DNS RELIEF FELLOWSHIP

Nudgings [ December 2008]


NUDGINGS

      How do you explain the desperate poverty in Haiti? Why would God allow 2,000+ Haitians to lose their lives during the recent hurricane and flooding there? There is really only one answer to those questions. Jesus said, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight”. (Matt. 11:26).

Let us not forget that God is never obligated to explain why He does anything, but there is a day coming when we are going to be asked what we did to alleviate the suffering we knew about.

You won’t read about it in the newspapers but I have learned that anarchy reigns in Haiti. The corrupt army and the ruthless police-force are in control. There is no restraint; no authorities to see that laws are obeyed.

Did you read about the government soldier who ordered a distraught mother to silence her crying baby? She pleaded, “I can’t stop him. He’s thirsty and I have no milk or water to give him.” The soldier roughly grabbed the baby from his mother’s arms and threw him into the river. “There! now he’ll have lots of water to drink.” To her dying day that mother will grieve for her son. Atrocities even worse than that are happening every day in Haiti.

The latest news is that, as a result of the hurricane and flooding, more than 2,000 are dead and 1,000,000 are left homeless. Of that number, 300,000 are children. Stop a moment and consider – 300,000 boys and girls will not have a roof over their heads tonight and many of them will search for days for their fathers and mothers who loved them dearly. That’s enough to melt the hardest heart.

DNS Relief Fellowship and other groups are providing the necessary funding so that both believers and nonbelievers will have at least one meal a day. Because of poor nutrition and rampant diseases (HIV/ AIDS, cholera, malaria, TB, etc.) very few Haitians live past fifty years of age. Borrowing the question of Jeremiah, (Lam. l:12). “Is it nothing to you?” It meant something to the Good Samaritan on the Jericho road.

In response to the command of the Lord to love their neighbor as themselves, a group of doctors, surgeons, nurses, hygienists, carpenters and other tradesmen are making trips to Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic. They are taking medicines, clothes, mattresses and food to the devastated Gonaives district which was the hardest hit area of Haiti. This is made possible through the kindness of Christians in the U.S.A. and Canada.

Some years ago a large group of native Haitians moved across the border to obtain work in the Dominican Republic. It was there that they first heard the good news of the Gospel. They realized that Voodooism, and not Roman Catholicism, was the recognized national religion of the country and most of their relatives had never learned of God’s simple plan of salvation. One by one the Lord nudged them to return home to Haiti and through their personal testimonies many were saved. It was they who lost everything in the flooding. It was they who, like the early believers, “took joyfully the spoiling of their goods.” Heb. 10:34.

Most readers will know that DNS is taken from Rom. 12:13: Distributing to the Necessity of the Saints.” This registered non-profitable organization commenced by assisting poverty stricken saints but is now also distributing to the necessity of sinners.

John H Adams  –   December 2008

DNS, c/o Philip Kazen,

4611-109th Place NE,

Marysville, WA. U.S.A., 98271.