Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Haiti trip cancellation

Hi all,

Two important things to pass along

First, we had to cancel our trip to Haiti.   Despite re-arranging and trying to work out the details, it became very clear today that the doors had closed for us.  Obviously this is disappointing.  But we all feel that it is the right thing to do at this point.  My traveling companions have been fantastic through this process, very flexible and willing to go-with-the-flow.  
We were hopeful that the Hurricane would miss Haiti.  Or that we could make it out to Pestel (and bunker down) when it hit.  
Surprisingly, the hurricane was downgraded to a Tropical Storm status, and then just this morning was downgraded further to a Tropical Depression.  Over the past 48 hours there was a very real possibility of Hurricane Tomas dissipating almost completely!   Which is, frankly, an incredible possibility that didn't even occur to me to pray for!   And this could still happen.   However, around noon today it was upgraded again to a Tropical Storm.  And it looks to be arriving over Pestel around 8am on Friday, just when we'd be taking off from PAP.   Long-story-short:  we were grounded by our flight organization, and since they were filled up on Friday, Saturday and Monday....there was no opportunity to get out of PAP.  Again, this all came about within the past couple of hours.

So we will be looking at dates in Jan/Feb (maybe March).  


Second, I had a FANTASTIC meeting this morning with a group called Kingdom Builders.  What an encouragement.  These are generally business-minded Christians who meet periodically to discuss ways to integrate their beliefs into their work, develop ideas, etc.   I had the fortune of being invited by Stephen Sands.  There is a lot I could say about this time.  In short, a number of individuals provided excellent feedback and suggestions for me.  One guy wants to provide more opportunities for me to do my talk.  One guy wants to help put together a 3 minute video (his business makes commercials).  One guy is going to do some networking for me, etc etc.  These are just some of the examples.   There was a lot of energy and enthusiasm.   And this is a gift from God.

Thank you for your prayers for wisdom.  

Please continue to pray for Haiti.  
Ben


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