Tonight Jared spoke about Christ being the cornerstone of the church, of our community. Rick Petry is a CSF alumni that is a part of that community that calls Christ The Cornerstone. Rick Petry is a former CSF intern and while he and his wife are supporters and board members of CSF, it's much deeper than those titles. We love Rick and Julia and are hopeful, scared, praying, and excited with him and his family right now. His wife, Julia, is leaving tonight for Haiti as Rick drops her off at the air port. She is flying to Haiti with her dad and younger sister to assist in the devasted Port Au Prince. Rick is making arrangements to be on leave at work and will be headed down in a few weeks as well.
Rick & Julia at their wedding last January
Paul Ronk is Julia's father, a CSF board member, and spent a week with me (Gary) in Colorado last year. He is a vocational minister (works for a company and the church) at King's Way Christian Church in Nitro, WV and spent 11 years in Haiti as a missionary with his wife and family. They still have a heart for that area as they have answered the recent catastrophe with a resounding SEND ME. Paul, Julia, and her younger sister Sara are heading to Haiti tonight for at least 6 weeks. Rick and Sara's husband will be heading down in a few weeks. Being fluent in the native language they hope to assist in translating as well as utlizing their vast connections and resources from their prior time there to help people.
An urgency for God. An urgency for people. That's what they have. That's the message of the bible, plain and simple. That's what we're about at CSF. We're proud of Paul, his daughters, and Rick putting forth a massive effort to get there and deal with finances, arrangements, planning, and working around difficult arrangements with their employers. Rachel, Paul's wife, is the director of a day care and will be staying in WV. It appears like Sara is losing her job over the trip.
We will pray for them and support them. Any support given to CSF for their trip will be forwarded to King's Way Christian Church who is overseeing their logistical needs while they're in Haiti. Envelopes for support are upstairs by the box in the foyer.
Julia's Blog (updating ability is unknown at this time and may be sporadic):
http://handsforhaiti.blogspot.com/
Channel 13 News out of Charleston, WV interviewed Paul before his trip. They aired a segment Saturday and Sunday evening. They also provided him with video equipment to document they're work down there. He hasn't figured out how those video's will make it back here yet. Here's a link to the Saturday evening interview which we watched this evening during our service:
http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=73572