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Hello From Haiti

Posted By Bobi Bender
Sunday, September 28, 2008

If you want to see pictures that I will upload from time to time, you can visit my website: http://gallery.me.com/bobibender.

I appreciate people asking if I can get mail! I would love to get a letter from you! The address is:

Togetherness in Christ Ministries
PO Box 407139
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33340

This company will then send the letter on to me from Ft. Lauderdale. If you send a package, I pay the weight rate it will cost from Florida to Haiti, so please don’t send big or heavy packages. :) I think smaller ones would be okay, but please remember it’s rated by weight. Letters are free for me to receive!

If you want to donate money to Canaan Orphanage or the hurricane relief fund, you can visit this website: www.canaanorphanage.org. There you will see the address to send a check to. If you want the money to go directly to the hurricane victims, make that mark on the check. Thanks for your support!

If you want to donate items (canned vegetables, noodles, summer clothes) to Canaan Orphanage you can send those to Miami and they will be shipped in bulk:

Gull Atlantic, c/o Togetherness In Christ
3200 NW 125 ST
Miami, FL, 33167

If you donate items, please call Sandra at Gull Atlantic first at this number with the list and quantity of items you will be sending. Sandra’s number is: 561-667-1731.

God bless you! Thanks! :)

Bobi

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Please Pray For Haiti

Posted By Bobi Bender
Friday, September 12, 2008

Hello from Haiti! What a whirlwind the last 48 hours have been! I arrived in Port-au-Prince Tuesday at about 4:30 p.m. Pastor Henri and Sister Gladys (the co-founders of the orphanage) picked me up. We stopped at the market and then headed to Canaan Orphanage. We arrived at about 8:00 p.m. Overall it was a great flight and safe trip. So far my first impressions of the country are kind of what I had expected - I am reminded so much of Gambia!! This makes me smile, because you all know how much I loved Gambia.

Wednesday morning I woke up to the most precious kids in the world singing about God’s love. These little orphans are beautiful inside and out! I am excited to befriend them.  :)  I have worked a bit in the medical clinic and started training for the medika mamba project. I am ready to dive in, but other ‘work’ has come up that is a higher priority right now. This type of work cannot be prepared for, this type of work cannot even be expressed in words or portrayed in photos. But I must try to describe it to you because what I have seen over the last 2 days is beyond imagination.

As you know, Haiti has suffered so much recently because of the hurricanes. The orphanage is doing good - our food supply and shelter is all well - so we praise God for that - but just a couple miles down the road lay some of the worst sites I have ever seen IN MY LIFE……

In America, we see the brief news clips of the damage from the hurricanes, but to SEE this in person with my own eyes has left quite an impression on my heart. People are starving. Their is mud in many houses - about 4 to 7 feet high. The stick shacks people lived in at one time that were in the path of the flood waters are non existent. The water people are drinking and bathing in is the dirtiest water I’ve ever seen.

You can smell the decay - we saw a baby girl that had died and her body was stuck in a pile of brush. People said dogs were starting to pick at the body. The police were on there way to take care of this unbelievable site. One of the missionaries turned to me and said, “Bobi, welcome to Haiti.” I cried. I almost couldn’t hold myself together. Guys - this is really happening! I am shocked….

One word I can use to explain the look on people’s faces is: hopeless. It is difficult to know where to begin, in such a mess, but we want to do all we can to help restore hope in their lives, homes, and hearts. Yesterday we bought rice, oil, beans, sugar, flour, corn, soap and toothbrushes to hand out to families. We packed it up today in individual baggies.

Please pray that as the hurricane and tropical storm season is just starting, that God would hold off on allowing the rain to come our way. Pray for the people to have strength during this devastating time. And please pray for us to have wisdom to help them and that in the midst of all the horrible suffering, Jesus would be made known!

If you want to donate money to help us buy more food or eventually to build houses - please shoot me back an email. If you want to read more details and see a few pictures you can visit Elsie’s blog - she is a missionary that has lived here since January. That link is: www.lckornelsen.blogspot.com. Thank you for reading this and I will keep you updated. If you do want to donate you can also shoot me back an email - thanks! We’d appreciate any support you can give. God bless.

Love you all and THANK YOU for your prayers - I’ll be in touch!

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Hurricanes

Posted By Gladys Mecklembourg
Monday, September 8, 2008

Dear Friends of Canaan,

The Lord has been so gracious to us here at Canaan. The hurricane rained down over a foot of water, but as we are up on a hill, we have had no major catastrophe. We found out how old all our roofs are and had a lot of leakage, and there are branches down everywhere, but praise God, no lives lost or injured. For us, it was a steady rain, with wind gusts every so often. We will have a major expense repairing the roofs - both the boys dorm and the girls dorm will need to be changed, as well as most of the others.

Sadly, our surrounding areas have not survived so well. The water from the mountains brought down an unusual amount of water, flooding the river and taking with it houses that were in it’s way, on several occasions with the people in it. Even in areas not close to the river, the water coming down from the hills was too much for the houses. People have been coming to us steadily for help - they need money to bury their dead, food, shelter, clothes, anything because everything they have is gone. We’re trying to get together anything that we can. We’ve started getting specific lists of houses, church buildings, schools that are gone or broken or at risk. And this is just in Montrouis area.

Within one mile of us we have 36 houses gone. People are crowding their neighbour and friends’ houses. Beyond that, within a 5 mile radius, including Montrouis, we have tons of houses gone. These are of course just the ones that have come to us with their help requests or lists - I’m sure there’s many more. The list of one suburb alone, Rousseau, says 21 houses (1-9 room buildings) destroyed, 19 damaged (un-livable), at risk over 96 in total. The school there is also damaged. Another suburb, Perrier, 17 destroyed, 19 damaged, at risk 45. We have the names of at least two churches that are at risk. 50 hectars of cultivated fields are gone. A lot of animals like cows, goats, etc, gone. Almost a 1000 fruit trees were washed away. It made a big crevice so that the mountain people can’t come into town. Part of Montrouis, people living on the sections going up the mountains, had to go further up the mountains because of the crevice dividing the two and of course that’s not home.

(Continued)

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Canaan News

Posted By Gladys Mecklembourg
Monday, August 4, 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

On behalf of the entire country of Haiti, we praise God and thank you for your commitment to the Lord’s work here in Canaan, as you are preparing the next generation of children who will be raised-up serving God and changing the face of our country.

We are so blessed by your generosity to provide materials, countless hours of labor and daily coverings of prayer. We are encouraged daily here as we know that the Lord has created a committed, global family that calls Canaan home and is dedicated to the spiritual growth of the Lord’s children that He has stewarded to us for a time.

There are so many praise reports and news updates that we are thrilled to share with you:

1. 30 Canaanites traveled to the US for A.C.E. Convention this year. We had multiple ribbon-winning finalists, were featured on the local news and the Lord provided for Sister Gladys to be professionally trained in Tennessee.

2. As a result of this training, Canaan hosted a all-expense paid training seminar with 36 people from 11 new schools that will be started in Haiti, thanks to John and Melody Kirkland of A.C.E. The training in the U.S. and subsequent training of new leaders in Haiti will change communities and cities, as we raise-up more and more young people every year in knowledge of the Lord and a best-of-class educational experience.

3. We would like to offer a most special thanks to the incredible generosity of Cross International for the transportation and support during Convention, and the loving and selfless hosts throughout Missouri and Minnesota. Your servants’ hearts are renewed examples to us of how to be godly hosts and serve with joy.

4. Canaan hosted 5 U.S. missionaries this summer, along with our beloved long-term missionary nurse, Elsie Kornelsen from Canada.  The team started a Central Haiti Malnutrition Clinic for children under the age of five, using a medicinal peanut butter that is produced in Haiti, identical to the treatment plan that Doctors Without Borders uses in Africa. To date, over 100 children have been treated, prayed over weekly, received small Gospel Bibles in Kreyol and we are witnessing life change in many our of community families. Thanks to the 300+ supporters, donors and praying saints who made this clinic possible through their sacrifices.

(Continued)

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