Author: To Haiti We Go

Monthly subscription boxes are all the rage right now! 🙂 They have them for moms, dads, kids, pets, cooking, you name it! I’ve tried a few and I really have enjoyed them myself as well. I got to thinking how it would be fun to compare becoming one of our monthly supporters compared to signing up for a monthly box from somewhere! Of course, if you have a monthly subscription box somewhere, YAY! Please don’t take this as us telling you to stop your subscription and start giving to us. 🙂 However, we wouldn’t mind if you decide to add us to your monthly fun by becoming supporters of ours along with keeping whatever box subscription you already have! 😉

The SIMILARITIES….

• It’s a MONTHLY commitment for both the box subscription and being monthly supporters of us.
• It costs you something each month to do it.
• You get something from it. (Although what you get from supporting us monthly may look completely different than what you will get from a monthly box)
• A lot of people do it and are thankful they did.
• It’s fun and it gives you something to do that is out of the norm.
• You get updates from both us and your monthly box.
• It brings you joy.

Now let’s check out the differences…

• With a box, you get some sort of physical item each month you can hold in your hands and touch, while what you get with supporting us monthly is something you can’t touch. It’s the chance to be part of God’s hands working Haiti, a part of something bigger.
• With a box, you get different themed boxes usually each month that help you maybe learn about something or help you with something. With supporting us monthly however, you will get to see monthly and sometimes even weekly updates, especially once we are over there, on the different ways God is working in Haiti and how YOUR support is helping PEOPLE over there. You will hear REAL stories, TRUTH and you will get to walk the journey with us as we share with you.
• What you get in your box each month lasts temporarily, you won’t use it that long and you might not even fully like all of it. With supporting us monthly, you’ll know that each month you are helping build up our one-time costs so we can move over there and then once in Haiti, you’ll know each month you are being the hands that are keeping us there so we can make Him known and help spread His love. You will be changing lives for eternity.

So to recap, monthly boxes are super fun! Actually if you subscribe to one, please feel free to comment and share what you subscribe to and if you like it! We think they are fun too! Our monthly supporters might not get as much “physical” items or boxes in the mail from us BUT they will be getting our prayers continually and written notes from time to time as we get to know and pray for your family more and vice versa. We will be praying specifically for each of our supporters. Most of all, you will be making an impact for eternity that goes beyond the month to month! We did this to show in a light-hearted way that it can be easier than you think, to be one of our supporters. It might take a bit of sacrifice on your part, we completely get that, but it’s a sacrifice that you will get to see the reward for all of eternity. So if you wanted to support us and you felt you couldn’t do higher amounts but maybe you could budget $25 or $30 a month to help our family move to Haiti, we would LOVE that and we’d be honored to have you as a part of our ministry family! Many hands make light work! You can click HERE to start your automatic monthly donation to our journey. Thanks for joining in our journey. We love you all!

Love,

The Starkeys 

I recently read the year end summary from our organization on what they were able to accomplish in 2017. It blew me away and I cannot wait for the day that our family will be there as a part of it and there is so much need down there that once they get us down there, Lord willing, we can help them accomplish even more. What I love about looking at all the year end numbers is that those are just the STATS they could come up with and numbers they can share but what it doesn’t show is all the relationship building, hope being given, and other small and big things that happen on a daily basis there that you can’t quite define with numbers or stats. Both are amazing and we yearn to be there and help in whatever way God shows us to! So check them out because they ARE amazing…

• Over 520 salvations and these are just the ones they know about! How completely awesome is that!
• 40 teams came down throughout the year.
• Many hurricane damaged roofs were either repaired or replaced.  This includes churches, schools, parsonages and homes.
• 163 water filters were distributed improving the health of  those families and their neighbors.
• 963 goats were distributed to provide sources of income for those families.
• 5,700 children received a daily hot lunch.
• 16,796 children’s health were improved through the Hope for Kidz de-worming program.
• 2,366 children are now sponsored through Hope for Kidz.
• Processed 15 food containers – – that is 310 tons of food (which is 18,260 boxes of food – each one of which were handled at least 3 times – or 3,944,160 meals).
• 6 new Haitian employees were hired covering areas such as partnership facilitator, Hope for Kidz, mechanics and guard duty.

Now THAT is news to celebrate! That is amazing right? How can you not get excited about that! We are so grateful to each of you who have been able to give to our journey and become monthly supporters because it’s YOU who will be allowing us to go and minister there so when we report things once we live there, that will be because of YOU and God working through your family! We look forward to seeing who God has join our ministry family in 2018! Love you all! Here is some of the AMAZING people we know and love already and cannot wait to do life and ministry with there in Haiti!

Love,

The Starkeys

Here goes my first attempt at blogging 😉

While the rest of us in the United States celebrate January 1st as the first day of the new year, an island in the middle of the Caribbean that has captured my heart celebrated their 214th Independence Day this past Monday. This is significant because HaitI is the only country that was established from a successful slave revolt. Haiti was originally a French colony. On January 1, 1804, the first Declaration of Independence was presented and the nation of Haiti was officially formed. To celebrate that momentous occasion, Haitians eat a dish called soup joumou. This soup was considered a “French only soup “ meaning that the African slaves were not allowed to eat this special soup. So when Haiti gained its independence, now all the people of Haiti could eat this soup.

I tried to re-create the soup on January 1 to celebrate with our Haitian brothers and sisters and to teach my boys about the significance that January 1st is, to the Haitian people. It did not turn out like the excellent soup Madanm LaLa made for April and I while we are visiting our future home, but it tasted good so I will roll with it for now.

-Jim