This page supplies our most recent
e·mail
version of our prayer letter, The Robinsons' Herald.
 It is also available in
PDF format for those who wish to print it out.
Click here to download or view
it (Right Click to download, Left Click to view) This is
about 400k and about two minutes to download with a 56k dialup
connection.
Click here if you
do not have Adobe's Free
PDF Reader on your
computer and you wish to get it.
The Robinsons’ Herald
e·mail version for December 2004
Greetings from ‘Next to Heaven’
in Carriacou, Grenada, West Indies!
Click here for photos!
Greetings
from the Southern Caribbean! As most of you know, we experienced our first
hurricane on September 7, 2004. Category three ‘Hurricane Ivan’ devastated
the mainland of Grenada leaving ~39 dead and ninety percent of all
structures (residential and business) severely damaged or destroyed. Our
island home, Carriacou and its sister parish, Petit Martinique, were also
hit with hurricane force winds that caused much damage and destruction, but
thankfully there were no deaths or serious injuries. We praise and thank the
Lord for His protection!
Please pray for the survivors that are not only dealing
with the hard times in the aftermath of the storm, but also grieving the
lost of relatives and friends.
There are
many relief efforts underway to help the people of Carriacou and those on
the mainland as well. On my websites, www.LastChanceMinistries .com and
.org, I have posted photos of damage and an audio interview that I conducted
with the Foreign Minister of Grenada. I also shared highlights of my
interview with the Permanent Secretary of Carriacou and Petit Martinique. I
set up this section to show the plight of those here that are struggling in
the aftermath of Ivan. It was my hope and prayer that it would be used to
help bring in much needed aid.
By God’s
marvelous grace, the permanent secretary has phoned me a few times to thank
me for aid that has come in as a result.
After two tropical storms and the hurricane, this is one rainy season
(also the hurricane season) that the people of
Grenada are truly glad
is passed. Please pray for much urgently
needed aid to come in to help the people that are still suffering immensely
from the effects of the storm.
The pastor
of North Gautier Baptist Church (Independent) in Mississippi, Brother Coy
Rice, contacted me after finding our website back in October. He expressed
his desire to help Grenadians by bringing a team of about twenty-five
skilled workers and enough materials to erect twenty-five 12’ X 16’ houses.
He hopes to put twenty on the mainland and five on Carriacou. They would be
simple, pre-cut, and partially assembled. However, for many that lost
everything these buildings would be much better than living in shelters or
in tents that are sitting on the ground.
Brother Rice
visited the mainland on a survey trip in November. On
December 13, 2004, he phoned to provide me with an update. He
still needs more funds to purchase the materials. He is tentatively planning
to return to
Grenada
with the team and the materials the last Monday in March. He also plans to
hold special meetings in the evenings to share the gospel with those to whom
they minister.
Please pray
much for Pastor Coy Rice as he continues to seek the Lord for provision to
perform this much-needed ministry. If you wish to help, you may contact him using the following
information. Please tell him that you got your contact information from
Walter Robinson II on Carriacou:
Tel:
Church (228) 497-2373; Cell (228) 217-2333
Address:
2323 Callie Road, Gautier, Mississippi 39553
Click here to send him e·mail:
Website for
more info:
www.northgautierbaptist.org
Our home in
Meldrum got a lot of water inside after the storm blew off some six sheets
of our corrugated roofing material. A day after the storm I took some
material off our veranda (porch) to replace the ones missing from the roof.
That stopped most of the leaks, but it took a few weeks to get much of the
house cleaned up.
Jeshua’s
room is still not safe for him to move back into because of the bat
droppings that mixed with the rain that ran down his walls. It will need to
be painted before we use it again, which we plan to do just as soon as we
have the funds. The rest of the house is in good shape. I have gotten
several estimates for the landlord who desires to have a new roof installed.
From what some climatologists and meteorologists are saying, I suspect that
next year could possibly be much like this one because of the trend that has
been taking place for the last five years or so. Thus, we are very eager to
get a strong roof installed before hurricane season returns next June.
Please pray for the repairs of our home to be completed quickly.
I am happy to report that we were
able to resume services in our rented meeting place in the Village of
Windward at Windward Bible Church on Sunday, October 17th! The
hurricane had blown many of the shingles off the building’s roof and dumped
a lot of water inside, and added more to it every time it rained afterward.
After several weeks, our landlord was finally able to procure steel roofing
and have it installed. The new roof is functioning perfectly with no leaks.
This is a tremendous relief! The roof had actually began leaking about six
weeks before the hurricane hit, and after each service it was necessary to
move pews and chairs and cover other pieces to keep them dry in case it
rained.
After the
storm, and up until the roof on our building was repaired, we took our
congregation to Open Door Independent Baptist Church in Beausejour, Brother
John McPherson, pastor. The fellowship was sweet and encouraging, the
teaching was good, and the singing was uplifting. However, and as always, it
is good to be ‘home’ back at Windward Bible Church.
The storm
destroyed most of our hymnbooks and much of the furniture had rust or mildew
on them. Thankfully, all is now clean and services have resumed as usual.
Attendance
has been good, all things considered. Typically, we see a drop off until the
festivals observed this time of the year are passed. We also have one older
woman that is in
England
for an undetermined amount of time. Two other older women have health
problems that hinder them from attending services regularly. One of our
older and faithful men is now in New York and working to help put his son
through college. Thus, our adult attendance is down more than normal right
now. Nevertheless, there is a young lady back with us on Carriacou because
her home was destroyed and her place of work on the mainland is closed due
to damage incurred by the storm. In all, the numbers in our services remain
in the high twenties and low thirties with intermittent peaks into the
forties from time to time.
About a week
before the storm, on August 29, 2004, we had the privilege to baptize one of
our older believers. She is seventy years old and has a very difficult time
walking due to arthritis in her legs. However, with the help of her daughter
who was visiting from the mainland at the time, she persevered. Though she
was obviously very frightened and afraid that she was going to drown, she
allowed me to immerse her and she publicly demonstrated her death and burial
to her former life and spiritual resurrection to walk in the newness of
life. (Romans 6:3-4)
The folks of
Windward Bible Church are once more preparing to remember the often
forgotten folks in the two nursing homes and hospital on Carriacou. We hope
to present some of our Christmas program, share a gospel message about the
true theme of Christmas, and as the Lord provides, leave gift baskets
stuffed with fruits, special treats, and a Bible tract.
Please pray
for us and the folks to whom we plan to minister on Friday, Christmas Eve,
December 24th. Pray for the salvation of the lost and comfort of
the suffering and lonely.
The
dangerous hurricane we experienced in September helped to remind us that
life is precious and fragile. That is why it is all the more vital that we
get the gospel to as many as possible while there is still yet time.
Please
pray especially for the Lord to open the heart s of those enslaved in
tradition in the Village of Windward.
Though many have repeatedly promised to visit our services, not many from
this community have done so to date.
We spent
much of our time making what repairs we could to our home and helping others
with their roofs after the hurricane. When we got much of that done I have
often and repeatedly found myself up to my neck in vehicle repairs. The
clutch went out in our 1991 bus about six weeks back. It took me about a
week of hard labor. It also took most of what money our church had in its
dwindling treasury to purchase the clutch disk, pressure plate, throw-out
bearing, pilot bearing, and rebuild kits for the clutch master and slave
cylinders. I actually had to remove the transmission and install it twice
due to it needing more parts than I had hoped. Recently, I have spent
another week working on electrical quirks and some suspension squeaks. It
still needs new ball joints, upper and lower, for the front suspension. The
upholstery is also looking pretty bad and the body has a lot of rust, but we
are thankful to have it and to be able to use it -- especially since our
1987, 4WD Dodge Colt Vista Station stopped running about five weeks back.
The Vista
had been running fairly well, but stopped suddenly on the way back from a
Wednesday night service. About five minutes after it stopped, the Lord
brought along a neighbor who was driving his 4WD pickup and just happened
to have purchased a towing rope that day. He gracefully towed me home. I
got into the engine the next day and soon realized that I needed to pull it
out to better facilitate repairs, and also to do some needed maintenance on
the transmission and clutch. After several hours of unhooking this and
removing that, I used my engine hoist to remove the engine and transaxle.
The next day my back and the incision site were the hernia was repaired back
in April lodged their protests. I have not done anything more to it for
about three weeks to allow my back to recover. The site of the incision is
much better as well.
I have spent
much time and money recently patching both vehicles. If you recall from my
prayer letter back in early August, one of our supporting churches sent us a
special $1,000.00 gift to start a vehicle fund. The balance in that fund is
still at $1,000.00. We will likely need $10,000.00 (US$) to get a used bus
that should be reliable and safe that would give us trouble free service for
a few years. When the Lord provides for the replacement of the bus, I plan
to sell one of the ones we have (probably the car) to get as much as
possible out of it.
Please pray
for the tremendous need of our vehicles to be replaced.
We had the
privilege to celebrate Jeshua’s 18th birthday this past November
13! We had a ‘surprise’ party for him and many of his friends attended.
Jeshua is still working hard in school. His grades are good and he is
becoming more responsible as time goes by. He is thinking of attending a new
college here on Carriacou for a while. It is the T .A. Marryshow
Community College (TAMCC @
http://www.tamcc.edu.gd)
We are praying about it and thinking that it may be good preparation for him
to further his education in the States later on.
Please pray
for Jeshua often. As adults know, the transition from child to adult
requires daily grace and divine guidance. That is what we want for Jeshua as
we pray for the Lord to make His will known to him.
There is not only a new
college here on Carriacou, but the Lord is answering a prayer that I shared
with Him quite sometime back. There is a new medical facility, Carriacou
Health Services (CHS), coming to Carriacou that may be the most advanced
in the nation of
Grenada.
It will not only provide much needed medical expertise and equipment, as I
understand it, CHS will also serve as a resident training facility for many
preparing to enter various fields of medicine. Their goal is also to serve
as a training facility for students from the
US,
UK, and Canada. The building’s construction is well underway and mostly
erected. You may learn more by visiting their website at:
www.chs.datasolutions.d2g.com. Please pray as this institution will need
doctors, technicians of all sorts, and also critical equipment such as Cat
scan, MRI, etc. From what I read so far, an X-ray machine has already been
donated and been designated to be placed in this facility by the government
of Grenada. Carriacou has been in urgent need of this for decades.
Praise the Lord with us for this answer to pray.
Pray also for the provision of the stilled needed personnel and equipment so
that this facility can be up and running soon.
Due to feeling poorly, I
had mostly neglected my websites from March right up until when the storm
hit us. I spent some time getting the photos of the damage on Carriacou
posted to show the urgent need for aid and relief. However, I had not done
much more to it. I recently added several more language versions of the
Bible Tract, God’s Simple Plan of Salvation, by Robert Ford Porter.
To date, the tract succinctly presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ is
available in thirty languages – including of course – English. I tracked the
visitors to those pages for a few months after I initially posted them in
eighteen languages earlier this year. I am happy to see that hundreds of
people in countries around the world visit pages for each language each
month. Most remarkable to me is the number of visitors from Muslim and
Communist countries. I have also seen visitors from Israel that come to read
the gospel – mostly the Arabic version. However, there are also times the
Hebrew version is viewed from
Israel
and other countries.
My server stats now show
that my primary domain,
www.LastChanceMinistries.com, had over two million hits over the last
year! Independent stats show that of those two million plus hits for the
last year, each month:
-
5000+ remained long enough (30+ seconds) to register as visitors
-
10,000+ pages were viewed by the visitors
-
Each visitor remained on average for 1½ to 2 minutes
-
Each visitor on average viewed two pages
-
350+ return to read or listen to more
The above means that
each month more than 5000 people see the God’s Simple Plan of
Salvation tracts available in thirty languages. How would you
like to pass out that many tracts to that many people around the world each
month?
Equally encouraging, my
server stats also show that 3,000 audio messages in MP3 format were either
listened to directly whiled streamed from Last Chance Ministries, or they
were downloaded to be listened to later by one or more individuals! That is
equivalent to holding Bible studies in at least 350 homes – with at least
one, but only God knows how many present – around the world each month. In
each visit we are able to share the gospel or teach them from the Bible for
forty-five minutes to an hour. Moreover, these are people that
found us and invited us in instead of us finding them and convincing
them to let us come in. I only wish I had the resources and equipment to do
more in this area. In any case, please pray
for the power and effectiveness of the Word of God being broadcasted through
LastChanceMinistries .com and .org, and also WindwardBibleChurch.org.
Lastly, we still hope to
take furlough in 2006 or so. We really do need more support to bring us up
to our set support level. Perhaps you know of a church or pastor that is
looking for or open to taking on the support of new missionaries – even if
it is only temporary until we take our next furlough. If so, please send me
their contact information. Even better, you could put in a good word and
recommend us to them. They can find all the information about us they would
need at
www.windwardbiblechurch.org. In the mean
time, please pray for new churches and individuals to be led to support us
to meet our current needs.
The
Robinsons on Carriacou extend out deep thanks to each of you that are
constantly touching our lives with yours through your prayers and support.
We also appreciate the special gifts this year that is helping to pay off
the expenses we incurred when I traveled to the US for two surgeries, and
also the cost of preparing for and recovering from Hurricane Ivan. We
realize these special gifts are sacrificial by those who gave them, and we
appreciate it very much. We thank God for each of you.
Still looking up for Him,
Walter Robinson II
Photos that Accompany the Herald for
December 2004
Mrs.
Pastora Stafford (age 70)
slowly
making her way to the sea to be baptized.
A few of our
folks look on and sing as Mrs. Stafford
moves further out with fear and
trembling.
Her daughter,
Mavis, joins us to help and reassure her.
“Praise the
Lord!” she says. She is
truly glad to have that behind her.
Jeshua joined
by friends to celebrate his 18th birthday.
Jeshua
anticipating the cake and adulthood.
Walter and
Jeshua observing the Vista’s engine
and transaxle after removing it from the
chassis
Dedication of
Delia (Dee lee ah) Alexander
with the Thomas Alexander family on March 12,
2004
Celebrating
Grenada’s Thanksgiving with a
few of our young friends on October 25th,
2004
Visitors have viewed this page since
December 24, 2004
Copyright © 2000 Last Chance Ministries. All rights reserved.
Revised: June 13, 2006.
|
