Have No Fear

(eighth in a series)

1 John 4:18-19

Patti Cox & Brad Bosworth

Yesterday for the first time in seven days our Haiti Mission Team took a day of rest and relaxation. We traveled to a distant beach where we lounged, frolicked in the salt water of the Caribbean Sea. Our Haitian guides, the translators, security guards and driver came with us. Gel, Achka, Jhon, Benson, Blanc, Eric and Patrice had the day off in a place they would not normally visit. Today our team ministered to them and thus ourselves and it was glorious.

There is a bond between the team and these Haitians. It is a connection through our Maker. God is Love and we speak to each other in the language of God without fear. On this day with no duties or responsibilities to distract us with doubt and petty fear, we come closer to perfection in love.

I have witnessed extreme conditions of poverty this week. Our medical mission team has attended to about three hundred patients who otherwise most certainly would not have had access to any kind of treatment. In many a religious circle, there is some belief that God punishes for the sins of humankind. But God is Love! Therefore, being perfect His love is infinitely certain. There is no doubt here that God loves his children who are, in total, humankind. Since Abba’s love is perfect, there is no fear for God does not punish His children.

Since arriving last week we have had two sizable gentlemen displaying badges and wearing “Security” splashed across their backs. They possess a solemn demeaner and holstered firearms. Their presence is to first give the team distance from danger and threat. In truth, they are here to help assuage any fears we have in this very foreign, but not hostile environment. At first they remained distant, in the shadows, almost out of sight. As they witnessed the Grace of God raining on their fellow Haitians, Patrice and Eric came gradually closer, smiling more and more until it was the perfect Love of Christ moving between them and us allaying all of our fears. We have loved each other because He first Loved us.

Father, we long for the certainty of Immanuel filling us with His perfect Love that drives out all our fears, Amen

Bradford Bosworth

Not Forgotten nor Forsaken.

Sunday, September 24, 2017 (fourth in a series)

Haiti Deaf Academy

Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13-5

Joyce and Michael Newsom

I often subscribe to the belief that we, the American people, are the same as the Israelites, God’s chosen people. Our ancestral pilgrims settled in a promised land, a land flowing of milk and honey. Oh how evident it is that we have forgotten from whence we came. But, you know what? These Haitian people, they too are God’s chosen people. Maybe they have just not found their Moses yet nor crossed through their Red Sea. Do you want to know something? These people are strong and courageous!

A few days ago our team arrived here on the heels of four ferocious hurricanes that passed by this island also known as Hispaniola. It is as if God has said to these people, I will not forsake you, my children, you have enough on your hands now and I have some of my other children who need a wake-up call! I’m not sure if Joyce and Mike intended it? A link exists that ties these two pieces of scripture together across a millennium or more. Moses’ exhortation, “Be strong and courageous.” is repeated by his successor (Joshua 1:9). In Hebrews, the writer is reminding his audience - Jewish Christians- that the covenant of Moses, carried forward by Joshua, has been superseded by the new covenant of Christ Jesus. Our presence here is now about the Love of Christ.

Our mission team’s humbly joyful interpreter/guides are mere boys content with what they have. Gel, Achka, Benson and Jhon are the vines bearing fruit that brings daily the new covenant Love of Christ to the poor. The chosen people of Haiti know the Lord has said to them, “Never will I leave you.”

Yahweh, through all the storms of our lives may we remember that nothing can separate us from your Love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen

Bradford Bosworth