Special Gifts in Ministry

As we sit here writing this, so many thoughts are going through our heads and one of them is how incredibly thankful we are for each and every person on our team!

As we go through our list of families, individuals & churches who are on our financial support team, and pray for you all…we are at a loss for words for how thankful we are for you. Due to your faithfulness in stepping out and supporting us, we can do what we do here overseas. This work simply cannot be done without you, so thank you!

In the past four months since we’ve moved here to Santiago we have…

• Started our language studies
• Moved in, settled, and got a car.
• Started taking in the culture, trying to learn it and getting to know the city and getting comfortable with driving here, which thankfully we both are.
• Started our process of figuring out all we need to do to get our VISA & then residency here.
• Started finding our community here.
• Hired two Haitian staff to help with our house. A mother/daughter team who we have really enjoyed having. (Culturally appropriate & provides jobs)
• Had our first team come.
• Met with local church leaders we are partnering with, and traveled to various places to see the needs and how RMI can help and how teams can meet those needs when they come down.

As Christmas nears, most everyone is going out and trying to find that special gift for their loved ones. In ministry, we have special gifts too. Special gifts are those types of donations that people give, that are not monthly. They are gifts that are given at certain times or when a person feels prompted to give for a particular reason. These special gifts go in a fund, kind of like a savings account and help missionary families be able to do what they do. These are saved back for things like big needed purchases, starting new things in the ministry and unexpected things like repairs, travel & sickness.

Our mission organization has told us that we need to BUILD UP our SPECIAL GIFT fund again. THIS IS CRITICAL for us to continue ministry in the DR. Moving from Haiti to the DR with our family of six and starting up a ministry here has depleted our “special gifts” fund.

We have a PHENOMENAL monthly support team, which we are forever grateful for. Right now, we are needing to focus on building back up our SPECIAL GIFTS FUND to have for all those needs that come up. We were so grateful to have had it for moving here and now that we’ve used almost every penny up in it, we are in GREAT NEED of building it back up so that we can continue to do ministry here.

THIS CHRISTMAS….would you consider giving a one-time/special gift to our family and ministry over here?

It’s tax deductible. If you submit it online or if you want to do it by mail, you can even post mark your check by Dec 31st, and it will still count for taxes for this year.

All you need to do is go to https://www.rmibridge.org/donate.html and click under purpose, our names, JIM AND APRIL STARKEY. Then you fill out the form and submit it just like if you were paying for a gift online. Then it will go directly into our SPECIAL GIFTS FUND!

Thank you friends! We love you. We are so grateful for you.

Merry Christmas!
Love,
The Starkeys