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It is an age when many Canadians think about retiring to a warm climate.
Okanagan residents Al and Ev Hromek went to a warm climate, all right – but not to lie on a beach. Sent by their home church, Kelowna Oasis of Love
Miracle Centre, they have established the International Sentinel Good News
School of Ministry in Haiti. They consider themselves not retired, but ‘refired’ for ministry. Below is their latest report on their work.
WE ARE settled into our home and a routine here in Haiti. There is so much need
here, that we have to be careful what we take on. We are asked to do more every
day; but we know our capabilities.
The blessing is that the International Sentinel Good News School of Ministry is
God’s ministry – and with him, we will get everything done on time.
The classroom is in our house, and we have 60 students who are pastors. We have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We show instructional videos
and DVDs, and then teach on what we have watched.
When we first moved into our house, the power was only on for five hours a day;
after we prayed about it, it has been increased to up to 20 hours a day. We
must have power to view the DVDs, so we purchased some backup batteries.
On Monday and Friday we teach a two-hour English class to 20 students, a block
from our house. Most of the students are from our church, so we use a lot of
Bible language.
Every Saturday morning, we hold a Bible challenge for the men and women of
RENAPADD, which is the Christian political party. The leaders see a need for a fresh outlook for the faith of their members.
Each Sunday, we speak at one of the local churches.
In our spare time, we walk to the market, do minor repairs at home and
distribute the 60 bags of shoes and clothing we brought in a shipping container
from Florida.
One of our challenges is to teach the pastors about business and money making
ventures. We daily see opportunities for them, but their attitudes are always
the same: “It won’t work in Haiti.” They give us all their negative reasons, but slowly these strongholds are
coming down.
We really believe we are right on time with the good news gospel for Haiti. For
too long, they have lived and been taught the suffering gospel. They need to
learn the gospel of redemption, and the meaning of Jesus’ words: “It is finished.”
Recently, a young musician was back in class after being at a crusade in Turks
and Caicos for the past week. We were told he had an excellent testimony; so Al asked him to share, and opened
the meeting for others to share also.
The young man said he had a friend who was told he was going to die. When he
told his girlfriend, she went into shock; she lost her mind, and could not
speak.
In the middle of the night the student woke and began to read over his notes from our
class, The Power of Redemption. He felt he must go and pray for the girl.
He called his friend, who said the girl’s family did not want to see anyone; but they went together anyway.
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Inside the house was great heaviness and sadness everywhere. He went outside the
room and talked to God – and he remembered that the gospel is the power, as it says in Romans 1:16. He also remembered that we can ask anything in Jesus’ name.
The words pastor Al had spoken in class kept repeating to him from Genesis 1.
The gospel is: ‘creation’ (God created everything perfect); ‘deception’ (Satan deceived Adam and Eve); ‘substitution’ (the wages of sin is death, but Jesus became our substitute and died for us);
and ‘redemption’ (Jesus bought back for us everything that Adam lost; we can have the garden
lifestyle now).
He knew he needed to preach the gospel; he went back into the room and read
Isaiah 9:5 & 6. He asked the people to put their own name in the scripture when they read it,
and he then read Ezekiel 37 – about the valley of the dry bones.
He gave them the good news, and said that they were to be happy – because God lives in this house.
The girl tried to speak. He asked her if she wanted to speak, and she said “yes,” but could not do it. The student said “Jesus will heal you,” and as she repeated words she was healed. Praise the Lord!
Over the past three years, God has asked us to speak to some very important
people. Recently, we spoke at the President’s Palace, at the President’s prayer meeting. We have gone twice so far. It is a large group – 150 pastors.
On November 5, Al spoke for five minutes, as there was a main speaker. However,
the second time we went, we spoke for 20 minutes; the worship was right for our
message, and there was a fresh anointing in the place. God gave a powerful word
to the ambassadors of his kingdom.
We send you our love and thanks for being our partners in this amazing
assignment, in establishing the kingdom of God in Haiti.
We continue to pray every blessing back on each one of you!
Contact: hromeks@telus.net.
January 2010
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