Blog

Haiti is in the midst of a multi year drought.  The people are suffering.  Crops are dying.  Rivers are dry.  Wells are dry.  Rain is rare. It’s bad. For RMI, it is also proving difficult.  This week, our cisterns at our Zanglais Retreat and Training Center ran dry.  Again.  We use this facility for all of our teams, leadership seminars, and outside groups. It’s VERY dry.  Our well has been dry for a number of years.  A year of so ago we did some work to more efficiently collect rain water.  It helped.  Even though it seldom rains, we need to do all we can to collect it when it does.  Building additional water storage capacity may be the only solution, but it will cost us approximately $25,000 to do so.  This is about $24,999 more than we have. We’ve talked to the experts.  They tell us drilling a another

Thursday was moving day for the Joel and Laura Sutton.  Cite Lumiere (near Cayes) is where RMI’s Haiti office and facilities are located and is also where our missionaries live.  But housing there is maxed out (many other missionaries live there as well).  So RMI  has rented a building in the local village of Simon, which is about 2-3 minutes from RMI’s center of operations.  The building provides 2 apartments, 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs.  The Suttons are in the upstairs apartment.  We’re thankful for the teams, missionaries and RMI staff members who pitched in to tile, paint and help finish the inside so it would be ready for them.  The pictures tell the tale of moving – there were many hands helping.  Did you notice what the back of their RMI shirts say? “Serving with Passion”  That’s what our staff do! Joel and Laura are enjoying being in the

Thursday was moving day for the Joel and Laura Sutton.  Cite Lumiere (near Cayes) is where RMI’s Haiti office and facilities are located and is also where our missionaries live.  But housing there is maxed out (many other missionaries live there as well).  So RMI  has rented a building in the local village of Simon, which is about 2-3 minutes from RMI’s center of operations.  The building provides 2 apartments, 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs.  The Suttons are in the upstairs apartment.  We’re thankful for the teams, missionaries and RMI staff members who pitched in to tile, paint and help finish the inside so it would be ready for them.  The pictures tell the tale of moving – there were many hands helping.  Did you notice what the back of their RMI shirts say? “Serving with Passion”  That’s what our staff do! Joel and Laura are enjoying being in the

Thursday was moving day for the Joel and Laura Sutton.  Cite Lumiere (near Cayes) is where RMI’s Haiti office and facilities are located and is also where our missionaries live.  But housing there is maxed out (many other missionaries live there as well).  So RMI  has rented a building in the local village of Simon, which is about 2-3 minutes from RMI’s center of operations.  The building provides 2 apartments, 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs.  The Suttons are in the upstairs apartment.  We’re thankful for the teams, missionaries and RMI staff members who pitched in to tile, paint and help finish the inside so it would be ready for them.  The pictures tell the tale of moving – there were many hands helping.  Did you notice what the back of their RMI shirts say? “Serving with Passion”  That’s what our staff do! Joel and Laura are enjoying being in the

The RMI International Office recently experienced some (good) growing pains.  With the adding of 2 new staff members (John and Joanne Miner, April 13, 2015), one very pressing issue was apparent…where were we going to put them?  Our office in Lehigh Acres, FL is a modest place and has been adequate up until now.  For various reasons the option of moving wouldn’t work for us.  After receiving the blessing of our landlord, we decided to make changes to our current office.  Essentially we played musical offices, moving people around to make better use of the space we had and to provide better collaboration between departments.  The front area was then divided into 2 separate office spaces.  But the most significant change was turning the garage into a conference room and integrating it into the main part of the office. We did most of the work ourselves and are thankful that

The RMI International Office recently experienced some (good) growing pains.  With the adding of 2 new staff members (John and Joanne Miner, April 13, 2015), one very pressing issue was apparent…where were we going to put them?  Our office in Lehigh Acres, FL is a modest place and has been adequate up until now.  For various reasons the option of moving wouldn’t work for us.  After receiving the blessing of our landlord, we decided to make changes to our current office.  Essentially we played musical offices, moving people around to make better use of the space we had and to provide better collaboration between departments.  The front area was then divided into 2 separate office spaces.  But the most significant change was turning the garage into a conference room and integrating it into the main part of the office. We did most of the work ourselves and are thankful that

The RMI International Office recently experienced some (good) growing pains.  With the adding of 2 new staff members (John and Joanne Miner, April 13, 2015), one very pressing issue was apparent…where were we going to put them?  Our office in Lehigh Acres, FL is a modest place and has been adequate up until now.  For various reasons the option of moving wouldn’t work for us.  After receiving the blessing of our landlord, we decided to make changes to our current office.  Essentially we played musical offices, moving people around to make better use of the space we had and to provide better collaboration between departments.  The front area was then divided into 2 separate office spaces.  But the most significant change was turning the garage into a conference room and integrating it into the main part of the office. We did most of the work ourselves and are thankful that

The container has been packed and the tickets have been bought – there’s no turning back!  When they loaded the container with their belongings at the end of May, their commitment to serve in Haiti became even more real.  Lee and Tina Nunemaker (all 4 boys and Tina’s parents too) brought their household goods to RMI’s office in Ft. Myers, FL where they assisted in the loading of the container.  It was hot, sweaty work.  First they unloaded their rental truck then transferred it all to the container.  In addition to their things, supplies and equipment for RMI missionaries and ministries were loaded as well as items that had been sent by several C3 Partners.  It was like putting a giant puzzle together…one that took 2.5 days to do! Everything made it on there, including the 28 tires, 5 pallets of prepackaged and boxed food aid, 3 4 wheelers and

The container has been packed and the tickets have been bought – there’s no turning back!  When they loaded the container with their belongings at the end of May, their commitment to serve in Haiti became even more real.  Lee and Tina Nunemaker (all 4 boys and Tina’s parents too) brought their household goods to RMI’s office in Ft. Myers, FL where they assisted in the loading of the container.  It was hot, sweaty work.  First they unloaded their rental truck then transferred it all to the container.  In addition to their things, supplies and equipment for RMI missionaries and ministries were loaded as well as items that had been sent by several C3 Partners.  It was like putting a giant puzzle together…one that took 2.5 days to do! Everything made it on there, including the 28 tires, 5 pallets of prepackaged and boxed food aid, 3 4 wheelers and

The container has been packed and the tickets have been bought – there’s no turning back!  When they loaded the container with their belongings at the end of May, their commitment to serve in Haiti became even more real.  Lee and Tina Nunemaker (all 4 boys and Tina’s parents too) brought their household goods to RMI’s office in Ft. Myers, FL where they assisted in the loading of the container.  It was hot, sweaty work.  First they unloaded their rental truck then transferred it all to the container.  In addition to their things, supplies and equipment for RMI missionaries and ministries were loaded as well as items that had been sent by several C3 Partners.  It was like putting a giant puzzle together…one that took 2.5 days to do! Everything made it on there, including the 28 tires, 5 pallets of prepackaged and boxed food aid, 3 4 wheelers and

We are often asked how people can pray for missionaries.  “God bless the missionary” is not an effective, informed prayer.  However knowing specific needs or situations enables people to be both effective and knowledgeable.  One specific prayer for cross-cultural missionaries is for their adjustment to the new and different culture in which they find themselves.  This applies to both new missionaries as well as “long-termers”. There are 4 stages of missionary life: Fun – This is the “honeymoon” stage.  When they first arrive on the field everything is new, bright, shiny, exciting, exhilarating…it’s FUN.  The nationals can do no wrong, their job / ministry is perfect, they love the food, their neighbors, the sounds and the smells.  Everything is wonderful. Fight – After the honeymoon is over, reality starts to rear its ugly head.  Things have lost their luster and the missionaries start to feel weighted down.  The nationals do

We are often asked how people can pray for missionaries.  “God bless the missionary” is not an effective, informed prayer.  However knowing specific needs or situations enables people to be both effective and knowledgeable.  One specific prayer for cross-cultural missionaries is for their adjustment to the new and different culture in which they find themselves.  This applies to both new missionaries as well as “long-termers”. There are 4 stages of missionary life: Fun – This is the “honeymoon” stage.  When they first arrive on the field everything is new, bright, shiny, exciting, exhilarating…it’s FUN.  The nationals can do no wrong, their job / ministry is perfect, they love the food, their neighbors, the sounds and the smells.  Everything is wonderful. Fight – After the honeymoon is over, reality starts to rear its ugly head.  Things have lost their luster and the missionaries start to feel weighted down.  The nationals do

We are often asked how people can pray for missionaries.  “God bless the missionary” is not an effective, informed prayer.  However knowing specific needs or situations enables people to be both effective and knowledgeable.  One specific prayer for cross-cultural missionaries is for their adjustment to the new and different culture in which they find themselves.  This applies to both new missionaries as well as “long-termers”. There are 4 stages of missionary life: Fun – This is the “honeymoon” stage.  When they first arrive on the field everything is new, bright, shiny, exciting, exhilarating…it’s FUN.  The nationals can do no wrong, their job / ministry is perfect, they love the food, their neighbors, the sounds and the smells.  Everything is wonderful. Fight – After the honeymoon is over, reality starts to rear its ugly head.  Things have lost their luster and the missionaries start to feel weighted down.  The nationals do