.

Although immense amounts of aid has been provided, the carnage continues as Cholera, malnutrition, and exposure continue to assault this already impoverished nation. A nation teetering on the edge of Anarchy fosters more misery as women are subject to increased incidents of sexual assault. Fr the most part, things have not gotten better.

What has been done has not been enough, yet the Church seems hesitant to do more. Have we forgotten the injunctions of our Lord, and of his brother James that what we do unto the least of these, we do also to our Lord? that if we know that good that we ought to do and do not do it, that we are sinning?

Oh Lord, use my heart, and my hands to alleviate what suffering I can, to preach and speak the Gospel to a people seemingly broken beyond repair.

Amen.

Famine, Rape, and Cholera

This just in this morning from MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40930866/ns/health/

In the midst of near anarchy, the specter of rape has arisen to torment an already desperate people. There are so many problems in Haiti that one cannot imagine the situation ever improving, but there is hope.

Let us continue to carry both bread, and the Bread of Life to these suffering people.