Meet Leonard

Leonard is a very special little boy I met in Haiti.  Our first day of ministry was in the village of Leveque.  I was walking to fill up my water bottle when a Haitian man approached me with his son (Leonard).  He was speaking in Creole and pointing to his son's lips (It was odd to me that this father was with his son.  We typically never saw the parents of the children in the villages, unless they were babies).  Leonard pulled his bottom lip down and showed me all of his sores.  He looked sad and ashamed almost.  I want to cry thinking about the hopelessness in his beautiful green eyes.  I grabbed a translator and asked the Dad if I could pray for Leonard's lips.  He agreed, so a few people from our team gathered around, laid hands on Leonard and prayed for his healing.  The sores were most likely from malnutrition and dehydration.

The next day or so I really started to struggle with the idea that we were not going to be in Haiti long enough to make a difference.  How could we put a dent in all of the devastation in the short time we would be there? Two days after we met and prayed with Leonard, two of our team members ended up on the wrong job site. They were supposed to be brought to Simonette to join our team, but were accidentally taken to Leveque. When we met up with them later that day Valena came up to me and said, "Sarah, we saw Leonard today and his lips were better!"  I was so happy to hear this, but it really hit me later that night that God gave me that! He let me know that in our short time there, we did make a difference....a difference in Leonard's life.  

I was sharing this story with friends in my Bible Study, and my friend Jessica immediately started telling us about how this incident with Leonard made her think of the story of David Cho.  David was very sick as a teenager in Korea.  He was dying with Tuberculosis and there was no hope for him.  He had only weeks, maybe days to live.  A 16 year old girl came to visit him and she left her bible with him.  She said, "if you read it faithfully you will find the words of life." He began reading the New Testament and was transformed. He accepted Jesus into his heart and God healed him.  David Cho is now the pastor of the largest church in the world.  He founded Yoido Full Gospel church in Seoul Korea, there are seven services every Sunday and 1,000,000 (yes, that is one million) members!  God used this short encounter with this 16 year old girl to transform David and now David is transforming Korea for the kingdom of God. Jessica looked at me and she said, "Sarah, God can use Leonard to change a nation."(insert waterworks here) I never thought of it this way before.  A little boy experienced God's healing power, and he now knows that God is real!  I don't know why I tend to put God in a box, but He is so much bigger than any of us knows.  

I will be praying for Leonard, please join me!