WE ARE HERE! (Our first week in Haiti)

September 3, 2019September 3, 2019 To Haiti We Go

We did it! We made it through our first official week in Haiti as a family. We have actually been here 12 days now! We started our journey Thursday morning saying goodbye to our families at the airport and flying to Ft. Lauderdale that first day. On the second morning we woke up and flew to Port Au Prince, Haiti and then took RMI’s bus on a 4 1/2 hour journey to Les Cayes, our new home. We were warmly welcomed by RMI staff and had a delicious meal waiting for us as well.

The first week we stayed at the guesthouse behind the Nunemaker’s while we worked hard on getting our house in order and beds set up so we could start sleeping in our home. We have been at our home for 5 days now and it has been wonderful working on it and slowly making it US each and every day. We are so grateful to our organization, RMI, who has given us plenty of time in this beginning period to just acclimate to the weather & culture and make our house a home. In the coming weeks we will start field orientation and language studies. Then after that we will actually start our ministry work.

The beauty here is astounding. I have teared up so many times while staring out at God’s creation here. As we ride our ATV/dirt bike on these bumpy dirt roads in the heat, there is something so peaceful about it. There are no words to quite describe how it feels as we drive along through the hills, the village and smell the Haitian food cooking, hear them worshiping in church and seeing smiles all around as we pass them by. We long to get to know them, grow in their language so we can start building relationships. Only God knows what He has planned, but we are excited to see who we get to meet along this journey and most of all see God working here. He’s been here, He’s been doing a great work here, we now just get to be a small part of it and we cannot wait to see the lives, including ours, that He works in and changes for the good, for His glory, for His kingdom!

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We can’t say it has been all rainbows & butterflies 😉 We definitely had some tears, a LOT of sweat haha, exhaustion and feeling a bit overwhelmed at times. HOWEVER, God has shown us this week, that HE IS OUR STRENGTH! He is constant, He is never changing, even when all of life is changing a lot. It truly has been a great week all in all though.

We had a LOT more good moments than hard moments thankfully! 🙂 The good definitely outweighs the hard. Some of this weeks good included seeing everyone again at RMI and meeting new friends too. Seeing our new home and incredible view of Gods creation that we get to see daily. Watching our boys make new friends and have so much fun playing daily with them. Riding our ATV and motorbike. Making our house into a home. Watching our boys start their first day of school. Haitian food…need I say more! Hearing from our house, the Haitian people worshiping down below in the village.

Some of the things we have had a chance to do this week include going to our first Haitian wedding. Anderson, a friend of ours, invited us to his wedding and it was such an honor to be a part of it. It was very beautiful and brought glory to God!

We got to have lunch at the boys teachers house this week with our house staff and hers. It was so wonderful sitting all around together eating and getting to know each other.

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I was able to go into town with other RMI staff to get some paint for the Zeke’s room as we ran out of the paint we brought. It cost $40-$50 per gallon depending on the color eeeek 😉 So I decided to only get one and we came back and used leftover paint from the living room for the rest of his walls haha. We also went into town looking for chain for our hammock and after trying 4-5 stores we still couldn’t find what we needed so we need to figure out what to use now to get our hammock up. I had to walk across that rickety old bridge with boards spaced far apart in the pictures above. I have a fear of heights, so that was fun for me! 😉

We as a family got to go to a school outing with all the other families in the boys classroom. We had such a wonderful time and it helped the boys get more excited about school since they were getting to know their classmates.

I had the chance to go to my first ladies tea now while living here. They have these weekly so the ladies in the community can get together for encouragement, support and just good ol’ chat time together. The boys love it because the kids come and play outside while the momma’s talk inside.

All but Daddy and Isaac have had bouts of sickness this week and one injury that resulted in us needing to go to the “hospital” here but all was well and we are all feeling better now so we praise God for that.

69870359_10220142942901273_2609743294371987456_n — The boys all ready for their first day of school!

WE ARE SO CLOSE!!!

Since we are so busy here now in Haiti, it is much harder for us to try and raise the rest of the monthly support that we need. So would you please pray with us, for the last $300 a month that we need to come in. Thank you so much. We are BEYOND grateful to be 95% raised and have been blown away to see how God brought it in so quickly at the end. It has been so growing to our faith to see His faithfulness and provision in this journey. We have NO DOUBT we will get it in His timing. If you would like to be a part of our support team, please let us know. We can let you know how to go about doing that! http://www.toHaitiwego.com/donate

If we get 6 people at $50 per month we will be FULLY FUNDED! How awesome is that!

- For continued good health and strong immune systems to keep sickness away.
- Safety while we drive our ATV/dirt bike and even RMI cars on the roads as traffic here is nothing like in the states.
- Continued prayer for us getting use to this heat and humidity.
- For quick & fast learning as we start in a few weeks with our language studies.
- For the boys as they started their first day of school today. This is a new transition for them as they have been homeschooled up until now.
- For us and our families as we already miss each other a lot.
- For Jim & April as we learn how much food to get each week, what type of food, where to get it, and how to pay with Goudes instead of American dollars.
- For our relationship with our staff to grow. Pray that day by day, the language barrier would be less and less and our relationships grow more & more.

One month to go!

July 22, 2019 To Haiti We Go

Today is exactly one month until…

Our family moves to Haiti!

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The past month we have been busier than we have been in our entire lives. It has been a good busy though. We first packed up all of our belongings and since they would be making the trek across our country, the ocean and Haiti as well, we had to really pack well. We have never seen so much foam sheets, bubble wrap, shrink wrap & packing tape! 😉 Jim and his friend Jim Jameson drove our U-Haul down to RMI headquarters in Florida where our shipping container was dropped of. They loaded it and then our container started its journey shortly after. It will Lord willing, arrive right around the time we do next month, in Haiti.

Now that we have the packing done and our belongings on their way, we are finishing last minute details with the sale of our home, getting the stuff we need to get our permis in Haiti and spending as much time with family & friends as we can. The boys were VERY excited when their passports came in the mail.

We have a new mailing address!

SHIP TO:

Jim & April Starkey – CAY 30007
c/o Agape Flights
100 Airport Ave E.
Venice, FL 34285

We would LOVE to receive mail from you all when we are in Haiti. There are a few things to keep in mind though that we wanted to share.

All packages or items over 1 lb will cost us $4 per pound to receive it, so if you can possibly pay that fee through Agape by calling them or going on their website to pay ahead of time, then we won’t have to pay that fee to receive the mail. That helps out a lot.
With that in mind, go in with others to help on shipping costs if you want to send a care package and make sure to weigh beforehand so you are not surprised by shipping costs.
Please do not mail us anything until the last week of August or after.

We have been asked from time to time what items would be helpful to have down there, for others to ship to us as a care package. Of course once we are down there, we will know more and give an updated list but for now we will share what suggestions we have heard from other missionaries in our area:

1. Spice/food packets such as spices, ranch packets, taco packets.
2. Jello & pudding packets that we can make popsicles and other things with.
3. Flavored drink mixes we can use for our shave ice machine a friend got the boys.
4. Letters, cards & drawings. Updated photos of your family.
5. Seasonal/holiday items for decor or food.
6. Artificial color/dye free gummies & candy for the boys.
7. Essential oils, which we will diffuse in our home & use for our family in many ways.
8. Jim & April are avid readers so any great devotional, encouraging, or growth biblical based book.

TIP: If you send anything that is sealed, pop a small pin size hole in the bag (due to air pressure in airplane) and draw a circle around it so we can easily find it and tape it once it arrives.

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Some go, some send. 🌎✈️

We are going, we need senders.

Are you a sender?

Prayer Requests

1. Please pray as we speak one last time at our home church on August 4th and at North Buffalo Grace Brethren Church on August 11th.
2. Pray for us to finish this side of the journey well, as we say good bye and finish all we need to do on this side.
3. Praise God for the sale of our home. Please pray that our two vehicles will sale before we move. A 2016 Kia Sedona Van & 2010 Limited Toyota Rav 4.
4. Our boys have asked to get baptized before we leave and so they are getting baptised on our “send off” Sunday, Aug 18th at our church. They have some nerves about it though so please be praying for their hearts and nerves.
5. For the health of all of us. April has what we believe to be a morton’s neuroma (inflamed nerve) on her left foot, making it hard to walk.
6. For our transition with weather, settling into our new home, boys starting school there a week after we move and everything else that comes with transition.
7. For the rest of the monthly support we need to come in before we move.

Rejoice with us friends! God has been nothing but faithful on this journey. From 1 1/2 years ago when this all started to now, it has been truly amazing to see the way He has orchestrated everything. The best part has been how He has done it through YOU ALL! You are the hands that are sending us…TRULY! Thank you for being a part of what Jesus is doing in Haiti! Lives forever being changed for His glory & Kingdom because of your faithfulness in giving & supporting our family to go. We are so thankful for you all. We love you.

Love,
The Starkeys

Saying goodbye.

July 18, 2019 To Haiti We Go

Today our shipping container left and started its journey to Haiti, our new home. Now that we have the hard part of packing up our belongings done, the harder part is coming.

Saying goodbye.

We write these words not for pity, or for any other reason other than we find it a gift. A true gift, to have someone, many someones so dear to us, that leaving them is so hard. So we want to write down this journey, this process, our emotions and share them because through them, we pray & hope they continually point to Him, even when the parts of the journey of saying Yes to Him, are not the easiest.

Today while leaving my parents after having stayed for 5 days with the boys while Jim was in Florida packing our container, I hugged my mom. This time though I did something I’ve never done before, I didn’t just hug her and release but I hugged her and kept hugging her. I hugged her for probably well over a minute total. I let her know that I knew our time was coming when I wouldn’t get her hugs as often and so I wanted to cherish the ones I got now and really let them soak in. I wanted to capture that in my mind to always remember how it felt to be hugged by my sweet mom. We both cried, I didn’t expect or think that was going to happen, but it did.

This last month is going to be filled with a lot of good byes. We have a lot of friends & family we are seeing this last month and we are so excited to see them all and spend time with them. However, we also realize with all that, comes the good byes. The last time we will see each other for a very long time. Saying good bye to our family, friends, our home for the past 12 years, our dear church family, the worship team I have loved being a part of. Even little things like saying goodbye to our amazing local library, places we love to go to as a family etc. It will be a month of love, family & friendships as we spend as much time with everyone as we can, but it will also be a hard month for us.

Pray with us please, that we finish this side of the journey well. That we prepare the boys and ourselves for the transition. That we finish well with saying good bye and spending time with those we love. That we stay close to the Source through this all and connected to Him and each other as we lean on Him to guide us each day, each step of the way as we take this leap into what He has called us to do.

He is so faithful. He has asked us to do this. We said Yes. We are human. We surrender without knowing the outcome. He does not need us. We are grateful He wants to use us though. Following Him isn’t always easy. Following Him is worth it. The times we miss with family on this side of heaven, will not compare to the moments we cherish with them in eternity. We praise Him that we have such a beautiful, loving family we are so close to, that makes leaving so hard. WHAT A GIFT that we have something so precious to us that He gave us. What an even sweeter gift that most of them GET IT and even though they hurt, miss us and are struggling too, they GET IT. They get His call, they get what it’s all about and they get that He is so worth it.

Love,

The Starkeys