RMI’s Board holds its meetings twice a year. Last week’s meetings were ones that needed celebrating with fireworks! We welcomed 2 new board members. Heather Peterson from South New Jersey is our first-ever woman board member. She is the widow of our recent chairman of the board, John Peterson, who passed away in November of last year. She is very happy to carry on her family’s legacy of involvement with RMI since 1980. We are very honored to have her experience, wisdom, and love for RMI. We also welcomed Dave and Julie Antioho from the Chicago area. Dave is a long-time friend of RMI and was on RMI’s first-ever team in 1979. He and Dan have been friends since that time. He has helped engage 2 churches as sister churches with RMI and has been a staunch supporter of RMI over these years.
Another reason to celebrate was the election of Jeff Lozama as Chairman of the Board. As a Haitian-American, he has brought a wealth of knowledge and perspective to the Board. The board felt that he would be an excellent choice as our chairman, as he is a man of vision, spiritual wisdom, deep appreciation for what RMI is doing in Haiti and the DR, and a great leader in his own right.
Thanks to the internet, we were able to receive live video reports from Benjamin Altema and Benson Joseph, our field leaders in Haiti, and Jim Starkey, our DR field director, as well as Dawn and Andrew Tlucek, who are heading up our Ezra Institute of Leadership Development in the Dominican Republic. The Board enjoyed interacting with them via the video link we had and hearing how the Lord is blessing our work in these two countries.
Mariah Blanco, Hope For Kidz Director, gave an exciting report for Hope for Kidz. She has been working for weeks on a long-awaited project. If you look up your C3 partnership page on RMI’s website, you will see a section titled “Partnership Updates.” After that section, you’ll see a section on HFKz kids who are available for sponsorship. You can set up support for that child directly on the website. This will be a great help to our HFKz coordinators as they promote sponsorships in their churches.
All in all, it was a great Board meeting!
