An Empty Sack

Roberta and I are up to our ears in the process of obtaining gifts for our kids and our grandkids, as I'm sure that everyone else is as well. Some times it gets to be a hassle but it's always worth it to see the sparkle in the eyes of those receiving our gifts.

I want to share a story with everyone about some nameless person from a nameless place who sent a gift that brought a miracle to a child who would more than likely have been known as "the boy in the sack". What was the gift you might ask? It was a gift of an offering to Bobby and Sherry Burnette to support a medical clinic in a village called Greffin, Haiti. That gift made it possible for Bobby and Sherry to carry the name of Jesus to a place where the pain was so intense that for the people of America, we can only imagine. SHERRY asked this young man to share his story about his life. Here is the story as told by Yonel "The Boy in the Sack"

My name is Yonel. I am from Greffin, Haiti. My father and mother are dead. Now I am going to tell you a story of when I was in Greffin I remember my mother died first. Then, when the rain came, the river rose high. My father put me on one side of the river to go see how deep it was. Just as he came back over the river to get me, the river carried him away. I stood there for a long time, but he never came back.

Some relatives took my sister and my two brothers to raise. Life is very very difficult when you are an orphan. People treat you bad. My relatives did not want me. They had many children and they did not want to feed me. They were serving Voodoo. They had a little food for their children but I never got too much. I would watch them eat but they never gave me anything. They made me work very hard. I can say I suffered a lot. I had no water to drink. When I wanted water to drink, I had to go very far to get it. But, I was so weak and hungry that it was hard to walk over the mountains to find water.

School...I never knew what that was. I never had shoes or socks. I never had a ball. I had nothing.

I remember sometimes, they would treat me so bad. They would put me in a sack and tie the sack with a rope. Then they would roll the sack down the mountain to see how long it would take for me to get out.

I was so scared. I wanted to die. I thought that dying would be better than being hungry. Many times I would fall down because I had no strength. When you are hungry, you don't walk good. You cannot stand up. You are too weak. When I stood up, I just fell down again.

I knew I was dying when my grandmother took me to the missionary clinic in the mountains. That was where Poppie and Mommie Burnette had a clinic. They gave people medicine and prayed for them. When they saw me, they said "that child is going to die if we don't take him..." I was so weak I could hardly get in the truck. They gave me some food and took me in the truck. I ate nine mangos without stopping. They took me to their orphanage and gave me milk and food and medicine. They told me I could eat as much as I wanted because "Jesus put the food on the table."

That was about nine years ago. Today, I am a young teen-age boy who is very thankful. I never want to see any children hungry. There is a Creole proverb in my country and it says "sack vid pa kapab konpe" or "an empty sack cannot stand". That's true. It means, "when you're hungry, you cannot stand".

Today's Sunday I stood very tall for Jesus. I preached my first sermon in church. God has called me to be a Pastor. I am no longer an "empty sack." I am a sack that is full and I am so thankful." Love, Yonel!



Yonel's story is not a made up story just to tug at your heart, but is 100% true. Roberta and I know this young man and we are thrilled to see the touch of God on his life. On our last trip to Haiti, Yonel interpreted for me as I spoke to all of the children in the orphanage. Bobby and Sherry are working on a plan to send him to "Christ for the Nations" Bible School in the near future. Yonel will touch the world for Jesus but needed that gift of support that placed Bobby and Sherry on that mountain to bring the healing touch of Jesus.

Today, as I write this letter to all of you,there are millions of "empty sacks" in the tiny nation of Haiti. Roberta and I have been called to fill "empty sacks" but we need people to open their treasure bags and give a gift of support to us. Please understand that we will have items to work with. Clinics, Churches, Schools, Feeding Programs, Gospel Crusades and even a 24 hour Gospel Radio Station which is coming in 2007. Everything we need to fill these many "empty sacks" with the love of Jesus. All we need is our living support.

Many people have told Roberta and I that we could count on them when the time comes. Well the time has come. We need a miracle to happen to enable us to leave for Haiti in the next few months. Pastor Rod Parsley says "The atmosphere of expectancy is the breeding ground for miracles." Our expectancy is HIGH. Thank you so much to those that have already sent in a gift of support. We have some who told us that they will pray for us. Again, we send our thankful gratitude.

Please be in prayer about the items we will need after moving to Haiti: Ground transportation (pick-up truck or van), communication equipment (satellite dish, two way radios and phones) as well as air transportation (airline tickets).

Know that we are praying for you. We pray for your families. We pray for your church that a move of God falls upon your congregation. We pray for your business that it grows and remains financially strong. We pray for your farms that God blesses your crops and livestock. What we pray is for God to grant you His favor, for that is what we all need. The favor of God to rest upon us.

Roberta and I pray that you will have a blessed Christmas and that in 2007 Revival and Restoration comes to you in a mighty way.

Remember that Jesus is the Reason for the Season and keep Christ in Christmas.

Randy & Roberta Arnold
Your Missionaries to Haiti



Roberta and I with Bobby and Sherry Burnette at the Love A Child Christmas Banquet in Clearwater, Florida on December 17, 2006

Manieska

This is Manieska
Manieska is a two year old Hatian child from a village that is near the Love A Child orphanage. Love A Child Missionaries Bobby and Sherry Burnette have been following Manieska for quite some time due to her medical condition.

Manieska has a very large tumor that has grown on her bottom.


Love A Child has been working feverishly to obtain medical attention for this little girl. They obtained her passport and had several positive leads on surgeons in the United States who would be willing to do the surgery to remove the tumor.








Little Manieska died on Saturday (November 18, 2006). She was yet another child lost because of the lack of proper medical care in the nation of Haiti. It breaks our hearts to know that this child died because of poverity and not having access to physicians.

Please keep Maneiska's mother in your prayers. She loved her daughter very much and she did all she could to care for her. Just two weeks ago her mud hut was blown away and she's now having to stay with relatives in another hut. Please pray that God gives her a peace during her time of grief.

Suffering doesn't cease with a turned head

I had a speaking engagement just a few hours ago. I had told these people, at an earlier date, that I would let them view our two DVDs about Haiti that we use in raising our support. On the one DVD, there are scenes showing the children of Haiti and the desperate condition that they're in. As the DVD played, 2 women started to cry and turned their heads and said that they just couldn't bare to watch these children in their suffering.

Later, as I talked with the women, I explained how chidren from around the world suffer every day but most of the people of America are oblivious to such despair and hopelessness. I wish that I could take everyone who might read this to Haiti with Roberta and myself for just one day. If you could see, hear, smell or taste what we deal with as missionaries in this nation of poor and starving humanity then we'd have no more problems raising our support. But we can't do that. Words are all that we have to convey our message to you. There will be children and adults die today, while you're reading this. These are people that we might have been able to save but we're not there. Our support is coming in but with your help, we'll be there sooner. Our plans are to move to Haiti by the 1st or 2nd week of January, 2007. We need your support today.

If you would like to take part in supporting us and our work in Haiti, then please feel free to contact us via email at rrhaiti at aol dot com and we'll be happy to put you on our monthly mailing list. You may also use the donation button located on this blog and make a direct contribution.

Remember, even when we turn our heads and refuse to watch, the children are still suffering.

Please Help!

IF NOT YOU....THEN WHO???
IF NOT NOW....THEN WHEN???

A Thousand Words

A Different Perspective

I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. I'm Jill and I'm the oldest of Randy and Roberta's two daughters. I do a lot of the behind the scenes work here on my parent's blog but today I wanted to step outside of my normal realm and I wanted to tell you a little bit about Haiti from my perspective and I wanted to give you a bit of insight as to who my parents truly are.

When my parents first told me they were going to be moving to Haiti, my first thought was "How utterly absurd....how ridiculous" and "What am I supposed to do here with you gone??". You see, I've been to Haiti. I went with my father as part of a medical missions team. I've seen Haiti up close and personal and to try to comprehend why anyone would want to move there was just beyond me. From the moment you set foot in the country, your five senses go on overload. There is so much to absorb. You hear the people speaking in Creole which in fact is a beautiful language. You see the poverty and the overwhelming number of people taking up every single square inch of available space. You smell the charcoal fires burning and the garbage and the food cooking and the animal waste, all in one spot. You feel the hands reaching out trying to touch you because you're "blanc". You're something rare in the country. You taste all of those smells in your mouth. You taste the dirt and the dust as your driving down the treacherous roads on the way to your destination. I've seen the dangers first hand. I was in the vehicles that were stopped by the Hatian police bearing machine guns. I've heard the voodoo drums late at night and seen the ceremony fires burning on the mountains. I've seen people gathering drinking water from the same river stream in which animals are drinking from and defecating in. This is the same water that the women are bathing their children in and washing their clothes in. Why on earth would someone want to move here and why my parents? Why not someone else's parents?

Then I began to understand. I began to understand the compassion and the love. I began to understand the driven desire to help a hurting people which seems to have been forgotten. I remember back to one of our last clinic days when I was in Haiti. The people had begun to stampede, for lack of a better word. We quickly had to shut down the clinic because we were being overrun and we risked having everything stolen out of their sheer desperation for medications and vitamins. As we're closing everything up, there was a man at the back entrance of the "building". He held a small baby who was obviously malnourished and not well. He said something in Creole and I asked the translator what he was saying. She said that he was asking for help for his baby. I wanted to take the baby but they told me that if I grabbed that baby from him, the chances of him leaving were great. He was desperate. If I took that baby, he'd consider it as an offer to keep the baby and be responsible for it. I was so angry when they kept telling me to keep packing up. I think in the end, we slipped some vitamins and some de-worming medication in a bag to him with some brief instructions rattled off in Creole. I'm still angry when I think of that moment because in all likelihood, that child is now dead. He or she probably died of starvation and it didn't have to happen. It never has to happen. There are people, like my parents, who are willing to go the extra mile. They're willing to forsake it all to help a hurting people. They're willing to leave their comfortable homes, their stable jobs, their children and grandchildren so that they can do what it is that God has told all of us to do. We're not all called to go to Haiti. But we are all called to do are part in spreading God's word of salvation. By you offering up your monthly support to missionaries like Randy and Roberta Arnold, you are going to Haiti. You'll be right there in their hearts as they work to keep children fed, clothed, educated and most importantly loved and filled with God's love.

I'm probably not the best daughter. My selfish attitude still takes over from time to time. You see, I'm very spoiled in the fact that I've ALWAYS had my parents. They're my life's blood. They are my confidants and my protectors. Through the good things and the bad things in my life, they've been there with me every step of the way. They've never judged me and they've never condemmed me. When I fall down, they pick me up and help me dust myself off. When I hurt, they're there with their arms open wide to hold me through the hurts. How do I keep living my life on the daily without them here to be my rock? The answer is simple I suppose. I keep going on daily but I go on with the knowledge that every single day my parents are away from me, a child lives and doesn't die. Every single holiday that they miss, someone is receiving hope for another day. They've done their job with me and now instead of raising another child, they're taking on another country, one child at a time.

So now I'm asking you to help my parents make a difference. They'll never receive recognition or laurels for their humanitarian work. They'll never have celebrity status and receive any Hollywood glory. They'll just have the satisfaction of knowing that another baby didn't die. That's worth more than anything this world could ever offer.

Jill Inmon

A Broken People

What you are now reading has been ready to post for a few weeks but we’ve just felt as though we were missing something important out of the text and so we’ve refrained from putting it up. You see, when you write people to support you in your ministry, we feel that every single word is important when it comes to getting the message across. It’s very similar to writing a sermon. Every thought counts. It was while watching a recent episode of the Oprah Winfrey show that it came to me. I knew what must be said.

Bono, the singer from the rock band U-2, was explaining his new program to help children in Africa with HIV. As he explained how many large corporations were helping him with a portion of profits from sales, the audience went wild. Now please understand. I think that it’s a great thing for the people of Africa when celebrities do things like this. It’s just that so many celebrities want to jump on the bandwagon and say “Look what I’ve done.” The good thing is, the sick children have been helped. What I have a problem with is when missionaries come to the church and fellow Christians to ask for help not only for sick and dying children but to also present to them the gospel of Jesus Christ, that bandwagon remains mostly empty.

What Roberta and I are doing is not really a new thing for us. This is what God has called us to do since 1974. We’re merely changing locations. I remember the night we were ordained and a song was sung by Ralph Moore entitled “I Want To Spend My Life Healing Broken People” I did not know that the last part of our lives God would be moving us to a nation filled and overflowing with broken people. We received an e-mail just last night from Bobby and Sherry telling us to please hurry with our move to Haiti as the load on them grows with each day.

Roberta and I are doing everything within our realm of capabilities but we cannot make this move without your help. We are selling our home and on our last day here in the United States, we have a friend who will be selling our truck for us. As you read this, everything that we are shipping to Haiti is in a container, and on a ship to Haiti. Don’t misunderstand though; we have never been more excited about anything in our lives.

We’re often asked the question “If Love A Child is such a large mission group, why do have to raise your own support? Why doesn’t Love A Child pick up the tab?”

91 cents from every dollar given to Love A Child goes to the people of Haiti. Their entire operations budget comes from that mere 9 cents that is left over. That 9 cents also includes the expense of their television ministry. Love A Child Ministries is completely about helping the Haitian people. They are a member of the ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability). Love A Child has been awarded the Independent Charities Seal of Excellence. All monies given for our support is given directly to Love A Child, Inc. and is tax deductible.


Please pray about what God would have you to do, then listen to what the Holy Spirit says. All I’m trying to do is to open my mouth and speak. When I speak, I speak for the children of Haiti and not for Randy and Roberta. Please know that there are boys and girls dying every single day. Together, our combined efforts can save these children. If you could only feel what I’ve felt when mothers grab at my shirt and tug at me to show me their sick and dying babies, or maybe the day I had to stretch out and grab the babies that were being passed over the heads of the massive crowd to me to give them to the medical staff at a clinic. If I could let you hold a child that is dying from starvation eaten up with worms or one of the many with birth defects maybe you could hear the cry of the poor maybe then you would say “Please Randy, let me help you and Roberta. Please let me partner with the two of you to reach the children of Haiti”.

We will make the move the first week in January 2007. We need your help today. Do what you can please. We are doing all that we can do but we need your support.


In closing, if you will remember back a few posts, we told you about Jenny and her heart condition. It looks as the arrangements will come through for Jenny to receive the heart surgery she desperately needs to live. Please continue to keep this situation and Jenny in your prayers.

An Open Letter

We are about to take an important "step of faith." This is the most difficult and yet the most rewarding thing we have ever done in our lives. We feel that God has called us into the "full-time" ministry with Bobby & Sherry Burnette, Directors of Love A Child.

As you may know, Love A Child is a well established missionary organization. While their headquarters is in Florida, their outreach is fulltime to the country of Haiti. This Christian Humanitarian is a 501(c)3 Organization and has a high standard of excellence. It is one of the top-rated charities in the States and is a member of the ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability).

Love A Child's vision is to share God's love with the people and children of Haiti through outreaches such as Medical Care, Christian Education, Schools, Feeding Programs, Crusades, Child Sponsorship and other outreaches. They also have a large two-story Orphanage, where the Burnettes live. New projects include a two-story Malnutrition Center and Food Distribution Center.

Since the outreach of Love A Child has grown tremendously, the work load has grown. Bobby and Sherry are now needing professional full-time missionaries to live and work in Haiti, helping on all of these projects.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Only a small percentage of the people have access to clean water. Eighty percent (80%) are illiterate and un-employed. Disease is rampant. Half of the children die before their fifth birthday and twenty percent (20%) of all babies die in childbirth. There is virtually no medical care. Voodoo is the primary religion. Why would anyone want to leave the comforts of their own home and go and live in a country like this?

We have asked this question ourselves. We have made many "short term trips" to Haiti already. It is a country that burns within our hearts day and night.

As Bobby and Sherry say, "There is a difference between a "desire" and a "calling of God." We are "called". There are people who are bound by hunger, disease and poverty because of Voodoo. They will die unless someone is "willing to go".

Romans 10 declares, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?" (Romans 10: 13-15)

We are "willing," but we need "you" to send us. Will you help us? Will you send us? We want to be "your personal missionaries" in Haiti.

Please pray about helping us become full-time missionaries in Haiti. We must raise all our own support for travel, housing, food and transportation. Please pray about helping us faithfully on a monthly basis. Your gift of $100, $50, $25 or whatever the Lord lays upon your heart would be a tremendous blessing. It would mean that when "we win a witchdoctor to the Lord," you have a part! It would mean that when "we feed a starving child," you are feeding him too.

Please prayerfully commit to helping us on a monthly basis or a one-time gift. You can mail your gift to the Florida Office using the address provided at the bottom of this letter and they will put it in a special account for us. After the Florida Office has written and thanked you, they will let us know that you have sent in a gift. We can even receive personal mail here in Haiti.

Please make sure that any funds which are sent to the Florida Office are distinctly noted with our names, Randy and Roberta Arnold. That way, we can be assured that your gift will come directly to us.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter and thank you in advance for supporting us.

May God Bless you from the Mission Field of Haiti,

Randy and Roberta Arnold

Love A Child -- Haiti
P.O. Box 11000
Naples, FL 34101-1000

Religion versus Relationship

In the 19th chapter of Luke we read the story of a short little man named Zacchaeus. All Zach wanted to do was to see this man called Jesus. He had to resort to climbing to the top of a tree, but he just had to see who was causing such a ruckus about town. Jesus is still causing a ruckus when he shows up today)

Jesus wanted more than just to see Zach, he wanted to seek him out in order to come into a relationship with him. You see, Zach was searching for religion while Jesus is always searching for relationship. "For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost" Luke 19:10.

Religion - man's attempt to find God

Relationship - God's finding and saving man

Think about it!

Jenny's Heart

This is Jenny
Jenny is staying at the Love A Child Orphanage right now although she is a special case. She is not an orphan. She has a very loving mother who takes very good care of her. Jenny looks like a very healthy and normal child but she's actually a very sick little girl. She has a hole in her heart and she's in dire need of surgery to repair it. Without this surgery, Jenny's health will continue to deteriorate. As it is now, she's only able to do minimal activity before she needs to stop and squat down and rest. Her mother comes and visits her every week at the orphanage and she loves her very much.

Love A Child is searching for a cardiologist that will agree to perform Jenny's surgery here in the United States. It's something that we all take for granted. Here in the U.S., if a child develops a health problem, there are doctors to handle the child's care. In the U.S., even the poorest of children can still receive medical attention through goverment assistance. In Haiti, a sick child has very little chance of survival. Without this heart surgery, Jenny will not survive.

If you are reading this and you know of anyone who could help out with Jenny's plight, please email us or leave a comment. We want to see Jenny go on to lead a very normal and healthy life and to be able to go home to her mother. She's such a beautiful little girl with an infectious smile. We need to make sure Jenny continues to smile.

Haiti Through Our Eyes

This is the view from the balcony at the Love A Child Orphanage in Fond Parisien. As you can see, Haiti is a beautiful country. When you see a picture like this, its hard to believe that this is a country which is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. It's also pictures like this that make us so excited to be moving to Haiti and living there on a full-time basis. We're ready to move into our little house at the Love A Child compound and we're ready to jump into action and do our part to restore a hope and a faith to a country which has none.

Here are a few more random photos from our last trip.

This is Roberta, helping some of the little girls to try on dresses that were made for them by the ladies of a church here in the U.S.

The kids at the Love A Child Orphange are happy and they truly do realize how blessed they are to be under the direct care of Bobby and Sherry Burnette.

And just because, our daughter, Jill, is so completely enamored by Moses and begged us to hide him away in our luggage, we're posting another picture. He truly is a heart-breaker!


We are currently trying to raise our monthly support for our move to Haiti. We are going to need to raise approximately $3,000 per month. To us, that seems like an enormous amount of money BUT we serve a God who knows no boundaries. We are believing that God will supply all of our needs and our faith and trust is in Him and Him alone.

Hurricane Ernesto

Remember to keep Haiti in your prayers as they were hit earlier by Hurricane Ernesto. It's important to know that even a minimal storm can wreak havoc on an economically under-developed nation like Haiti. Most people live in shacks or small grass huts which are no match for the torrential mud slides that often occur when Haiti is hit with large amounts of rain. So please, remember to say a prayer for Haiti and of course for every other individual out there in the path of Hurricane Ernesto.

Moses

Meet Baby Moses Burnette. His start in this world wasn't one that most babies experience. Moses' mother couldn't care for him when he was born so she dumped him down a Hatian toilet. A Hatian toilet is a hole in the ground. Fortunately, someone found baby Moses and he eventually ended up at the Love A Child Orphanage where the main focus became keeping him alive.


This is Moses when he arrived at the orphanage.

And this is Moses Burnette now


We are so anxious to get back to the orphanage to see Moses as well as all of the other children. Everytime we leave Haiti, we leave a portion of our hearts behind. Sometimes those pieces of our hearts have a name...such as Moses.

It Began With A Scripture

Greetings:

The month of October 1999 will always stand out as an important time of our lives. We were living in the Washington, DC area, when the Holy Spirit burned a Scripture upon Randy’s heart that has changed our lives forever. “But this is a people robbed and plundered; they are all of them snared in holes and hidden in houses of bondage. They have become a prey, with no one to deliver them. A spoil with no one to say RESTORE THEM!” Isaiah 42:22 Amp.

For the next three years Randy could not grasp the meaning of this verse, as just what God was trying to get him to understand. In late September 2002 we made our first trip to the Nation of Haiti. At once this verse became alive to us and upon thirteen additional trips to Haiti even more clarity came. We can now say we have seen those robbed, plundered, those taken prey and made a spoil. Yes here they were just an hour and a half flying time from America.

Upon that first trip we knew that this is where God was calling us to take His gospel. The past four years we have learned so much about this tiny nation of Eight million people. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and the third poorest on this planet. One in every five children dies before their fifth birthday. The national life expectancy is only fifty years of age, 80% of the population lives in abject poverty for every 15,000 people there is only one doctor and most of the doctors are poorly trained. The vast majority of the population never sees a doctor their entire life. Almost all children and adults are consumed with worms and other parasites, due to the polluted water. Over 4 million people practice VooDoo (an African form of witchcraft). “Jesus said the thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly”. John 10:10 KJV

Someone once said, "If we stopped the food aid overnight…. the population would be cut in half .... the rest would starve to death." It has also been said by leaders from many different Governments around the world that the only thing that keeps Haiti from completely imploding on itself is the Christian Missionary. There are many missionary groups in Haiti proclaiming the Gospel but few are those who have stepped to the front to become mightily used of God. One of those being mightily used is Love A Child ministries. God is pouring out His favor on Founders Bobby & Sherry Burnette. Love A Child is getting the job done, all Praise to God.

Upon our last trip we came into fellowship with Bobby and Sherry and have become Love A Child missionaries. We will be full time missionaries working under Bobby & Sherry living in Haiti. So you can better understand just what Bobby and Sherry are accomplishing in Haiti, we urge you to check out the Love A Child web site. We will be greatly involved with everything that you see on this website. You can also watch the Love A Child television program on the following networks: Sky Angel, Day Star, Word, Direct TV, World Harvest and the Inspiration Network.

If you would like more information on how you can help to sponsor our work in Haiti and be a part of God's work and plan for this nation, please contact us at

Randy & Roberta Arnold
P.O. Box 1072
Dundee, FL 33838

Email: rrhaiti at aol dot com