Tomorrow is an exciting day.
Tomorrow 43 of our students will graduate from STEP Seminary and begin serving in ministries all across Haiti. Click below to see a short glimpse of our graduation practice this afternoon.
Thank you so much for your partnership with us as we work to develop leaders for the Haitian church that have the heart of a servant and a passion for discipleship!
(If the music is too loud, feel free to click “CC” for subtitles.)
A couple weeks ago, we got a call from a friend who was having some trouble finding our house.
I knew she was close, so I threw on some flip-flops and headed into the street to meet her car. As I walked around the corner, I saw our neighbor Reymond sitting on his step, flipping through a booklet.
From the first day we moved in, we sensed a relationship developing with Reymond. It started with him helping me figure out what to do with our trash and continued to the point where he would ring our bell almost every day to see how we were doing.
Sensing the Lord may be up to something, we began to pray for our relationship with him and asked some friends to pray, too.
Then he dropped off the map.
Well, kind of. He was still next door, but we started seeing less and less of him over the next few weeks. We began to wonder what the Lord was doing.
So when I saw him sitting on the step, I went and sat with him catch up. He showed me the book he was flipping through and explained that a group of women passed by moments before and gave it to him. I looked to our left and could see a group of women from a local church, slowly making their way up the hill. As I flipped through the book, I realized it was a gospel tract.
What a joy it was to sit with him for a few minutes and explain what the book was about!
As we sat there, I thought to myself: “Wow, I had started to lose hope for this relationship – but the Lord knew what he was doing the whole time!”
It’s easy to say the Lord’s timing is perfect. But when He takes longer than we’d like, it can be easy to be discouraged.
There were several points during our support raising process where we said “OK, Lord – what are you doing? Why is this taking so long?” But in that moment with Reymond I was reminded again that the Lord knows what he’s doing, He is always in control and his timing really is best.
Thank you so much for your prayers for us during this transition period. We’re here! We’ve been busy getting ourselves set up and learning again how to get things done in this city and it’s been an adventure.
Getting a home set up in a place where electricity and water don’t flow with any predictability, and security is always a concern was quite a task – but we’re grateful to be settled enough now where we’ve been able to come up for air and shift our attention to language learning and ministry.
For the most part, our transition to life here in Haiti has been exceptionally smooth. There is no way that would have happened without the Lord’s help and grace. He has been so good to us! Thank you for praying!
What are we up to over the next few months?
Over the next several months we’ll be devoting a large percentage of our time to language learning. Although we’ve both picked up some Creole over the years, now is the time for us to really focus on developing this so we can communicate with greater ease.
Becca will begin homeschooling the kids next week and they’re all excited for that. Just yesterday Grace told me: “Dad, I only have two more days left of summer!” I wonder if she’ll always be that excited for the start of school?
I’ve also begun to settle into some of my responsibilities at STEP Seminary, working closely with the President as he leads the school. This is a tremendously exciting time at STEP as construction is under way to finally replace the large building that was lost in the earthquake.
And of course, we’ll continue to be involved with the little things that come up – like this relationship with Reymond. The Lord is always at work – often in ways we don’t expect – and it’s such a joy to be used by him in relationships like this!
How can you pray?
1) For wisdom as we balance our schedule this Fall. Between homeschooling, language learning and responsibilities at STEP, we’ll have full plates. Pray for us to balance this well.
2) For language acquisition. Language learning is difficult in the best of circumstances. Being a family with young kids and living in a difficult place, we know we’ll have our challenges. Please pray for perseverance and success in this since it is so tremendously important.
3) For safety and provision for the STEP construction project. Every day there are dozens of workers working on the project – pray for safety as they work. There is also a need for funding to complete it – we’d appreciate your prayers for this as well.
It’s a bit surreal to finally be able to write you from here in Haiti. Thank you so much for your partnership as we serve in this ministry together. We’re so grateful to be on this team with you!
Both our monthly support as well as our outgoing expenses budget have now been fully raised and we have a green light to go to Haiti!
We’re so grateful to the Lord for providing the partners needed to finish out our support team! He has been gracious to provide an amazing team!
It’s been a busy week, but we want to get a quick note out to you to bring you up to speed before things get even busier.
After reaching the 100% mark last weekend, we got the official go-ahead from Crossworld to book tickets and ship out to Haiti. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of activity as we’ve been packing up our things, making travel arrangements and bouncing from one doctor’s appointment to the next. Whew!
As I write this (Saturday night), the moving truck is loaded and sitting in the driveway. Tomorrow after church, I’ll start driving to Ft. Pierce, Florida where I’ll load our stuff onto an old DC-3 to be flown by the folks at Missionary Flights International. On Thursday, I’ll join our stuff on that plane and fly to Haiti.
For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be in Port-au-Prince looking for a house for us to live in and a vehicle for us to use. Once we have them secured, I’ll return to New Hampshire to pick up Becca and the kids. Lord willing, we’ll head to Haiti together on June 2nd!
We covet your prayers for us over these next few weeks as I weigh housing options and as Becca mans the fort up here. Would you pray with us?
We’ll keep you updated as things continue to develop. We’ll also be posting more frequently on our Facebook page – be sure to follow along there!
For those of you who have so faithfully prayed with us through this support raising process – thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Yesterday marked 15 years since the first time we traveled to Haiti.
Little did we know on that trip that 15 years later we would be in the final stages of moving our family to Haiti full-time!
We’ve been thinking a lot about that first trip and what it was like. We remember being struck by the poverty – it was unlike anything we could have imagined. We remember being challenged by the heat. But the memory that sticks out the most is that of the people we met. Wonderfuly faithful men and women like Maxime and Yvrose, Vivian, Pastor Renes and Monique – people who we’ve now had the privilege of knowing and loving for 15 years.
These people have become dear to us. Over the years we’ve laughed with them and we’ve cried with them. We couldn’t imagine what our life would be like without the richness their friendship provides. But more that that, we’re grateful because we’ve come to realize that in those early days the Lord was giving us worthy examples of what it looks like to be a faithful believer in Haiti.
As we step into new season of ministry in Haiti – we’re excited for the new relationships that will come and for the way these current ones will continue to grow as we work to develop leaders for the Haitian church!
Support Update
We’ve been busy meeting with people and churches, working to grow our support team. This past month we were able to spend two weeks in Dallas, visiting with friends and supporters there.
After a great time in Dallas and then some exciting meetings back here in New England, we’re excited to announce that we’ve reached 75% of our monthly support!! While this does not mean support raising is over (we still need to reach 100% before we can leave), it does represent a huge milestone and it allows us to do some things we could not do before:
We’re so grateful to the Lord for the ways he has been building our team and for the people he has put in our lives to help us!
Haiti Update
Thank you for praying for this election season in Haiti. Last Sunday, elections for President as well as municipal and parliamentary positions were held. By God’s grace, the election on Sunday was largely peaceful! The results are due to be released this next week. We’ve heard some reports of unrest in various parts of the country this past week and we’re hopeful that things will not escalate. Since there were 54 people on the Presidential ballot, it is unlikely that a winner will be announced until a runoff election is held in December. Keep praying!
Pre-Field Orientation
We’ll be leaving this Wednesday to begin the drive to Kansas City for our Pre-Field Orientation at Crossworld. We’re excited to be able to visit some friends along the way and, Lord willing, we should arrive at Crossworld by Saturday.
Pre-Field Orientation and Security Training will run until November 22 and we should be back in New England just in time for Thanksgiving.
Prayer Needs
Would you pray for us over these next few weeks while we’re in Kansas City?
Pray for our travel. We will have driven around 3,000 miles by the time we get back to New England for Thanksgiving. Pray for safety on the road and for our vehicle to run well.
Pray for our health. We’ll have important information to cover while we’re in this training. Pray for the kids and us to stay well rested and insulated from any bugs that may be flying around.
Pray for our support. We’re getting there! Being in this training over the next few weeks means we’ll not have much time to work on our support – pray the Lord continues to grow it anyway!
Some Pictures from Our First Trip: Oct. 30-Nov. 10, 2000
“From beginning to end, fundraising as ministry is grounded in prayer and undertaken in gratitude.” -Henri Nouwen
This quote jumped right off the page as I was reading Henri Nouwen’s Spirituality of Fundraising recently. The further along we get in this process of building our team, the more we see this as profoundly true.
During this season of support raising, we spend a lot of time praying for this process. We pray for those who have already joined our team. We pray for the Lord to lead us to those who will complete our team. We have a series of white boards here in our office where we track all of this and we start almost every day by sitting in front of them and asking for the Lord’s help.
A couple weeks ago we were asking for the Lord to open a door of contact at a particular church here in the area. The very next morning I was having breakfast with another local pastor when he pointed to the other side of the restaurant and said “That’s Pastor _____ over there, I’ll have to introduce you.” Sure enough, it was the pastor of the very church we had just prayed about.
It is so exciting to see the Lord work!
By the way, you know how we were initially connected with the first pastor in that story? A friend who receives this newsletter was generous enough to forward it on to someone from the missions committee at his church – and that church has just now joined our support team!
God is good.
As we look at the team the Lord has assembled so far, our hearts overflow with gratitude!
Just last week I went back over the monthly reports from the past year and came away so grateful for the faithfulness our team has shown all along the way. I confess at times I wonder “Will all these people stick with us? We’re not even there yet!” But sure enough, you have. Not only are we grateful for the amount of people the Lord has brought to our team so far, but also for the kind of team he has assembled. To you who have been faithfully in partnership with us all along, thank you so much!
We’ve been busy this summer, speaking at churches and meeting with individuals and we’ve been having a blast. This past week I spent almost every day on the road meeting with pastors in this area.
Every time we go to a new church now, Grace asks us: “Is Daddy going to preach again?” In fact, she’s even starting to get the message herself. The other day, she gathered Becca and I into the living room, pulled a play table into the middle of it, stood behind it and said “OK, Mommy and Daddy, How many people don’t know about Jesus yet?”
As we head into the fall and work to finish up our support team, there are a few things we would appreciate your prayers for.
75% by early October – In order to complete our final bit of training at the Crossworld home office in November, we need to reach 75% of our monthly support budget soon. As of now, we’re at 63% and have just over $1,000 per month to go before we reach that goal. If we don’t get there, our departure to Haiti would need to be delayed. 75% is definitely within reach now, but we won’t get there without God’s help. Would you pray specifically about this?
Elections in Haiti – As we’ve mentioned before, Haiti generally does not do elections well. Just yesterday we got an email from the embassy warning of another election related protest in Port-au-Prince. There will be a few rounds of voting over the next few months with the larger presidential election to be held in October. Would you pray for peace throughout this process?
Upcoming Travel – We’ll be headed to Dallas at the end of the month to visit with current supporters and connect with potential new ones. Would you pray for smooth travel as we fly with the kids and for fruitful visits with people while we’re in town?
“My bed is too hard, it’s not comfy” said Grace, our four year old.
We switched her mattress with another we had at the house, hoping it would help. The next night, she had trouble again.
“I don’t like my bed because it’s too tall” she told us as we put her to bed.
After talking with her, we discovered the problem: It’s different.
In Texas, her matteress was on a boxspring that sat directly on the floor. Here in New Hampshire, her bed sits up on a frame allowing her to see underneath it. She’s not a fan.
The past few months have been a whirlwind of change for our family. After almost eight years of living in Texas, we sold almost everything we owned, packed up what we knew we would need in Haiti and moved to New Hampshire where we’ll be until we leave the U.S. later this year.
Although Grace doesn’t like the space under her bed, our kids have actually adjusted quite well. This is encouraging, especially as we consider all the changes they will experience later this year when we make the big move.
Another big change is that I have now left my full-time job at DTS (I’m still serving part-time as a Graduate Teaching Assistant). This allows us to give ourselves full-time to building the remainder of our support team. This has been an exciting step for us to take.
Update from Haiti
Meanwhile in Haiti, our Crossworld team has been busy! We’re excited that Lois Beadle, veteran missionary of over 30 years, has moved from rural Haiti to join the team in Port-au-Prince where she is helping to build an English program at STEP.
Others from our team are teaching a summer English program to first year seminary students there. You can find a great post introducing you to some of their students here: Class Is In Session.
English is important because it unlocks a wealth of resources not available in French or Creole. Would you join us in praying for them during their remaining few weeks of class this summer and for Lois as she develops a program that will run throughout the school year?
A Busy Summer Ahead
While our team is busy on the ground, we’ll be working hard this summer to build the rest of our support team so that we can join them in the fall.
Since returning to New England, we’ve been busy speaking in churches and connecting with individuals and we’re having a blast. As of this writing, we’re excited that the Lord has led 51 individuals, families and churches to partner with us! We still need 30 or so more in order to reach 100% of our monthly budget. If you’re here in New England and know of a group that may be interested in hearing about the work in Haiti, please let us know.
Prayer Needs
Haitian-Dominican Relations – As you may have seen in the news, tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have flared up again. Several Haitians living in the D.R. (many of whom were born there) are being forced to leave. Please pray for a peaceful resolution to this issue. You can read more about it here: A Haitian border town struggles with new rules in the Dominican Republic.
Preaching this Weekend – Luke will be preaching in three services this weekend at the First Congregational Church of Kingston, NH. Tonight, we’ll be at the Newton campus and tomorrow morning we’ll be at the Kingston campus for two services. Would you pray that the Lord would be honored in these and other preaching opportunities we have coming up?
New Partnerships – Thank you for praying for us as we work to build our support team. Keep it up!
