Author: To Haiti We Go

By now all time zones have celebrated the New Year coming in and we are officially in 2019! We are filled with so much joy & hope with the start of this year for many reasons and a big one of those being that we are Lord willing, moving to Haiti this year! I (April) love this time of year because of all the possibilities that lay ahead! I would LOVE to hear from you all on if you do anything specific at the beginning of the year? Do you choose a word to focus on? Do you set any goals or resolutions? Do you start any new projects or declutter after Christmas? I know many people choose this time of year to do some sort of fast or start a new bible reading plan too!

In past years, I’ve chosen a word to kind of theme my year around, like Diligent or Intentional etc. This year, a few things kept coming to my mind, which was remaining in Christ, resting in Him and abiding. So I think this year I want to focus more on doing things that will allow me to just rest in Him, soaking in His peace & goodness and thinking on how much He loves me.

One of the ways I am going to try and do that is by UNPLUGGING from social media for the entire month of January. Since I will have more time on my hands, I am excited for a few things I’m going to be doing, which are:

1. LEARNING CREOLE! Now that we are really getting to the point of us preparing to move to Haiti, I knew it was time for me to start my studies! We will have 6 months of intense study with a local Haitian teacher when we move there, but I would love to have a head start to help. With my month of unplugging from social media, I will have even more time to hop on Haiti Hub and do my lessons, which I am really excited for. Have you ever learned another language before? I’d love to hear which one!

2. PRACTICING MY GUITAR! I specifically learned the guitar so I could play and sing, which was a dream of mine for years. I’m still a beginner by all means because I haven’t had a lot of time to practice with us raising support so I’m excited to try and do a bit more especially this month, during my unplug from social media.

3. READING MORE! I love to read, Jim and I are both big readers. I am doing three new things reading/writing wise and that is reading Matt Chandler’s book called “Take Heart”, doing a new 4 week bible study called “Rest & Release” by Courtney Joseph and starting a new prayer journal where I write down my bible verse each day, what I’m thankful for, prayer requests etc! I have found when I’ve done these in the past, it’s so helpful for me to look back on and see God’s hand and faithfulness in my life and writing down scripture has always helped me retain it better.

Then along with these things I am going to do another big DECLUTTER session in our house as we get closer to the big move! I also plan on possibly taking knitting back up this winter but we will see about that. 😉 Jim and I are also both focusing on our health pretty big right now and not just weight loss wise but truly working from the inside out on making sure our bodies are functioning the way they should be. I’ve been working with a few amazing people who are helping me on this journey of healing.

So what are your plans for 2019? What do you hope it holds? I know whatever it does hold for you and I both…He is already there, He is so faithful and He is enough! May you find the passions God has put inside of you and awaken them, growing so closely to Him this 2019 that it saturates all you do and that others are changed for the good because of it! 

Love,

April

Happy New Year! Not only did we get to celebrate Jesus’ birth and spend time with family & friends but our youngest, ZEKE, turns two on New Year’s Eve!  We had 6 family Christmas gatherings, which we cherished since we will be in Haiti next Christmas.  We received a beautiful handmade sign with Jeremiah 29:11 on it in Creole with a hand painted Ohio and Haiti drawn on it with hearts where we live now and where we will live in Haiti. April received a beautiful necklace with Ohio and Haiti and a heart between the two. These will especially mean so much once we move over and miss our loved ones. FUN FACT: As you celebrate New Year’s on January 1st, Haitians are celebrating their independence day, which was established in 1804!

We are ending this year filled with SUCH gratitude! We now have 48 amazing families/individuals who have joined our monthly support team & 1 church as well, which we are forever grateful for. We cannot begin to describe to you the relationships we already feel are forming from these families who have joined our team. Their support, love, encouragement have gone such a long ways this past year to help us on our journey. God is already using them!

We are at 40% raised and have the next 3 months to raise the last 60% we need in order to move by the end of Spring! It’s pretty urgent now that we get down there as soon as we can, so we will be going to the grind now more than ever, starting this week, to raise up the rest of our support! Please be in prayer for our family as this can be very taxing in many ways but we know it’s so worth it. We also are reminded and filled with such peace that we are not alone, God is the one bringing in these funds and we are just doing our part each day with what we can do and trusting Him to do what only He can do! We are so excited knowing He is alone can do this. We don’t know how to explain it but we are sensing things are going to start moving here quickly and so we’d would love your prayers for our family as we work hard on our end, trusting God on His, to provide the rest of our funds so we can move. We would love prayer for our health, for us as we sell our house here soon, as we then start to pack and all the training and other things we need to do between now and our move.  The time is definitely NOW if you have been waiting to start your monthly support, we need all those who would like to join our monthly support team to help us serve in Haiti, to start now! We need it more than ever now as we cannot go down until our funds are finished being raised to the point that it can support our family down there.   DONATE HERE!

If you cannot become a monthly supporter right now but would like to make a last minute END OF YEAR special gift, we would greatly appreciate that as well. All donations are tax deductible.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! May God encourage your hearts this year and draw you & your family closer to Him more than ever before. Praising God for 2018 and excited to see what awaits us in 2019! To God be the glory!

Love,

The Starkeys