Blog

Hello World! Amelia Rose Starkey was born April 12 at 9:21 a.m., weighing 6 lbs. 13 oz.  The delivery went fairly smoothly.  April had some issues with high blood pressure resulting in an additional hospital stay but it has been resolved.   After several miscarriages and being told they couldn’t get pregnant again, little Amelia Rose defied the odds.  April had to spend quite a bit of time bedridden, but both she and Amelia made it to the end in good shape.  They are grateful for your prayers and for God’s protection.  The Starkey boys are thrilled with their new sister. Well Done April 1, Don Forrester (Creekside Community Church, Gainesville, FL) heard the words, “well done my faithful servant” as he entered into the presence of his Lord.  Don was one of RMI’s original board members in the late 1980’s where he helped form RMI’s procedures, practices, and policies.  He

RMI’s Haiti staff work with servant’s hearts.  They do their jobs with joy.  They go the extra mile as they work.   Staff jobs include receptionists, data entry, translators, partnership facilitators, administrators, cooks, cleaners, yard work, car, truck, and motorcycle mechanics, garage workers, guards, maintenance workers, and much more.  Much of the work they do is behind the scenes.  They feel called to work for RMI and view it as a ministry to their own people.   Many of them extend that servant’s heart into their home life and serve in various positions in their local church. Benson Joseph, RMI’s Director of Operations, serves as a deacon and is the accountant for the Simon Baptist Church – MEBSH’s largest church.  This means he preaches, reads the scripture in the service, is a Sunday School teacher, is the First Choir president as well as his accounting duties for the church. Frantz Desire, RMI’s

There are some things you may not know about RMI… **Nine months ago the doctor for the Cayes prison, who is also a deacon at the Simon Baptist Church (the church that is the closest to the mission center where RMI’s headquarters are located), came to RMI to request help in feeding the population of the prison.  It is overpopulated and the prisoners’ are malnourished and suffer from many health conditions.  The police’s resources are very minimal, leaving little for providing meals and other amenities for prisoners.  Usually, prisoners rely on family and friends to bring them food from the outside.  Conditions are really rough.   What an opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus! Every month, RMI’s Food for Health Program has been delivering as much food as it can spare.  The 900+ prisoners are getting fed a hot, nutritious meal three times a week.  In fact, when

God is at Work Last year was yet another very difficult year for Haiti.  Teams were canceled due to political insecurity in the country.  Despite times when the RMI Haiti office had to shut down, God enabled the ministry to continue.  Our staff is dedicated, hardworking, and committed to RMI.  They have kept working even in the midst of some tough times.  God has been faithful and supplied the funds to keep RMI running even though teams weren’t able to come.  A special thanks to those who donated to the Haiti Field.  We rejoice in that! C3 Partnerships 170 salvations in our C3 Haitian Sister Churches 210 baptisms in our C3 Haitian Sister Churches 61 rededications 800 Bible/songbooks distributed 579 kid’s Bible distributed 1 church construction 4 churches repaired (earthquake damage) 600 Good News Bibles distributed Hope for Kidz, School Education, and Hot Lunch Program 2,991 children sponsored 14,706 kids

2023 is a new year…what are we looking forward to?  Last year was a doozy.  Not a technical term, but it sure describes what we’ve been through.  From civil unrest in Haiti to hurricanes in Ft. Myers and from canceled teams to the US and the Haiti staff being hit hard by illness. But, yes, we do have quite a bit to look forward to. ~This is the year that RMI enhances its educational programs by starting a post-high school, young adult discipleship and leadership school.  The school is aimed at those young adults who have finished Haitian high school.  It will prepare young people for jobs by teaching basic management, administrative and leadership skills.  Being taught in English will help them hone their language skills.  Courses in Biblical ethics will be required as well as basic Biblical knowledge and discipleship.  We want to give young people, particularly those from

RMI’s national staff are in the same boat as everyone else around them.  How do they find and pay for the food they need to feed their families?  One donor has made a generous donation that has allowed us to give our staff a bonus that helps them deal with things in the immediate future.  The need to augment our staff’s salaries is the focus of our end-of-the-year funding drive. Can you make a generous gift to RMI to make up for the shortfall that resulted from losing another year of teams? The team revenue makes up much of our Haiti field budget.  We need to make up this shortfall so we can meet our end-of-year budget to care for our staff.  Every gift that comes in for staff salaries will go directly toward them.

What does “food insecurity” mean? In a word, starvation.  That word has been used so much over the years, that people have become desensitized and immune to its meaning.  Groups like the UN, Catholic Relief Services, and many news outlets have gone to using the more descriptive term “food insecurity”.  Food insecurity is the limited or unknown availability of nutritional and safe foods for everyone in a household to meet their basic needs.  It exists worldwide to varying degrees.  Haiti’s food insecurity is acute, the worst in this hemisphere. What are the consequences of food insecurity? Without healthy and accessible food adults often become sick, and cannot work and care for their families.  Children are disproportionately affected by hunger; childhood malnutrition has devastating lifelong effects.  Growth can be stunted.  Anemia, causing dizziness, shortness of breath, and fatigue will impact their lives.  It will impact their ability to learn and retain

Wow! Hurricane Ian has come and gone, but the effects will be with us for a long time to come, not only in the area but for our staff as well. I am sure you have seen the news reports of how Ian destroyed much of Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres where our office is located. The real issue is how this has devastated so many families in our area, including our staff. We are thankful that our staff in the US office are safe and unharmed. However, all have suffered damage in one way or another to their homes and properties.  Several had damage to the structure, including water damage. Herb and Shirly Shoemaker had their home flooded with four inches of flood water. Everyone lost power with most going days and some even now not having power. The costs that they have been encountering to prepare for and

Tessa Andrews is an integral part of RMI’s ministry in Haiti. She works primarily as a part of the Hope for Kidz team.  The HFKz team of 8 staff members is led by Hope for Kidz Supervisor, Frantz Desir. Within the Hope for Kidz team, she does a little bit of everything. She makes trips with the team when they go to the schools, takes photos of the kids, and gets their biographies. She edits those photos, translates letters, inputs information into their system, takes videos of kids, and translates those.  She also works on the HFKz Facebook page.  She has already finished her home assignment and is now back in Haiti.  She was able to visit supporters and family.  She visited and spoke at several new churches this year.  God has provided her support needs, for which she is thankful.  Pray for her as she keeps up a hectic

School starts in a matter of weeks in Haiti.  Sponsors are giving regularly meaning that kids are getting their uniforms made, and books and other supplies are being purchased.  The one-year anniversary of the 2021 earthquake is this month (August 14), meaning that many schools that were damaged or destroyed are meeting in very temporary, make-shift classrooms.  Besides destroying the classrooms, the earthquake also damaged or destroyed the schools’ storage depot rooms, where the food was being stored.  Schools that participate in RMI’s Hot Lunch Program are required to store the food that they receive in a closed, secure store room that will keep the food dry and free from 4-footed rodents.  After the earthquake, RMI’s Haiti leadership visited each church and school and made a comprehensive list of everything that was damaged or destroyed.  They saw first-hand the extent of the devastation.  They noted that the majority of the

 As the team from Kimball Evangelical Free Church, (Nebraska) arrived at the church, they saw construction was going on at the church’s school.  This was their first official visit as a Sister Church for the Dagout Baptist Church and their purpose on this visit was to get to know their church on a deeper level (they’d visited before, but not as an official Sister Church).  The community was participating in any way possible.  They saw women carrying water to the barrel that would be used to make cement.  But what really moved their hearts was one young woman who was wearing a t-shirt and skirt with leggings under it and a hard hat.  One of the team members sprung into action and helped her with her job.  Other team members picked up shovels to help stir up some cement.  It was a spontaneous time of working shoulder to shoulder (Zephaniah

The ministry of Centre Lumiere (known to many as the Home Economics Center) is merging with RMI.  This is an opportunity that God was preparing, unknown to us, over the last few months.  The Director of the Centre, Olga Thissen-Lapp, and her husband, Caleb, contacted Dan in April when he was in Haiti and shared with him where they felt God was leading them.  Unknown to them, RMI had long desired to start a Leadership, Training, and Discipleship School to equip young people in computer skills, English, work ethics, and basic finances, as well as disciple them in their walk with the Lord.  We haven’t gone forward with it due to a lack of resources, facilities, and someone to “drive” it.  The merger that the Lapps were seeking includes handing over their facilities to RMI to use as God directs. After seeking counsel from the Centre’s original founders (retired), approval

Antioch Baptist Church, Gainesville, FL is a new C3 partner and were the first team of the year.  Due to issues in Haiti, their visit had to be put off some, but they remained committed to the relationship and God rewarded that.  Their Haitian partner church is Tet Source, situated in a valley in the middle of the southern peninsula.  The team of 8 arrived ready to minister, interact with their brothers and sisters and help repair the back wall of the church which was damaged in the 2021 earthquake.  They found that the Tet Source believers had the same goals.   The team felt that the Tet Source church ministered to them and encouraged them in their walk with the Lord.  They enjoyed playing with the kids and working together as one on the repair project.   They stated that they returned home changed people.  Welcome to the family Antioch!