Dear Friends,
Thank you all very much for your encouragement to us as you partner together with us in this ministry. Each time we share needs for the orphanage, schools, or other areas, you so generously share. Many of you have brought over school supplies that we requested last month to be shipped on the next container – thank you!!!
One thing we have failed to share with you concerns the post office and their handling of our mail. They have become very precise in the way they want our address put on the envelope. Many of you have shared that your letter has been returned to you even though it seems the address is correct. Sorry about that. What they are telling us now is that it must be addressed on 4 lines exactly as follows:
Starfish Ministries
PMB #440
1706 Front St
Lynden, WA 98264
It is so good to hear the reports of God at work in Haiti. I’m sitting in a hotel room in Port-au-Prince and just heard a report from Pastor Diogene. We wrote last month about the evangelistic crusade happening in the Corail village. Pastor Diogene reports that the crusade was great!!! God moved in the hearts of the lost. The first four nights 400 – 500 were there each night and 62 came forward to receive Jesus Christ as Savior. The last night it started raining at 4:00 and would not stop. So they had to cancel the meeting. But many were disappointed and said that this was the night they would have responded. They said that the evangelistic team owed them one more night.
The Haitian team met and decided that a church needed to be planted immediately. So several Tricotte believers volunteered to make the one and a half hour hike each Saturday and conduct services in Corail on Sunday. Each week more people have been saved and they are so hungry to grow in their walk with God. The average attendance these first four weeks has been over 100. God is transforming the lives of these people. We will be starting construction on a church building in Corail in the next couple of months.
Pastor Diogene also told me about an older woman from Tricotte. She was one of the few holdouts from Christianity. She had some religious roots, but over the years voodoo was becoming a part of her life and the evil spirits were inviting her to become a witch doctor. At first she resisted but after one of her sons died an early death she was deceived to believe that had she responded to the invitation, he would not have died. So she became a practicing witch doctor. But witch doctoring was not accepted at all in Tricotte so she moved to Gonieves.
About a year ago, her husband became very sick. Even though she tried all her voodoo herbs and chants to relieve the curse, he died. She was devastated. About six months ago she became sick herself. Her daughter encouraged her to go to a witch doctor but when she refused her non-Christian daughter said, “Well mother, then why don’t you try Christianity?”
She went to a little church in Gonieves. The people prayed over her. The Lord gave her physical healing. Then she trusted Christ. In May of this year she came back to Tricotte, a totally changed, transformed woman of God. Diogene described her as “crazy for the Lord.” He said that she shares with everyone she meets. She goes to the market and surrounding villages and tells of what God has done in her life. She never misses a church service. In July she went along with other believers from Tricotte to a spiritual conference and boldly shared her testimony before 1000’s in attendance.
Now she says, “Oh, if I had only come to Jesus sooner, maybe my husband would also have followed Him.”
Just a quick update on Smailine. She recently spent 12 days in the hospital in Port-au-Prince. She’s back home again now doing a little better. We are still waiting for the slow political process to be completed so that she can come to the states for surgery. Thank you for your prayers for her. Smailine’s mother sends her sincere appreciation for the financial help as well.
We are so thankful to God for the opportunity to serve Him in Haiti as we partner with Pastor Diogene and his ministry team. Thank you for praying and supporting. That’s what helps to make a difference in these needy lives.
Serving the Lord together,
Bernie & Sheryl Bovenkamp
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