Hello Dear Friends, Thank you for all your prayers, calls and notes. We are still in the States and it is still to soon to know when we can go to Haiti as a family. Lowell is looking at options to go to Port-a-Prince to help with the medical needs. We were planning and hoping to be in Haiti by the beginning of January but are greatful that God knows the big picture. Please use our link to the Carribe-Atlanic Mission to get updates from our missionaries there.

Haiti

Most of you have heard news of the earthquake which Haiti experienced this evening. For those of us living on LaGonave it was a very unsettling event which continues with aftershocks, several each hour. The major cell phone provider for the country is not functioning and the only news we are receiving out of Port-au-Prince is internet and radio news. Throughout the evening we have been hearing the wails that tell us another family in our community has received devastating news regarding loved ones residing in Port-au-Prince.

Upon initial examination the hospital appears not to have sustained any major damage but the patients are sleeping in the tin roof clinic instead of the concrete roof hospital building. At this point we don't expect to have a lot more information until morning.

At the time of this writing, we have not yet been able to establish contact with Carl and Maya Gilles, Wesleyan missionaries, who live in the Tabarre suburb of Port-au-Prince.

There are 5 Wesleyan churches in the greater Port-au-Prince area. One of them, the largest Wesleyan church in Haiti, is located in the area that seems to have been hardest hit. We have not yet been able to establish communication with the pastor of that church or anyone associated with it.

We presently have a mission team from Western Pennsylvania District, whose families are understandably nervous.

We have already heard from many of you and are grateful for your concern and prayers.

Dan and Joy Irvine

HOME SWEET HOME!!!

Here is a picture of our home to be, we are anxious to get to Haiti and get to make it ours. We are in the final days of our faith promise fund raising with just over $7000 to be committed. The month of January has a full schedule, with a lot of miles to be logged before it is all said and done but leaving us with hope that we could be in Haiti in February. If you would like to be a part of helping us reach our goal please notice the link for giving. Thank you for your prayes and gifts. You have blessed us and we praise God for you.

I realize that Christmas has come and gone but I just wanted to share a thought that God gave me on Christmas evening.

Mary didn't get much sleep Christmas night either and as I sit here wide awake at 3am, I can't help but think of her. I don't know why I'm awake (being way to old to be listening for Santa) it is probably something much more self imposed, like too much caffeine and sugar. But Mary, she was awake and yet I can't imagine her exhaustion. Long trips wear me out but by donkey?!! Wanting the story to live for me like it did the first time I heard it, I sit here thinking of her as a woman, a friend, daughter, wife and then...mother.

Some of her story I can get my hands around. She was a woman without a home, but she was right where God wanted her, beside her husband. She chose to leave everything normal behind but worse when she said, "I will do this." some of her friends probably left her. Daughter...so many thoughts. She had to make them believe this was really the Son of God that she carried. How long did it take for them to remember her integrity? They knew her life well enough to believe. Then she was a wife. I am sure, if not before, then somewhere on that long journey she and Joseph became friends. Partners with a goal to obey God's request for their life.

While I sit here and miss my first born son who is going to have his first Christmas way from me, I marvel at the thought of her first born Son, sucking in his first breath and crying his first cry. And then I know all her sadness and the pain of childbirth seemed to vanish in that instant. That's why she was there, why she was put on this earth! That little baby is why we are all here. He is why we have to go to Haiti. So other can know that baby is God. So they can know His truth can forgive, change, heal, comfort, counsel... My heart is overwhelmed with the hope we have in Him.

We had not seen Lance since the beginning for September. We met up with him in Washington DC as he flew on to India for the next 5 weeks. Our three "kids" spent time building with Maddie's blocks and just having fun together. It was great to all be together even if it was just for a few hours. We pray God's blessing on Lance as he seeks God's plan for his life and ministers to the people there in India.