Dear Friends,
I just returned from four and a half weeks in Haiti. A team from Grace Community Church in Auburn, WA, spent the past ten days with me ministering in the Tricotte area. We were able to show the Jesus Film five times with many children responding to the Gospel invitation. When we showed it in our school in the village of Pendu I was so touched when Pastor Diogene gave the invitation to receive Christ as Savior. One eight year old boy raised his hand and would not put it down. It was so obvious that he was serious and didn’t want Pastor Diogene to miss him. How great it is to see these little ones trust the Lord and begin to follow Him.
The team also reached out to our orphanage kids in many ways. Every day they spent time playing games, doing crafts or simply holding them. The roof on the Tricotte church building was also completed. I really appreciated this team – they worked hard to accomplish the worked God called them to do while in Haiti. And I trust that God has impacted each of them in such a way that they will draw closer to Jesus themselves as they continue to serve Him back home.
Early in September Glenn and Doug worked at drilling a well in Bethel. It soon because obvious that this was going to be a difficult task. The second day of drilling they hit a really hard surface and did not make any progress at all. The third day they broke through that layer and started to move faster. But then a cable broke and we didn’t have what was needed to repair it. I was at the site that day and thought for sure we would have to quit drilling until we could get parts from the states. But God has given Glenn the unique ability to invent ways to make things work. He is the master of ingenuity when it comes to finding ways to fix things. By going out and buying charcoal and melting down some metal, Glenn had the rig working again after about four hours.
On the eighth day the hole was at 130 feet. They had been drilling through blue clay for about 90 feet and that morning the bit got stuck down at the bottom of the hole. After having a short prayer meeting at the site, Glenn began to use every means that he had available to get the bit to come loose. I was at the hotel that morning and Glenn called asking if I had any suggestions. I have very little mechanical ability so I said I would pray. After Glenn had spent three hours trying to loosen the bit, he was getting quite discouraged. About that time Pastor Diogene came to my room and I filled him in on Glenn’s predicament. He said, “We need to pray some more.” And so Pastor Diogene began to pray and when he had finished he said, “I need to talk to Glenn.” I dialed up Glenn and handed the phone to Pastor. Glenn was so excited because just 30 seconds before, the bit began to move up. We had experienced again the power of prayer. God broke loose whatever was holding that bit in the bottom of that hole. Sometimes God gives us the ability to fix things and sometimes He just fixes things by His supernatural power. He is a great God!
About a half hour after the bit had broken loose, Glenn called me and said he had hit water – and lots of it. The next day I went out with Glenn and we installed 140’ of 4” PVC casing, dropped an electric pump into the hole and pumped more than 20 gallons of water per minute for over one hour and the water level only dropped a very little. Pastor Diogene said that this will be a tremendous testimony to the village of Bethel. God will use this water to quench the physical thirst of many but we believe He will also use it to draw many to the Living Water which will quench their spiritual thirst. We praise God for allowing us to be a part of His work in Haiti.
We do thank God for each of you. Please continue to pray for us. Your partnership with your prayers and support are truly appreciated. God is using you to make a difference in the lives of needy Haitians.
Serving the Lord together,
Bernie & Sheryl Bovenkamp
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