School is in session and life is in full swing at our HOLD Home in Lavaud, Haiti.
And God’s faithfulness has been shown once again! In March of this year Director of HOLD the Children, Rich Rohde, began thinking through the next steps and phases of life at our orphanage. He realized we need a large security wall around the entire property before any further steps could be taken. This wall would cost approximately $30,000.
Once the craziness of the summer settled down, Rich began the daunting task of raising funds to build this security wall, in hopes of having it completed by the time teams arrive to work at the orphanage in March 2015.
Money started coming in slowly but surely, and by the beginning of October we had almost half of the funds raised. $16,000 short of our goal, Rich set up a meeting with a businessman in his area. The Lord laid this man on Rich’s heart, and Rich faithfully obeyed in setting up this meeting.
The gentleman was honored to be involved in this process and stated that he would meet us halfway in the fundraising. In other words, if we raised $8,000 more, he would provide us with the final $8,000 to get us to our goal of $30,000.
By mid-October, only $8,000 short of our goal, Rich received word from a church in Oklahoma that has been faithfully supporting the ministry of HOLD for several years.
The Oklahoma church decided earlier in the year to begin raising money for the security wall, and notified the congregation that the church would match whatever was donated.
To make a long story a little shorter, this church body raised $4,000. The church matched their $4,000 gift totaling an $8,000 donation to build the security wall at the orphanage. And the $8,000 is exactly what was needed for our generous businessman friend to finish up our funding with a final gift getting us to our total $30,000 goal!!
This story is one of many that points straight to Christ and his faithfulness. When I visited our orphanage in March, building a $30,000 security wall seemed an extremely daunting task, maybe even impossible.
Now, only 7 months later, all $30,000 are accounted for and plans are underway to begin the construction so that our mission teams visiting there in March 2015 can tear down the old dividing fences.
In doing this, the children will have much more room to spread out; we will be building them a playground. Eventually we will be building small cottages for the children to live in a more family-style setting with several children and one house mother overseeing the cottage.
Lord willing, I will get to return to the HOLD orphanage again this March and I will have a firsthand update on the construction of the wall! I am honored to be part of this incredible work and am so thankful for God’s faithful provision in every step of this process.
