It’s a beautiful Sunday morning and God has proven His faithfulness
to me once again. We made it through a major hurricane with no loss of life or
harm to my family or my ALC family or any major damage to the buildings at ALC or
my apartment!
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| Petting Farm |
There was some roof damage and blown off shingles and a majority of the trees are down in the petting farm and at my apartment along with smashed fences and minor flooding at ALC and the Camp.
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| Adam surveying the damage |
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| more trees down |
I’m sorry to get this blog out late but we
still have no power or internet and the few sites that do like DQ and McDonalds
are overcrowded. I have spent the last 2 days cleaning up and securing our
apartment.
There is plenty of work, repairs and expense ahead of us to get ALC up and running for program but God continues to be faithful and Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale is already working on sending a team or two to help cleanup.
My last blog asked you to pray that God use the “wind” to impact people in the Bahamas (see it for explanation). Well something amazing happened on the eve of the hurricane. About 4pm Wednesday, hours before the storm, a NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) official, Scott, contacted me because he had seen the ALC school buses that we had moved to higher ground along an elevated highway. He asked (about begged me), to use our 3 buses for emergency rescue and evacuation by the Defense Force, in high water areas. Without hesitation I offered him full use of the 3 buses which we had filled with fule the day before. I then met Scott at the NEMA headquarters at about 4:30 to get him the keys to the buses. The Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Perry Christie, was there in meetings also. Scott insisted to introduce me to him because of our contribution. After waiting for about 20 min. the Prime Minister came out of a meeting. Scott introduced us and told him of our offer to use the buses. Mr. Christy shook my hand and thanked me and said “you do a great work down there at the Adventure Learning Centre. In fact isn’t there some land that is next to you that the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) are wanting to get?" I took the opportunity to explain the issue....
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| Mark meeting with the Prime Minister |
You see for the past 15 years we have been using a vital piece of Crown Lands that we
have had an annual license form the Ministry of Lands. The 5 acres portion in particular is laced with nature
trails and a beautiful special coppice ecosystem we use for our educational
program. In fact thousands of school children learn about and "in" this forested area every year.
Five years ago the SDA built a school next to ALC and have been petitioning the PM for the same Crown Lands to extend their school facilities onto. We've had many meetings with
the Ministry of Education, the Department of Lands and whoever we could would listen. Although we had support from the environmental and educational
community we were not able to secure the land for preservation and educational purposes, we were never able to meet with the two different Prime Ministers over the past 15 years. As recently as a few months ago we received
a letter from the SDA telling us that they had gotten approval to move forward with construction on the lands. It looked as if we were going to loose a critical outdoor teaching area. But God...
During that God ordained, 90 second meeting with the PM, I gushed as much information as I could. He said; "You need to come see me, I'm in charge of Crown Lands. Get in touch with me after this is over." I said "Your in charge of the whole country. I'll take you up on that offer." but in my heart I was thinking, God is sovereign over all!
Obviously the meeting has not happened yet but I believe the opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister of The Bahamas was orchestrated by God through this storm.
1. Please pray with us for a successful meeting with the PM resulting in the preservation of this land for our educational program which in turn will result in thousands of school students hearing the gospel and trusting in Christ.
2. Please keep this information confidential until I know the outcome of this issue. I do not want the SDA to get "wind" of this meeting as they have been able to meet with him in the past. I am only sending this to a select few.
