Touching Lives for Generations to Come

Longtime C3 church, Creekside Community Church (Gainesville, FL) has felt burdened to build up basic educational opportunities in their C3 church, Baraderes, and its district churches for quite awhile.  Many of the district churches are very remote, from small gatherings on nearby islands to the mountains above Baraderes.  In order to do that they needed to strengthen and resource those churches.  Before a school building could be built, they had to build proper church buildings.  So this is what they have done.  Over the past several years they’ve built 3 church buildings and have committed to building a 4th one.  They’ve also built 1 school, committed to building another one and added one room onto a school to store the food for the Hot Lunch Program.   All of this has been done using local labor and under the supervision of RMI’s construction crew.  Way to go Creekside!

These efforts will reverberate not only throughout the region but down through generations to come.

Baraderes Church...the school is on the first floor and the sanctuary is on the second floor.

Riviere Salee Church, funded by the youth of Creekside.

Pederin Church praying with the Creekside team.

Grand Boucan Church’s current meeting place.  This will be the next church to be built.

HFK Child Sponsorship Spotlight: Nedchaida

Meet Nedchaida, a sweet, 7-year-old girl who lives in the Anse a Veau area.  She is in the second grade and receives a school sponsorship through our Hope for Kidz Child Sponsorship Program.

Nedchaida lives out in the country, not in Anse a Veau town proper.  It takes her 45 minutes to walk to school each day (one way).  She usually meets up with other school-mates on the way.  There are 45 children in her 2nd grade class.  Her coursework includes Haitian history and geography, math,  Bible, reading/writing/spelling in Creole,  and French.  Except for her Creole reading books, the books for most subjects are in French (the official educational language of Haiti)  but the students are taught by the teacher in Creole so that they understand.  She is learning to read in Creole from a book called "Reading with a Happy Heart."  Her class is currently learning addition.  She is very involved in the children's group at her church, where they learn Bible verses and sing songs. When I asked her her favorite song to sing, she sang "Father Abraham" for me!  She was very shy during most of our conversation, but when we were done I watched her skipping down the stairs and down the street next to her mother. That made me smile!

Nedchaida is the youngest of 5 children.  Her mother has a very kind smile and expressed how grateful she is for the sponsorship her daughter receives.  When I asked her mother what she did for work, she said she has a garden and  has a "little business" which is pretty typical.  Likely just selling whatever produce grows in their garden or little snacks.  Nedchaida's dad is currently living in the capital, Port au Prince.  It sounds like he has skills as a mason and works when there is a job available.  She helps her mom washing dishes each day.  She loves to play hide and seek and jump rope and she especially loves to play hopscotch!  When I asked her what her favorite meal is her eyes lit up and said "mayi moulen ak sòs pwa!" which is polenta (a cooked corn meal dish) and bean sauce.  Her enthusiastic reply gave her mother a laugh!

I really enjoyed getting to know this little girl and her mother and to see the difference a sponsorship makes in her life.   If you sponsor a child through our Hope for Kidz Program, thank you!  You are making a difference in that child's life and in the life of her family!

Our C3 Partner churches are working hard to secure school sponsorships for children for the 2018-19 school year.  If you would like more information on how to sponsor a child, contact your church's HFK Coordinator or go here.

RMI Turns 30 Years Old

Yep, that’s right.  RMI is 30 years old.  God has done amazing things in and through RMI and our C3 Partnership Program these past 30 years.  Our foundational program, C3 Partnerships, was a vision that started as a seed in the hearts of Herb and Shirley Shoemaker and Dan and Debbie Shoemaker and finally became Reciprocal Ministries International (RMI) in April 1988.  Herb and Shirley ran the stateside administration and Dan and Debbie, along with a handful of Haitian staff, ran the Haiti side.  From that simple beginning of desiring to see the US Church and Haitian Church experience the unity of the Holy Spirit and minister to one another reciprocally, God has raised up RMI as one of the largest missions working in South Haiti with 35 ongoing partnerships, some that are 30 plus years old.  What an amazing tribute to our Lord as we see His faithfulness demonstrated in so many ways over these past 30 years.

RMI’s vision of a church to church partnership has been way ahead of its time.  Today, it is one of the catch phrases that many missions toss around, but RMI leads the way as we continue to develop our C3 Partnership program.  We now have 35 partnerships (with a goal of 100) that are engaged in many different ministries and projects with their partner church and community.  Our emphasis on engaging these partnerships through our 5 point Impact Strategy is enabling our churches to minister through evangelism, discipleship, social compassion, and community development.  This model has provided them with a holistic ministry strategy through which RMI is constantly developing new ways through which our partners can minister into one another’s lives.

Over these past 30 years, God has blessed RMI with incredible staff.  From our staff at our Zanglais Ministry Center that have been with us from the beginning to our latest hires this year, God has proven faithful to provide just who we needed at that time.  We continue to see God’s blessing as we have seen our staff almost triple in the last 10 years to over 45 full-time national staff.  We are excited to see our Haitian staff leading many of our ministries and programs.  RMI has been a role model since its inception in the way it has treated its staff and pushed them into leadership roles.  Rob Thompson, our Haiti Field Director, Benjamin Altema, our Director of Field Operations, and Benson Joseph, our Hope For Kidz Haiti Field Supervisor, continue that tradition as they train and raise up leaders.

And what can we say about the way the Lord has provided the right missionaries right when they were needed?  Today as we look at the 2 families, 1 couple, and 4 single gals on the field, with 2 more families raising funds, we can only thank the Lord for His wonderful provision from where we started with just one couple on the field.

RMI’s second major program, the Hope for Kidz Child Sponsorship Program (HFKz) began in 1996 with a handful of kids and has been growing ever since.  HFKz Director, Barbara Rose, oversees the sponsorship of 2400 kids, a de-worming program impacting 17,000 kids, guiding our “Schools of Excellence” program for our Haitian partner schools, a hot meal program that feeds 8500 kids a day in 21 schools, and a large staff overseeing these programs both in Haiti and the US.

The 2010 earthquake prompted RMI to expand its vision.  In response to the great needs that resulted from that disaster and following hurricanes and floods, programs such as Homes for Haiti where we have provided 123 transitional homes, Water for Health where we have provided over a thousand water filters for families, and Food for Health where we have provided close to 4 million meals last year alone, came into being to help address those needs.  As a result of Hurricane Matthew (2016), Goats 4 Haiti was started and has provided 1500+ goats to date.

We are very grateful to God for the many, many ways He is using RMI to transform lives.  And we are very grateful for all the many supporters and friends of RMI.  Without everyone’s support we would not be where we are today.  We have much to share about where RMI has been and where we are going for the years ahead.  Thank you.  We can’t wait to see what God does and how He’ll grow RMI in the next 30 years.  Celebrate with us!