Author: To Haiti We Go

A lot going on – Field Update & surgery!

To Haiti We Go

UPDATE SUMMARY :

  • What we’ve been up to the past month.
  • Language study update.
  • Surgery
  • RMI DR update
  • Praises & Prayer Requests

January was a very busy month for our family and ministry. We traveled to the states for a few weeks in January for some mission/ministry things and a bonus was being able to see family real quick as well.

Jim represented RMI as the DR Field Director at the Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) missions conference in the middle of January. We partner with FMSC to get the food needed that we give out to families, churches and schools in Haiti. Through this time there they are able to collaborate, get updates, worship & be encouraged, & meet others on the same mission. They see what all goes into each and every meal that we pass out. They hear and can share stories of the impact of each of these meals. They were able to make many of the meals as well and saw first hand all the nutrients and ingredients that go into each of them.

Another great thing that came from this is connections with the DR team at FMCS so that our new field in the DR can start working with them there to obtain the food for us to give out to those in need in the DR as teams come down and as we continue to set up the new DR field. Praising God for a productive time together.

RMI MEETINGS:

Jim was also able to attend meetings that RMI our mission organization had. These meetings were very productive and a great way for the leadership in RMI to come together, unite and see how they can make the organization work even better for the kingdom of God. Jim walked away from both the conference and meetings feeling excited, encouraged, challenged and ready to keep doing the work God has called us to do.

Another blessing of being back a few weeks is we were able to speak at a new church and will be sharing a mission update at our home church before heading back to the DR.

LANGUAGE UPDATE: Jim and I have done some language study the first 6 months in the DR, but not as much as we hoped as we were busy with getting settled and things set up. We tried different programs on our own but realized it would be better to reach out and get an instructor that specifically trained and taught missionaries to learn Spanish. When we get back from the states here soon, we will be starting more official language studies and they will be more intense and more work. This will be a big part of our ministry for the next year as we put a lot of effort into learning a third language and getting better at our second language (Haitian Creole).

I love this quote, ” The number one reason we invest in language learning is LOVE. God put His love in our hearts for these people and we reflect His love as we invest the time and effort to understand their language and culture. Nothing communicates love as clearly as when you leave your own culture and language and learn theirs.” – Cynthia Anderson

UNEXPECTED SURGERY: In a turn of events, April will be having gallbladder surgery here shortly. We didn’t know this would be happening but since being here she had a really bad attack and had an ultrasound done that showed she needed surgery. We were planning on flying back Monday, so now our return date will be a smidge longer until she is recovered from surgery. Please keep April in your prayers for a successful, smooth surgery with no complications and a good, smooth recovery Lord willing. We have peace knowing God knows all of this, is guiding us and we are grateful to be here stateside when this happened.

DR FIELD UPDATE:

Jim has been in communication with several of the pastors and leaders in the Dominican & Haitian churches we are partnering with in the DR. We are very excited for the future and what we feel God is leading us to do. The Dominican pastors we are partnering with have a big heart for helping the Haitian people there. We have been honored to see how humble these Dominican believers are and how the love of Christ is shining through them as they reach and serve their Haitian brothers & sisters.

These group of people and their churches have helped start over 40 Haitian Churches. They try to help them as much as they can, to get set up and thrive to help their community. However, they lack resources and need help. We are partnering with them to help them continue the work they are doing. Jim’s been meeting with many of the church leaders and going out to the Haitian and Dominican communities and seeing the needs so we can see how we can pour into these communities. We will be doing more of this when we return.

Our next thing we will be working on is meeting with them to figure out the exact team set-ups we need, as there are so many needs that we have found and so our next step is organizing teams from the US (reach out if you are interesting in coming down or forming a team) to come down and help us with these needs.

FOUR BIG TEAM FOCUSES we are looking at are discipleship teams, medical teams, encouragement/practical projects/food passing out teams and youth group teams because the youth in many of these churches are struggling and we would love to see youth groups and their leaders come down and pour into the youth and leadership in some of these Haitian and Dominican churches! Please contact us ASAP if you’d like to form a team through your church or group of family/friends/work. We are in great need for teams and so this is our next big focus in the DR when we return.

PRAISES & PRAYER REQUESTS:

  • April’s gallbladder surgery.
  • Our language learning.
  • Wisdom and direction from God as we keep pressing on with ministry in the DR.
  • For teams to come down.
  • For our special gift / one-time gifts fund to increase as we used most of it to make the move & set up in the DR. We need to build this back up for ministry and living in the DR. If you’d like to donate, go here and make sure and pick our names in the drop down menu. http://rmibridge.org/donate
  • For us to continue seeking and putting Christ first in our personal lives, growing in Him, in our family and the way we disciple and pour into our children and then into the ministry He has called us to there.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We are so grateful to have YOU walking this journey with us.

Love,

The Starkeys

Special Gifts in Ministry

To Haiti We Go

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

Three months in!

To Haiti We Go

We have blinked and the calendar has moved three months.

We have been very busy the past three months setting up our home and getting settled. A very important thing we were told by other missionaries when we first moved on the mission field 5 years ago was to make your house a home so that no matter how foreign or unfamiliar everything was outside of your home, you could come back to it and feel at home. We have worked hard to make this happen for our family.

It was a long, exhausting journey but we finally found a school for Zeke and he started on November 1st. We are still hoping to get him into one of the two schools next year that he is on a waiting list for but in the mean time, we are very grateful for this school and I think it’s going to be a great fit for him this year, especially as he transitions to life here with all the changes around him. This school is great for this year as the teachers are trained and equipped to know how to teach and talk to kids with emotional/behavorial challenges. He also has occupational/physical therapy type things at school along with the regular school work.

April and the older two boys are doing really well in their 10th year of homeschooling. They are part of a great homeschool group here in Santiago that do weekly art classes, monthly field trips and other things together as a group. We also found a beautiful multi-cultural church we love, that overflows with the love of Jesus and is a mixture of Haitian, Dominican, American & other believers from many nationalities.

The older two boys have joined a missionary youth group as well that meets weekly. They love it there and we have really enjoyed getting to know the other parents in the group as well. We are grateful for all the community we have found! God has answered so many specific prayers for us!

A recent field trip with our homeschool group!
School time!
First time to the beach, which is about 90 minutes away from us!

We are working hard on our Spanish studies. We have a teacher who comes to our home twice a week, we have online live video classes with Spanish instructors and other students and we are doing a lot of comprehensible input videos as well. We are trying to study 2-3 hours each week day. We would love prayer for us to continue learning well, understanding Dominicans as they speak and finding the time between ministry, homeschool and taking care of four children to get our language studies in. We have heard from so many people including other native Spanish speakers from other countries who live here, that Dominicans speak super fast, slang or drop off the ends of everything and kind of speak their own way of Spanish.

Our first team here in the DR, the night they arrived!

We had our first team come a few weeks ago, which was really exciting. Teams will look different sometimes depending on what they come down here to do but this team came down to specifically help us reach out to several Haitian & Dominican churches, start making connections, seeing the needs where RMI & teams can help and seeking the Holy Spirits guidance on where He wants us to serve & love. We will be doing a whole update on this trip soon, so keep an eye out for it. To sum it up though, we saw a lot of hard things, a lot of needs. We were greatly encouraged by the local Dominican churches we are working with and their heart for helping their Haitian brothers & sisters in Christ. We saw things that hit us hard and we made wonderful connections with some pastors, churches, & a doctor. We cannot wait to share it about it all with you soon. Our hearts are stirred, there is so much to be done here and we are needing teams to come help us do it. Please connect with us soon, if you have a church, family, friend or work group that wants to come help us serve & love the people here. We are looking for a few more teams to come down sometime between January and May 2025!

Thank you for praying for our family! Thank you for believing in what God has called our family to do here in the DR. Thank you for your support. Pray for continued safety, good health, & for us to be able to learn the language well. Connect with us if you’d like to bring a team down January-May to help us with all we see that needs to be done and all who need help! Pray that we stay aware of the Holy Spirit’s leading in everything we do. We love you all!

Love, The Starkeys