Hi everyone,
First of all, I want to thank all who prayed about the need of the Risograph machine for the Extension Bible School department. Thanks to 3 special gifts we were able to purchase a brand new machine in country and it is already up and running. PRAISE THE LORD! The material produced by this machine for the program is not only used within our own churches but other organizations use it for leadership training in their churches. Just last Friday we had 5 men at our dinner table who were here to see the program and materials to incorporate their use in their churches. This program was a dream of David’s dad for localized leadership training and many have had their hands in bringing it to fruition.
After 2 ½ busy months the building of a small house for a family from our church is in the final little details of completion. I don’t have a picture of the completed structure but from these two pictures you can get an idea of the digging of the foundation and the walls going up. It is a small home because the “footprint” of the land is very small and is surrounded by other devastated homes on all sides. I’m not sure if you can tell the house is on the side of a hill above Port-au-Prince. The building projects in our area are not on nice flat plots of land but rather mostly on crowded difficult sides of hills that can’t be reached directly with trucks for clearing debris and carrying supplies so it is all done by hand/shoulder/bucket. This building was completed with some of the left over funds people shared with us following the earthquake. McMartins, Youngs and Schmids will be welcoming teams from January – March to work on other projects in our neighborhood. We’d appreciate prayer for safety, unity and spiritual impact on the team members, us, and the community during these projects.
I can’t even remember if I shared that David and I will be travelling to PA December 12 until January 4 for the holidays with the family. We actually will be moving David’s sister, Joanne, from Florida to an apartment under Amy the first weekend we are there until she can move into subsidized housing. David’s brother, Mel, and family will be coming for Christmas weekend. It will be the first Christmas in many years that 3 of the 5 Schmid siblings will be together for Christmas. It will be a super busy time but we are glad we can get Joanne settled up north. Pray for her adjustment to PA winters and new doctors etc. We are glad she will be near family and especially Mel and Karen as they help her with many of the details of her care.
We also plan on a 6 month furlough in June – November 2012 then staying for the month of December as our vacation month. We are applying for a small furnished missionary apartment through Amy’s church in Lancaster. We may be able to use it if none of the church’s own missionaries are in need of it at that time. There is also a possible option in the DuBois area. Once again we ask that you pray for doors to open concerning a place to live for this short furlough and also a vehicle to use. We applied to an organization that supplies missionary vehicles for furlough but there were none available. We’ve seen God provide for these needs in amazing ways for 8 furloughs already. Yikes, I just counted up the number of furloughs we’ve had so far and this will be our 8th. Knowing that we always stayed for 4 years each term until the last one when we stayed 30 months and had a 6 month furlough makes the 35+ years of serving in Haiti more real to me.
I will be contacting our supporting churches to plan a schedule for next fall. Please contact us if you have dates when you what us to come. It will help us coordinate our travels from – PA, FL, MA, IN, NY, and NJ. We will try to see as many of our personal supporters as we can too. So help us make up a schedule.
Classes at STEP are going well and in spite of the building project, sickness and lots of other responsibilities David is keeping up with his grading. He is hoping to be able to get his materials written for his January La Coma seminar written before we leave in December too. If I can type and get the materials put together it would be a great help. Would appreciate prayer for this to happen.
We are getting together with friends for Thanksgiving. We actually have a nice stateside turkey in the freezer carried in by the team from Florida who visited the end of October. Some of you will laugh but I’ve already put up my Christmas decorations to enjoy before we leave mid December. I love doing that. I just saw a picture that Judy and Ani had the same idea.
December 3-7 the Crossworld missionary ladies are getting together up at the Baptist Haiti Mission for a ladies’ retreat. Two ladies from Florida are coming to minister and share with us. It is nice and cool up there on the mountain in December so we are looking forward to the time of sharing, fellowship and fun being together.
May we each rejoice in the blessings God has placed in our lives and in the peace and joy He gives us in spite of any difficulties that come our way.
Love to all,
Phyllis
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