Stories & Testimonies

In a second she was gone, torn from her father's arms. He desperately cried out for her: "JOLINA...! WHERE ARE YOU...?" Confused and surrounded by darkness, all José knew for sure was that a wall of water had just swept away his little home, he was fighting for his life amid swirling debris, and his four-year-old daughter had just been ripped from his arms by something rushing violently past in the current.

I sat talking with pastor Preval Meritil, longtime friend of Heaven's Family and my host once again for this, my fourth visit to Haiti. Together, we had done a lot of work since the earthquake one year earlier, and this time I was leading another work team, checking on projects that we'd started at our adopted Resettlement Camp, and visiting the orphanages Heaven's Family had been supporting even before the earthquake. Preval told me about another needy orphanage named El Bethel, meaning "House of God." Since El Bethel was on our way to the Resettlement Camp, we decided to visit.

The afternoon was hot, and I welcomed a seat in the shade under a tree. I was in Myebon, a riverside town in southwest Myanmar, bringing relief to victims of Cyclone Giri with one of Heaven's Family's Burmese ministry partners, M.B. Thang. We had just helped a widow and her four children with funds that would enable them to rebuild their flattened home, and the rare sighting of a white guy in this remote area attracted about thirty curious neighbors. M.B. and I took advantage of our captivated audience to share the gospel—and they were very hungry to hear about the Lord. I also told them about Jesus' followers from far away who had sent me to help them.