One Year and Many Changed Lives

It was just one year ago that Amber and Christy traveled to Mirebalais to be with our friend Bernardo as he was approaching the end of his sweet life.  After 10 days in the hospital, many tears and a lot of time spent with his father Bernard, we were able to watch Jesus welcome him home.  But out of the death of this young man, the life of another began.  Bernard, his father and his family accepted Jesus into their hearts.  Without a bible or a way to read it, we left our friend, Erick Lero in charge of meeting with him weekly to read the bible, teach him what it meant and to disciple him into a relationship with Jesus.  

As a voodoo man, Bernard has a very minimal understanding of who Jesus is and how much he loves him.  As they saw Bernardo's peace during his illness and our peace as we watched him pass into the arms of Jesus, they wanted to know how to have that peace.  And Erick was going to share with them how to have it.  

Each week he spent time at their small piece of land on the side of a hill, reading, praying and discipling.  At every meeting, more and more people began to show up to hear what Erick was teaching. They wanted to learn and be a part of this family of God that was growing.  By the end of May, 300 people were meeting for a "church" service.  They had prayer, worship, teaching and were quickly learning what it meant to care for each other as fellow believers.

By August, they were calling themselves a church, they had moved to a larger space to accommodate the number of people that were coming every week and they began to serve others in their community.

Now, its one year later, Addison and Christy were excited to join New Song Church for their one year anniversary celebration.  After the week long revival, 9 BAPTISMS on Saturday, a large group gathered to celebrate the past year of growth in New Song Church.  There were many groups performing beautiful worship songs and dancing and everyone was dressed in their celebration best.  Worship was great and the message was preached out of Matthew.  We were able to see friends we haven't seen in awhile, share a meal with the church and most importantly worship the amazing God we serve together.  

New Song church is serving in the community, teaching the word of God, making disciples and praying for the sick on a weekly basis.  So many good things are going on in Mirebalais and we are so blessed we got to be a part of the celebration!