Children's Hope: Cool Connections!

We could share story after story about how God has and continues to provide for orphans and vulnerable children. It is a blessing to experience Ephes. 3:20 continuously. I would like to share one such story! A number of years ago, Andy met Matt Garretson while working on a case out of state. Matt is an attorney and he and his family live in Chicago and are faithful believers. Our families even got to together one summer at Lake Martin and we seemed like old friends in no time.

The Garretsons had been to the Dominican Republic (DR) many times on mission trips and saw the tremendous need for clean water. Over the last few years, they have navigated through many challenges in the DR but now have a successful ministry/business there called Filter Pure.

It had been a while since Andy and Matt had spoken but they recently reconnected when the Garretson's, who are adopting from DR, got their referral. Andy learned of the work they were doing in the DR and that they even had a presence in Jacmel (can you believe it????)! The very next day, Andy saw a series of emails between Charley and the head of another ministry organization discussing where to purchase 5 gallon water filter buckets. The name of the organization was Filter Pure. Andy immediately called Matt again to verify the name of the organization and well, you guessed it...Filter Pure.

Matt and his wife, Jill, donated enough Filter Pure water filters for each of the five church schools to have several. Now the children (over 600 now) can have clean water to drink while attending school!

God connected Charley and Martie to church schools in Jacmel...Charley connected to Dave Byrd from another mission in Jacmel...Dave connected Charley to Filter Pure. In the meantime, God connected Andy and Matt years ago (from different parts of the country) in the US...God called the Garretsons to DR and the Birchfields to Haiti...God connected the Garretsons and Birchfields in Haiti! What a mighty God we serve! Thanks to Matt, Jill, Katie and Annie for your generous donation of water filters to Children's Hope. Also, may God bless your family as you become the parents and sisters of Emilie Grace!

We are also very grateful for the six men from FBC Decatur who spent a lot of long, hot hours working at Children' Hope in preparation for the children to move onto the new site in December/January. Thanks also to Dr. David Parmer for giving each of our kiddos a good check up during the trip. Tommy and Joy continue to serve faithfully as hosts for the teams, and they look forward to hosting many other teams in 2013!