Pray for Haiti

Haiti is still in turmoil. The causes are many and there are no quick or easy solutions. RMI has had to cancel several teams and our Haiti office has been closed for 10 days. Our missionaries and staff have been safe and have had good supplies of food and water. However, as things have escalated, Saturday morning the US embassy strongly encouraged all US citizens to leave the country as soon as possible. The safety of our missionaries is paramount as well as enabling them to carry out their ministries effectively. At this point, our ministry is paralyzed and the missionaries have been on lockdown in their homes for more than a week.

The decision was made Saturday to evacuate all RMI missionaries as soon as possible. This was accomplished yesterday when Missionary Flights International flew in a DC 3 to the Cayes airport and picked up our missionaries plus several other agencies' missionaries and flew them to the Port-au-Prince airport. [The road to the capital has been blocked by dozens of barricades.] All of them were able to get on commercial airlines to the US and are now safely home. This decision wasn't made lightly - but it was needed not only for the missionaries but to relieve our Haitian leadership from the responsibility of caring for them in a time of crisis.

We will remain in constant contact with our Haitian leadership to continue to assess the situation and, hopefully, the missionaries can head back and teams can resume soon.

Our hearts break for our Haitian brothers and sisters and this dear country. Their hardships are compounded by this crisis. Pray for peace and stability to return to Haiti quickly!

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Val Marie Paper

In 2016, Valerie Woerner committed to tithe 10% of the sales from their company, Val Marie Paper, an internet company that designs and produces various kinds of personal prayer journals, to RMI to feed school children through the Hope for Kidz Hot Lunch Program. God has honored that commitment and in the last three years Val Marie Paper has been able to give over $82,000 to feed 760 school kids each school day as well as help with some school projects. Each journal that is purchased provides meals for 6 kids.

These meals will probably be the only meal they receive all day. Kids who are well nourished learn better. They are not preoccupied with being hungry. They are able to stay awake in class, concentrate on their lessons and thus are able to receive better grades. They are healthier and have more energy.  Being healthier also boosts their immune system resulting in less illnesses and better attendance in school. The meals are chicken flavored rice-based (a staple of a typical Haitian diet) and are packed with the vitamins, protein, and minerals needed for optimal nutrition. In short, having these meals are life changing!

Valerie is not shy about sharing her giving vision, stating, “It’s not worth having a business if giving isn’t built into it. It shouldn’t be something that is just focused on yourself. We should be able to use our resources and steward them the way God is calling us to. It’s our daily obedience to Him.”

Valerie and Tyler Woerner

She has built giving as a part of the DNA of her business. Valerie developed unique, quality prayer journals (www.valmariepaper.com) after she became pregnant with her first child. She realized that she’d only be able to get through it if she prayed quite a bit, but she couldn’t get her thoughts organized. At the time she owned a wedding invitation company and the printer, who printed the invitations, told her that he could print something for her to make it easier, but she’d have to order at least 50. By the time she got a design put together and all the pages the way she wanted and had her first prayer journal printed, it was 2 weeks before her daughter was born. She realized that it made sense that if she struggled with prayer then there were probably other people who struggled in the same way. She shared it with her previous clientele, brides, friends, and family and sold about 100. That first shipment was shipped out 2 weeks after her daughter was born. The orders for the prayer journals kept coming as more people found out about them. It was such a novel, unique idea at the time and people really responded to it. Val Marie Paper was born and has grown exponentially in the last 4 or so years.

She had been giving to a different charity each month but as the business grew, she felt like she could make a bigger impact by giving to a charity that she knew personally and trusted. That is when she turned to RMI, an organization that Valerie had intimate, long-term knowledge of and trusted. RMI is a ministry that had been a part of Valerie’s life since she was a little girl. Her church, Trinity Bible Church (Lafayette, LA), has been partnering with RMI for decades. Her family has sponsored lots of kids over the years and she and her husband, Tyler, have continued this in their own family.  Valerie’s mom, dad, and sister have all visited their Sister Church in Picot, Haiti on mission trips. You can read more about her giving commitment at www.valmariepaper.com/about/giving-fund. Valerie and Tyler hope to visit Haiti soon to see the Hot Lunch Program in action and meet their sponsored children.
What Valerie has done is so inspiring and challenging!

The idea of giving a percentage of sales or profits to support a particular charity is a growing phenomena and businesses are finding it’s a blessing on multiple fronts as it stretches your faith and expands your borders. Have you built charitable giving into the DNA of your company or business? How about consolidating your giving into one place so that you can make a bigger impact? RMI is a ministry that has boots on the ground that you know and trust.

Help us make a bigger impact in Southern Haiti.  What can your business do?