Rain Rain go away...

We have been dealing with a deluge of rain, making travel difficult.  Pray for the rains to subside.

A picture is worth...

"Words once dominated Western culture, but now images are changing everything from our theology and preaching to the way our brains process information."  Shane Hipps, Leadership Summer 2007

"Visualcy?" (credit Andy Crouch)  There are all kinds of pitfalls here I am sure, but I am quite intrigued.  So, here is my sermon for the day...

Rob

Exciting News

Dear Family, Friends & Supporters,

We want to share with you an exciting opportunity!  RMI leadership wants us, as the Haiti Field Director, to have the best resources to better serve the US churches, national church leaders and the RMI missionaries, and to this end, they have requested that we come off the field for 3 months in 2007 and a college semester in 2008 returning to Haiti in late spring.  The goal is to get professional training to provide us with additional tools to enhance our leadership skills.  The RMI leadership is designing a program for our professional and personal enrichment which will include personal mentoring, a series of seminars including spiritual transformation, leadership development, lay counseling training and formal Bible and theology education courses.

We are working with the RMI leadership to put in place a good plan of action to cover the successful operation of the field in our absence.  We have good national and missionary staff that can step into the gap and feel confident that our responsibilities will be able to be fulfilled while we take this hiatus.

There are many details being worked out at this writing. At this point, it looks like we’ll be leaving Haiti on October 3^rd, 2007 to begin this training.  The girls will be coming with us, of course, bringing their school work with them.  It will mean some travel for us, much study, hard work, and a lot of faith.  It’s a new adventure - one that we are very excited about and feel ready for.  It is a huge step of faith as well.  We will need your continued financial support more than ever during these months.  The seminars and Bible college training are costly as well as there will be travel and living expenses to cover.  Equally, we earnestly desire your prayers for us!  We want to make the most of this opportunity.  Pray that the Lord would bring the myriad of details into place, that He would give us peace of mind and clarity of thought as we prepare to leave.

 

Here is our schedule as we see it now:

October 3, 2007 ~ Depart Haiti headed to Florida

October 4, 2007 ~ Leave Florida and head for Texas

October 8, 2007 ~ Arrive in Texas – Savana & McKenna will be staying with family until the end of October. This will give us an opportunity to get the first two weeks of training done and get settled into being “students” again.

October 10, 2007 ~ Billy & Debbie leave Texas and drive to Atlanta, Georgia

October 14-28, 2007 ~ First two weeks of training

October 28 ~ Savana & McKenna fly to Atlanta to join Billy & Deb

October 30 – Nov. 16 ~ Next 3 weeks of training

November 17 - 25 ~ Thanksgiving break we will be with friends in Cape May, New Jersey

November 26 – Dec. 14 ~ Last 3 weeks of training in Georgia

Dec. 18 - ? ~ Travel to Dallas, Texas for Christmas with family

January ? ~ Begin classes at Columbia International University (CIU) in Columbia, South Carolina

Late May ~ Return to Haiti

A note from the RMI Vice President of International Development:

It is respectfully requested that inquiries concerning other communication with Billy and Debbie regarding their response, progress or frustration level be limited to their immediate supervisor and the RMI President. They need to remain isolated from all outside distractions from family (except children), friends, and fellow workers, superiors in mission and church as much as possible for maximum impact to be accomplished. This is especially true from October 14 through December 18, 2007. All must recognize that participants will be fully engaged from morning until night with classes, meetings and home assignments that require full concentration. The week of October 14-20, it is critical that no contacts should transpire from any source or originate from them to the outside unless it is brief regarding their children. They should plan in advance not to be producing blogs,  be responding to email, sending email or receiving incoming calls about work on the field or about anything else, unless from the President of RMI from October 14 through October 29. From October 30-December 18, extremely limited communication to or from Billy and Debbie must be observed.  We do not believe this to be necessary during the semester planned at CIU. They will be able to breathe from November 17 through November 25 for Thanksgiving break and later for a Christmas break. Some assignments will need to be accomplished over these holidays.

This legalistic sounding statement is full of love even though it appears to be written by a hard nosed lawyer sitting on nails. I apologize for legalistic language but believe this is such an important venture for Billy and Debbie and an expensive investment that every care must be taken to assure their success.

Coreano Newsletter available...

Enrique and Chrissie Coreano just sent out their most recent e-newsletter.  If you want to join their mailing list, visit their website at www.coreanofamily.com.

Rob

A final note on our weekend in Columbia, SC...We were also able to visit the Coreano's home church while they were at CIU, North Trenholm Baptist Church.  Dan was able to say a few words and a final prayer for both of their Sunday a.m. services as well as was generously given the whole Sunday School class time to share at the Coreano's Young Couples Sunday School class.  This was followed by a great Mexican meal at a restaurant with most of the folk from NTBC that recently went to Guatemala.  NTBC is a new sister church and they just had their first visit in June!  They shared their experiences, what impressed them the most as well as their photos and some funny stories.  We really enjoyed spending time with them.

Ministry Trip to CIU

Dan and I are back in the office after a 6 day ministry trip.  We attended homecoming at Columbia International University (our alma mater, class of 1980) in Columbia, South Carolina.  It was a fun weekend.  This year they hosted a reunion of the school's singing group, True Life Company, that represented CIU in the 1970's.  Dan sang and played trumpet for TLC for 2 years while he was a student.  True Life Company members sang and provided the worship for all the different meetings and venues that took place this weekend.   It was great as we re-connected with classmates and friends, most of whom we hadn't seen for more than 20 years.  Frank and Kay Fry, RMI's VP of International Development, were there as well.  Frank was TLC's producer in the early 1970's and Kay played violin.  Here, they are chatting with CIU president, Dr. Bill Jones.  We were able to share with quite a few people about RMI and its ministries.  We also made some significant contacts that will help us within the administration of RMI, possibly in the area of providing counseling for missionary staff. 

 

We were surprised to meet 2 CIU alumni from our own area, Ft. Myers!  We plan on getting together in the near future and see how we can enhance each other's ministries.  If nothing else, we will enjoy the fellowship of fellow CIU folks.

 

On a personal note, we were able to spend time with Deb's mom while we were there since that is where we stayed.  We also had a brief time with Deb's sister, Marti and her husband, Frank Bedell (CIU's Director of Development).

 

Dawn is doing well.  She is a junior at Evangelical Christian School in Ft. Myers.  She is having a blast playing varsity volleyball for ECS.  The team is a state championship team and are doing very well.  As a 2A school, they are beating many 5A schools in the area!  Her position is middle blocker (for those of you who are volleyball savvy) and at 5'11", she has a good vertical jump on her that helps her do a fairly good job!

 

Devon is living and working in Dallas.  Dan saw him recently and was able to spend some time with him.  He's doing well and we are proud of him being able to maintain a good Christian witness in his work environment. 

 

Oh, also, be looking for the link to our new personal blog!  We hope to have it up and running soon.  I know, I know, we should have done it quite a while ago, but we are old dogs learning all these new tricks!

Guatemala Pictures: Part 2

   If you didn't see the first post, scroll down!  You can also see all the pictures at www.robandbecky.com/family/pictures.htm (you will need to scroll down to find the Guatemala pictures).

 

Carrie and Susan setting up the army cots in the church.

Julie helped me organize the pharmacy the first day.  The drugs were organized on 2 army cots.  We had more than what you see, I just only put out a few bottles of each thing.

Chrissy, RMI missionary and a nurse, and Carol at the first station of medical clinic doing triage: Checking vital signs and getting the patients chief complaint.

Dr's Susan and Trevor seeing patients.

We made sure to pray or present the gospel to each patient that came thru before they got their medications.  Here Julie and RMI missionary, Brandon, are sharing.

  Here's me counseling a patient on how to take their medications.  I had a Spanish translator, Alexis, but the pastor of our sister church, Javier, was often translating the Spanish into Mam.  many of the people are illiterate, so we had pictures to remind them how to take their medications.  It was important to make sure they understood before they left.

   

Carrie Jumped right in the kitchen as helped some of the ladies prepare meals.  Julia is on the left and Delphina on the right.

All the babies are carried like this on backs!  The ladies just go about their work.  Older siblings often carried their younger siblings like this on their backs as well.

 

There is going to have to be a Part 3!

Becky

Guatemala Pictures: Part 1

I have been busy since I got back from my trip to Guatemala!  Sorry I haven't posted pictures sooner!  You can see all the pictures I took here www.robandbecky.com/family/pictures.htm and go to the Guatemala album.  Here are a few from the first few days of the trip:

Below is a view from the roof balcony of the RMI guesthouse in Xela, about a 5 hours drive from Guatemala City. 

We were relieved to get to such a comfortable place after such a long day of travel.

Saturday we spent at the RMI guesthouse reorganizing our supplies for the trip out to the aldea (village) the next day.  In the afternoon we went to the market in Xela to get some last minute supplies.  We also went to purchase a new skirt and top as a gift for our sister church pastors wife. 

Below is just one picture of the colorful market.

Julie and I had to get a picture taken with the vegetables at market-- look at that head of cauliflower!  Huge! 

All the vegetables in the regions were monstrous! (And all sold in the open air market or off the side of the road)  The large produce is due to the volcanic soil prevalent in the region.

On our way to the Aldea we stopped at a lookout by the side of the road and snapped a group picture!  This over looks Comitancillo and was about 30 minutes from out sister church.

 

Check out this chicken bus! 

The roads from Xela to our sister church in Chipel were steep and mostly dirt roads.

 

We've arrived at our sister church!  The van can't drive the road that leads to the church, so we walk there, about a 1/2 mile?.  A group from the church-- lots of kids-- meets us at the bottom of the road and walks up with us.

A picture of our sister church.  So much ministry happened in that building that week!

Need I say more?

I'll send another batch in the next few days of the rest of the trip!

Becky

Pray for Dan, Debbie, Frank and Kay...

They will be attending homecoming ceremonies at their Alma Mater, Columbia International University (formerly Columbia Bible College) in Columbia, SC.  While enjoying the festivities and catching up with old friends, they will be representing and sharing all about RMI.  They left today, Sept. 9 and return home Sept 17.

Rob

New Receipt..

If you have donated very recently, you may be one of the first to see our newly designed receipt.  We are very excited about all the upgrades and changes around here recently!  If you haven't donated, then I guess you will miss out on seeing the receipt!  Now there is motivation for giving (wink wink)!

Rob

Sweat and Tears...

Kingdom work.  It is why we are here. 

When kingdom work gets tough, my first response is to internalize, stomp my foot and get frustrated.  It is easy for me to forget that we are constantly being refined (as long as we are walking with him).  It is so easy for things to get out of perspective.  Refiner's Fire.  You know the song.  My heart's one desire?  Yes or No.  In the midst of it all, I am being refined to be a purer more able servant.  It is easy to get discouraged.  We are here to see Jesus glorified and his kingdom further established, not ourselves or our own.

God is at work friends.  Are you involved in kingdom work?

Rob

Hurricane Felix in Guatemala?

Here is a quote form our missionary in Guatemala...

"Well, don't worry too much as Felix has been down graded to a tropical depression.  We have received advisories from the US embassy that we should expect heavy rainfall.  So far, it is a beautiful sunny day today.  So, we will wait and see.  The rain is expected to start here sometime tonight through Thursday. 

Thanks for the prayers and we will let you know what else happens.

God Bless,

Chrissie"

Rob

McGregor Baptist Home Safely from Guatemala...

Our team from McGregor Baptist Church visiting their church in Chipel, Guatemala has arrived back home safely.  Here is an excerpt from an email we received...  One of the team members said "God truly blessed us in so many ways as we grew in our love for our Sister Church Members who served us so preciously!"

Praise the Lord.

Rob

Hurricane Dean

As I understand it, the church members at Port a Piment came through the hurricane with no loss of life. They had several gardens that were completely distroyed and there were a few animals that were killed. There were quite a few houses that received damage too.

This is just a quick update on the church at Port a Piment.

Pastor Yvon Vertue

I have gotten some info on the new pastor for the Port a Piment Church.

His name is a Pastor Yvon Vertue. Pastor Vertue is married with 3 children. They have 1 boy and 2 girls. His wife's name is Benita Vertue.

Pastor Vertue studied in Borlosse School in Port-au-Prince and has been working for MEBSH as a pastor for 19 years. He has pastored 5 churches. The last church he pastored was in Bonn Finn where there is a big hospital.

Pastor Vertue sends his greetings and wants you to know that he is eager to work with RMI and the 2nd Cape May Baptist Church in the siter church relationship.

Pastor Letter

I just received this letter from Pastor Daniel Eliassaint. This is his farewell letter as he has left the church to serve in another area of Haiti. As soon as I can, I will post an introductory letter from the new pastor at Morancy.

August 14th, 2007


From : Pastor Daniel Eliassaint.
To : RMI’s Director and Staff.


Dear brothers.

I greet you in the name of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The reason I write this letter to you is to inform you that I am not serving as Pastor of the Morency church at all because the Committees of MEBLH sent me to another church in Anse-dhainault. I will leave Morency at the end of August.

I would like to say thank you to all the RMI staff for the good work they did in Morency while I was there as Pastor. A special thank to the Director of RMI Mr. Billy Moses for his work and the way he took care of me as Director of RMI. I hope that God will protect you in the work that he gives you to do.

I will pray for you and I hope you’ll do the same for me.

May the Lord who has all the power send his blessing upon you?

Pastor Daniel Eliassaint

Lievre Baptist Church

I received this letter from the Baptist Church in Lievre. Please share it with those interested in your sister church program in Haiti.

Lièvre Baptist Church.

August14th, 2007.

From: Lievre Baptist Church.
To : Lakeline Church.

Dear brothers and sisters.

I greet you in the name of our savior Jesus Christ. I‘m very happy to write you today just to share with some important things about our church.

Our church is working well with the blessings of God. As spiritual activity, we have a service in the church every Tuesday morning. We always have bible study every Thursday night. Each month, we have a meeting with all the pastors in the district and a meeting with all the members every month.

This month we will have revival in the church from August 9th – 12th. We had evangelism from house to house where we talked to 100 people and they accepted Jesus as their personal Savior. We would like to ask you to pray for those people so that they stay in the gospel of Christ. We will have a day of service for the youth in the entire district and finally we will have a convention for entire membership on August 24th.

We would like to say thank you for the support you gave the school so that they will have a good year. We had about 80% of students pass the exam this year. We ask you to please pray for the school as we will open it on September 10th.

Once again we greet you and say thank you for everything you do for us in Lièvre Baptist Church. We want to let you know that you are always in our thought and our prayers.

May God bless you and your family?

For the committee: Pastor Pierre Philistin Dieu dilème.
Michel Moreau.
Luckner Lapierre.

Dame Marie Church letter

This is a letter I received from Pastor Mentor and the church members at the Dame Maire Baptist Church. Please share it with your members that are interested.

From: The Baptist Church at Dame-Marie

August7th, 2007

To: Rev. Guy Glass and all the members that were here with us in Dame-Marie last July.

Dear Pastor Glass.

All the members of The Dame-Marie Baptist Church, and all the deacons, the women groups, the staff of the teachers of the school of Dame-Marie joined together with me and my family to greet all of you in the precious name of our savior Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope that your trip back home to the State went well without any difficulty. I hope that all the members that were here with team in Dame-Marie returned to their families safely and with lot of joy. The days that we passed together here are still fresh in my mind. From all the community of Dame-Marie for good time of blessing we say thank you to God for that. I bless the name of the Lord because he gave you a sincere love and let you come here in Haiti for the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks again to God who put in the heart of the members of Calvary Baptist to work in partnership with Dame-Marie church in Haiti as two sister churches. Keep praying for one another.

All the community of Dame-Marie Baptist church meet together to say thank you for all the gifts you brought for the church. The cookies that you left for the ladies have been received with a lot joy. The gifts that you gave to the widows were excellent and we will never forget that. Thank you for the sound system you gave for the church. We continue to pray for you and your church so that God will allow you accomplish the big project that you have of installing an elevator. As you know all the money, gold, and diamonds are God’s. I’m sure God is able to make this happen in His time.

My wife and I, and all the members of Dame-Marie Baptist Church are very happy to continue working with you in the relationship that God between both churches for the glory of the Lord. The deacons and the members are in prayer for the big project we have in front of us. I hope that God will provide money so we can begin building the new parsonage.

From August 19th to 26th we will have a week of evangelism in the community of Dame-Marie. We hope to win many souls for Jesus Christ. Finally I would like to ask you to say hello to your wife for me. I am looking forward to meeting her some day.

I send a greeting to all the brothers and sisters that were here with us last July. Dear Pastor Glass I charge you to greet for me all my brothers and sisters that I have met this year in Dame-Marie. At the end, I would like to ask you to pray for RMI board in Haiti especially, Director Billy Moses, Jules Gedna and Pastor Jean Chery so that they work together in love and patient for the glory of God. We hope that brother Daniel Shoemaker will continue to work under the power of God for the promotion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere RMI is working around the world. I also pray for you so that you can improve your Creole better day by day.
I leave you with the peace of God.

Sincerely,

Pastor Evelt Mentor.

Cance Church Letter

This is a letter that I received from Pastor Borel. Please share it with those interested in your church.

Cance Baptist Church.

July 28th, 2007.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Great Valley Presbyterian Church.

I greet you in the name of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I write this letter to inform you about our church here in Cance. I would like to know how everything is going for you in the states.

Here in Cance everything is doing well spiritually and socially so far. Last July we received a large amount of Missionaries from Port-au-Prince. They came here for a week of service. They did an evangelism service, they prayed with all the sick people and finally they had a prayer service. For our project, we had a large part of the wall done too.

My family and I are doing very well with the presence of the Lord. I would like to let you know that I am no longer the pastor of Cance Baptist Church. Yes, my work in Cance church is over. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers and I will pray for you too so that we can be together in the eternity with God.

May God bless you?

Pastor Joseph Borel Gènestè.

Les Anglais Professional School

I received the following note from the committee for the professional school at Les Anglais. If you would like to help them out with the school, my suggestion is that you give to a professional school general fund in the same way that you give funds to the church general fund or the school general fund. We could set up this same type of fund for the high school also. I know they have asked for support of the highschool also. Please see the note below.

CDPDA/MEBSH.

CENTER OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF LES ANGLAIS THAT WORK WITH MEBSH

Last February 2007, all the pastors of the district of Les Anglais worked with Marc Dieussuel Jean Pierre Pastor of les Anglais Baptist Church The formed a committee for the Professional School of les Anglais. These committees are responsible to help the school work better in the community. The school has 1 year since it start working.


Here are the committee members:
1- Marc dieusseul Jean Pierre : President Les Anglais Baptist church.
2- Mr. Robert Telisca : President Les Anglais Baptist Church.
3- Ms. Esperance Dieusseul : V-President Chardinniere Baptist Chur ch. 4- Rev Jacques L Pascal : Secretary Chardoniere Baptist Church.
5- Rev Esbert Francois : 2cd Secretary Colse Baptist Church.
6- Rev Germeil Wilfrid : Treasurer Boco Baptist Church.
7- Rev Genais Desir : Member Bousquette Baptist Church.
8- Rev Berice Roberto : Member Berault Baptist Church.
9- Mr. Etolus Belgarde : Member Boco Baptist Church.
10- Mr. Mondesir Badieu. : Member Colse Baptist Church.
11- Mr. Beauzil Julio : Member Les Anglais’s Baptist Church.
12- Michel Emmanuel : Member Bousqettte Baptist Church.
13- Alcindor Dieufête : Director Les Anglais Baptist Church.


On April5th, 2007, the committee of the school met with the director Mr. Alcindor Dieufête for the first time to hear how the school is going so far. According to the director they had 16 students in the school. It was the Mason section. Each student has to pay $100 H for the entry fees and $40 H per month.

This year, we wish to add to more sections to the school. They will be Carpentry and Iron work that includes welding work. We gave out many applications in the community for those who are interested in going to school. So we hope we will have enough students to open the new sections. As you can understand the amount I received from the students isn’t enough to buy materials and pay teachers. So the committee of the School is counting on your prayers that God will help.

We will have 7 teachers for those 3 sections. We don’t know where we are going to find the money to start the school in September, but we would to open it anyway.

Thank you very much for your kind consideration.