By way of a prefatory personal note, our trip to Haiti, scheduled from April 10-17, was canceled because there is considerable civil unrest in Port au Prince and elsewhere on the island. Our friends at Hospice St. Joseph and in Ranquitte, Haiti, strongly recommended on Wednesday, the night before our Thursday flight, that the risk of violence to visitors is too great to ignore. All of us--Pastors Ron Luckey and Barry Neece, along with Dr. Greg McMorrow--are saddened that we are not able to go at this time. We will try to visit Haiti sometime in July or August. Please pray for the people of Haiti that in spite of their poverty, they may receive food to nourish their bodies and the Bread of Life to give them hope and heal their spirits. I also encourage you to visit Journey with Jesus; Daniel B. Clendinen's commentary on the lectionary readings for this coming Sunday are especially trenchant and on the mark, especially as you become aware of the poverty in Haiti.
Finally this "afterward": my wife June, thinking that I'd be away for the week, had months ago arranged to go on a cruise with her daughter Becky, a mother-daughter outing which I hope will be a wonderfully memorable time for them. Their cruise means, however, that I will be in Georgia by myself for the week. During this time I've decided to enter into a quiet retreat, cultivating and wrapping myself in a good bit on longed-for silence, self-reflection, and prayer. I'm asking therefore that you include me in your intercessions, asking God to bless me with a strong sense of His presence and love so that I may discern what kind of a future God has in store for me as a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
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