{"id":8631,"date":"2012-09-13T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8631"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:56","slug":"sweet-ladies-of-troy-umc-and-grundy-center-umc-make-a-year-of-school-possible-for-4-haitian-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8631","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Ladies of Troy UMC and Grundy Center UMC Make a Year of School Possible for 4 Haitian Kids …"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

… And the Ladies Don’t Even Know It!\u00a0 Yet.UPDATED**As if on\u00a0a mission, these ladies\u00a0came out of the Sunday worship service one by one the morning I had preached at the church of my good friend, Tim Price.\u00a0 Each one asked me, “Which one is Caleb?” And I would point them to my oldest son.You see, in my sermon I had included the story of Caleb’s unsolicited generosity at age 9 when he willingly gave Melissa the\u00a0two $20 bills\u00a0he had been saving for Legos so she could take\u00a0them to Haiti to give to two different needy families.That Sunday morning in Troy, Illinois, Caleb (now 11) was caught off guard when these various ladies approached him, shook his hand and then handed him various twenties.\u00a0 Each lady said something like, “You take this money and pass it along to somebody else in Haiti who needs help.”\u00a0 He was excited to end the weekend with\u00a0around $100 to give away.(** My wife reminded me that a very similar thing happened a few weeks later at the UMC of Grundy Center, Iowa!\u00a0 It is another sweet, sweet congregation and I would be remiss not to give them a ‘shout out’ here as well!\u00a0 Mea culpa.)A day later, back home in Indiana, we were reading Stacey Ayars’ blog account of Roselore, a Haitian woman who worked at Emmaus Biblical Seminary in Saccanville\u00a0cleaning houses and who struggled to keep her four children fed.\u00a0 (EBS is where I hope to do some teaching once we move to Haiti.) You should stop and take a few moments to read Stacey’s account HERE<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 She’s a great writer and it’s a heart-breaking story.\u00a0 We agreed as a family that Roselore should be the recipient of the money that Caleb received.We thought it best to send a bit at a time – to Stacey – and she could pass it along to Roselore as needed.\u00a0 Our friend Beka Mech was heading down to Haiti and would be visiting EBS within a few days, so Caleb sent a few twenties with her (** Melissa says $80!).Then, when I was preparing to leave two weeks ago, we remembered that there was still $80 left to send to Roselore.\u00a0 I knew that I would be seeing the Ayars at EBS at some point, so I brought the money with me.So after dinner at the Ayars’ home last Tuesday night, I asked Stacey if Roselore was still working for the seminary.”Yes, and it’s so difficult because she wants more work but we don’t have the budget to add any more days for her.”\u00a0 Stacey explained that September is an anxious month for many parents in Haiti.\u00a0 School traditionally starts in October and the parents have to pay to enroll their students.\u00a0 Many, many are simply not able.Any guess as to how much primary education costs in the neighborhood around Saccanville, where the seminary is located?Poor Roselore\u00a0has been fretting because she has not been able to save up the $16 each\u00a0that it will cost to enroll her four children in school for the full year!\u00a0 Which means …that final $80 from the ladies at Troy and Grundy Center UMC will enable Roselore to enroll her kids for the year and provide a bit extra\u00a0towards the clothing and books necessary to go along!\u00a0 Praise God!\u00a0 I wish you and I could both be there when Stacey tells Roselore and when Roselore tells her kids.Can you imagine what life must be like for a parent who can’t afford to educate her children for the lack of a hundred dollars? It’s hard for us to even conceive of such an existence.\u00a0 I would guess that most American Christians have\u00a0close to\u00a0enough money sitting in our change jars to put Roselore’s kids in school for a year.”Is this not the fast which I choose,<\/p>\n\n\n

To loosen \nthe bonds of wickedness,<\/p>\n\n\n

To undo the bands of the yoke,<\/p>\n\n\n

And to let \nthe oppressed go free<\/p>\n\n\n

And break \nevery yoke?<\/p>\n\n\n

“Is it not to divide \nyour bread with the \nhungry<\/p>\n\n\n

And bring \nthe homeless poor into the house;<\/p>\n\n\n

When you see the naked,\u00a0 to cover him;<\/p>\n\n\n

And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?<\/p>\n\n\n

“Then your light will \nbreak out like the dawn,<\/p>\n\n\n

And your recovery will speedily spring forth;<\/p>\n\n\n

And your righteousness will go before you;<\/p>\n\n\n

The glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Isaiah 58:6-8<\/p>\n\n\n

May God forgive us.\u00a0 AND\u00a0guide us in mending our ways.And may God bless the ladies of the United Methodist Churches of Troy, Illinois and Grundy Center, Iowa!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… And the Ladies Don’t Even Know It!\u00a0 Yet.UPDATED**As if on\u00a0a mission, these ladies\u00a0came out of the Sunday worship service one by one the morning I had preached at the church of my good friend, Tim Price.\u00a0 Each one asked me, “Which one is Caleb?” And I would point them to my oldest son.You see, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8632,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631\/revisions\/8632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}