Summer is here and we have a lot of updates to share with you. It’s been a busy, crazy time since our last update around Christmas. The past several months have been unique as we were working around the pandemic and not being able to have teams come in. It was really neat though, to see how God provided and gave wisdom in what to do even when things didn’t look like they normally did for our ministry.
The beginning of the year was a bit calmer in Haiti and we actually were able to have 3 teams come. We would go out for the day to take pictures for our organization and meet the team. Then due to the pandemic, we could no longer have teams the rest of the spring and yet we were still busy praise God. We praise God that even through the pandemic, our Hope for Kidz sponsorship program is still going strong and we are so thankful for the students that are sponsored and able to go to school because of this. If you would like to sponsor a child through our organization, you can check out more information here or ask one of us! https://www.rmibridge.org/hope-for-kidz.html
Jim is a part of RMI’s Suntech team and he has loved being a part of it. When people and churches donate towards a church or school to have a solar system put in, the team goes out and installs and sets it all up for them. Jim has loved seeing the reactions of the people when the power comes on for the first time. Electricity is something we take for granted that the people in Haiti do not have for the most part. This is such a huge blessing to the churches and schools to have for numerous reasons.
RMI wanted to try and connect our Haitian churches with their partnership churches back in the states as best as we could since they couldn’t come down at the time. We already have our partnership facilitators go out and visit the churches every month to get updates and see how they are doing so that we can send those updates to the churches but we wanted to do more. Both sides of the relationships (those in Haiti and those in America) were greatly missing each other and so RMI came up with “Bringing Haiti to America” videos and so due to various factors including very slow internet in Haiti, we are slowly getting these done. However, the response from the churches has been great and they are so thankful to have these videos from their sister church. Dawn, April and Jim go out with various RMI partnership facilitators like Perguens, Frantz, Anderson & Edy! Dawn and April capture the ground footage and all the updates on projects, the school, church and pastor and his family. Jim uses his drone to get overhead footage of the church and school. April then edits the footage into videos that are sent to the churches in America. We also have been doing “Day in the Life” videos and will continue them after furlough. We highlight a RMI Haitian staff member and through the video, people get to know more about them, their life, their work at RMI and their family. It’s been a really neat addition to our Facebook page, so if you haven’t liked RMI’s Fb yet, make sure and do so!
FACEBOOK PAGE LINK FOR RMI: https://www.facebook.com/reciprocalministries
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Our family is doing well for the most part, which we praise God. The boys finished out their school year and did wonderful on their year end testing. Reesie our sweet dog was really sick and we thought we were going to lose her but thanks to so many of you that prayed, we are so glad to report she is well and doing great. In May we added two new fur members to our family. Blizzard and Lemondrop, both bunnies! The boys are smitten with them.
We headed back to the states mid June for a few months of furlough. During this time we are speaking at around 6-7 churches and taking time with family & friends. It’s a great time for us to refresh, rest and share what God has been doing through and in RMI in Haiti this past year! Furlough is actually a really busy time for us with doctor, chiropractor, dentist, and eye appointments we have to cram in, speaking times, and spending as much time as we can with our family and friends…BUT it’s a good busy! It encourages our hearts to spend this precious time with them. We definitely miss our RMI family back in Haiti though during this time!
We would love for you to specifically pray for Haiti right now as their president was just assassinated a few days ago. Please pray for the government leaders in the coming days and elections that will decide who will be the next president. Please pray for the christian Haitian leaders across the country who may be tired and weary but need to continue to be there for their community and church. Pray for wisdom, strength and endurance for them and that they would model Jesus as they walk through these days. Pray for the Haitian families, so much I could say here because they are so dear to our heart, but God knows…so just pray for them to feel His love so deeply!
Thank you friends for your support this past year, our second year in Haiti. With our family learning to do life and ministry in Haiti during a period of time with country turmoil and a world wide pandemic, you will never know how much your prayers mean to us. We especially want to thank those of you that personally reached out with messages, emails or care packages. It touched our hearts that you think of us even when we are far away. God is so good friends, let all of us keep clinging to Him, trusting Him for every step of the way! Praying for you all and thanking God for each of you reading this!
Love,
The Starkeys
To Haiti We Go 