Time is flying by! Can you believe we are two months into our deputation journey already? We won’t lie, it’s been filled with a lot of growth in the patience department. 😉 We are realizing more than maybe any other time in our lives, how dependent we must be on Him and to seek Him daily about this because if not, it can quickly become daunting. However, we’ve also already seen Him work in some really neat ways to encourage us on this journey and for that we are so thankful. We are incredibly blessed to have so many people in our lives that we know are praying for us on this journey. We love every single time He reminds us that HE is the one bringing the money in, not us. He owns it all, and He knows the exact people He is going to use to send us to Haiti.
WHERE ARE WE AT NUMBERS WISE? We are currently at 15% raised for our monthly needs. This means we have 8 awesome families and 2 amazing businesses who have committed to sending in a certain amount each month, to help us do our ministry in Haiti. We need to have 100% of our monthly support raised up before we move so we are thankful for this start and cannot wait to watch it continue to rise. We are needed over there as soon as we can get there, so as soon as we have all our monthly supporters, we will start shipping our things over and preparing the big move.
FUN FACT: (Just dreaming over here 😉 ) If we had 200 people/families commit to $32 a month, we would be fully funded and be able to move and stay there. How awesome is that. Now of course I know that is probably not how it will work, because God has His plans of how He wants to do it but I still think it’s neat to see how MANY hands can come together to do great work! We have supporters all over the board from $10 a month to $500 a month and we are thankful for each and every single one of them!
WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO: We’ve met with around 10 people individually so far, 4 pastors, spoke at our home church and are scheduled to speak at two other churches this coming winter, in the new year! We are starting our Creole studies soon too. Along with wanting to connect with churches to partner with and speak at, we are also looking for small groups, bible study groups & sunday school classes where we can speak at as well so please let us know if you’d like to have us. We also would love to meet one on one with any of you that would like to hear our story, whether it’s over video chat or in person. We have found out from other missionaries that the way missionaries raise up their funds now looks so much different than it did years ago. Years ago it was mainly all through church support, now its almost all through individual families giving as monthly supporters.
OUR STORY: If you would like to watch us share our story of how God called us into the mission field, and you are on Facebook, feel free to follow this LINK to see us share at our home church recently. Start watching around 14 minutes into the video to catch our part.
PRAYER REQUESTS:
- For our family as we start our Creole studies in January. (Jim will be starting more advanced studies since he already has beginner/basic Creole understanding)
- For God to help us prepare our home to sell and know the exact time to sell it.
- For April as she tries to balance homeschooling the boys while doing deputation work.
- For our families and us, for God to continue to prepare our hearts for this journey.
- For wisdom during this whole journey, to know what to do each step of the way.
PLEASE CONSIDER BEING ONE OF OUR MONTHLY SUPPORTERS! We would love to have you as part of our ministry sending team. If you can start supporting us monthly RIGHT NOW, that would help us greatly, as we need that thermometer to rise up to 100% before we can move. IF you just cannot commit to monthly giving right now but you want to help maybe with an end of the year (tax deductible) special gift to help us with our one-time moving costs, please consider that as well. Thank you all so much, truly!
DONATE BY CLICKING HERE
Hope you all have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! May you feel His presence ever so near and be reminded of His great love for YOU. What a personal, loving, faithful God we serve. Our RESCUER, who loves us and wants us even though He doesn’t need us. Emmanuel God with us!
Love,
The Starkeys
To Haiti We Go 