March & July 2017
March 2017
The past few months have been very busy at Missions in Haiti. We were stateside for the Holidays and during that time we gathered essential supplies that we loaded onto a container and shipped to the House of Compassion. Thank you to everyone who provided funds, supplies, clothing, etc. and to those who helped us load out the container in Tulsa!
In January, David Brimm, Pastor of Bethel Chapel in Granite City, Illinois, brought a work group/ministry team to the House of Compassion. The team installed new plumbing in the school's restrooms and in the new school office, did a lot of maintenance repairs and held much needed revival services at Bon Espoir Church each evening. We kept the team busy!
The week of February 27 – March 3 we held our annual “Mardi Gras Crusade” with our Pastor Darrell Meadow from Westside Holiness Church in Claremore, OK and Alicia's Father, Mike McCrate. It was an amazing week, Brother Darrell brought us anointed, timely messages each evening and many who had grown cold in their walk with Jesus were revived, refreshed and renewed. It was a week of rededication. Richard did a great job interpreting during two nights of the Crusade and Jude and Nancy did a great job with the music ministry every night.
Our three young ladies, Yanick, Miriam and Adline are doing very well at Bible School in the U.S. Miriam made the Dean's Honor Roll this past semester! We are very proud of all three of them. We plan to return stateside at the end of April to pick up the three girls, do some itinerating and then bring them back to Haiti to work with us during the summer months.
We really appreciate our loyal partners; there is no way we could do our work here in Haiti without your prayers and financial support. We needed to purchase several big ticket items and load them on the container we shipped in December. The diesel generator at Bon Espoir Church was 10 years old and was becoming a maintenance nightmare. Several offerings designated “purchase new generator” came in and we are enjoying the new trouble-free generator! We also purchased two additional sets of solar panels and we now have enough solar generation capacity to run our buildings during the day and to recharge the batteries that provide electricity through the nighttime hours. Solar power is a huge blessing! We have plenty of free sunshine here in Haiti and the savings using solar power compared to buying electricity from the Haitian electric company are huge.
We downloaded, printed and shipped a two year supply of the school workbooks that Alicia and Jude created for our Haitian Christian School grades 1-4. Now we are working on getting the next grade levels workbooks downloaded and printed. If you would like to help with the workbook project, $20.00 per-year will provide a complete set of seven workbooks for one student for the school year.
Please keep Missions in Haiti and Haiti in your prayers. As you may recall, the Southern part of Haiti was devastated last fall by Hurricane Matthew and that area is still in a disaster. Recovery has been very slow and the people affected are still suffering tremendously.
Haiti elected a new President in February and so far the transition has been fairly smooth. Everyone in Haiti is waiting to see what the new President will be able to accomplish. Hopefully he will take immediate measures to stabilize the Haitian currency which has been in free fall, making it more difficult than ever for people to survive as their Gourdes buy less and less.
This past November, Alicia released a book that she wrote about her experiences while on the Mission Field here in Haiti, about the kidnapping of Davy, Hannah and Miriam back in 2005 and how the Lord brought them back safely to us within 24 hours. The book is titled “Remember” and it is available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions. If you are not an Amazon user, you may order your copy directly from Alicia. Please send $10.00 plus $1.00 to cover postage and handling to; Remember - C/O Alicia Lloyd, P.O. Box 2996, Claremore, OK 74018. Don't forget to provide the address you want the book mailed to. I believe this book will be a blessing to you.
Thanks again for your prayers and for your financial support. May God richly bless.
July 2017
While we were stateside during the month of May, we attended a Missions Conference, a Camp Meeting, Revival services and we did some itinerating. We also travelled to Export, Pennsylvania and picked up our three Bible School students, Miriam, Yanick and Adline so they could return to Haiti with us for the summer. We enjoyed seeing old friends and making new friends.
We returned to Haiti on June 3rd and went right to work making preparations for the commencement ceremony for the first class to graduate from our Haitian Christian School. While several students have graduated from our ACE English School, this is our first Haitian School graduation. Haiti requires sixteen years of education, three years of pre-school and kindergarten, six years of grade school and seven years of high school to graduate.
As our student body progressed we added the next higher class each year for the past several years and last year we added the 13th and final grade in our high school. We are very proud of our first graduating class, 23 of our students completed the required 16 years and graduated. Now, our graduates will be required to take a test provided by the Haitian Government and upon passing the exam they will receive an official Haitian diploma. Going forward, Good Hope Christian School should have a graduating class each year.
We also had our kindergarten graduation, one of the biggest events in a Haitian's life! Typically, the graduate's family will go all out celebrating their child's graduation from kindergarten. The Good Hope Church is always packed for kindergarten graduation and this gives us a chance to present God's plan of Salvation to Haitians who do not regularly attend church. I thank the Lord for this opportunity.
Jonas Charles, one of our 2017 Graduates, has lived with us here at the House of Compassion for 14 years. Jonas came to us when he was five years old. Jonas has matured into a fine young man who is gifted with mechanical skills that are rare here in Haiti. Jonas has become our handyman, he takes care of plumbing, electrical and maintenance issues here at Missions in Haiti. Jonas has taken a huge load off my shoulders. We are looking for a good Haitian trade school for Jonas to attend this fall so that he can further develop his natural abilities. We are grateful for Jonas!
Summer months at Missions in Haiti are very busy as we make preparations for the next school year which starts September 4th. Getting the curricula ready for our 400 students and doing routine maintenance on our facilities are huge projects. We are looking forward to what God has in store for the 2017-2018 school year.
This past April we celebrated our 19th year of full-time ministry here in Haiti. It is difficult to believe that we are well into our 20th year, time has flown by. Looking back, we are amazed and awed by the great things that God has accomplished in Haiti through Missions in Haiti. We couldn't have done it without the Lord and without your prayers and your support of this work.
In May, Alicia and I celebrated our 20th Wedding Anniversary. I thank the Lord for Alicia, she is an amazing lady who has been by my side every step of the way. Alicia married me 20 years ago knowing that we would be moving to Haiti to answer God's call. We have traveled many, many miles together and we have had some great times and we experienced a lot of heartbreak like the 2010 earthquake which killed an estimated 100,000 to 160,000 people.
This August marks the 10th Anniversary of the completion of the House of Compassion. After 10 years of 45 – 50 people living in this house, it needs a lot of routine maintenance and a fresh coat of paint! Jonas has been working on repainting and it is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for a place!
Sister Kay Applebee and Sister Jessica Hill joined us June 8th – June 15th for a 3 day ladies meeting. All the ladies who attended had a great time of fellowship, doing crafts and Christian teaching and fellowship. It was a great time of encouragement.
On August 24, Miriam, Yanick and Adline will be returning to Free Gospel Bible Institute for the 2017 – 2018 school year. Miriam and Yanick made the Dean's Honor Roll last semester and they will graduate next spring. We are proud of these three young ladies, they have been a real blessing to us this summer working alongside us here in Haiti. Several of our partners have asked us what it costs to send our kids to Full Gospel Bible Institute. The tuition is $800.00 per-semester plus the expense involved with travelling from Haiti to Pennsylvania. If you would like to be part of preparing these young Haitians to work in the ministry here in Haiti, I know the Lord will richly bless you for your support. Please keep these three girls in your daily prayers.
Looking ahead, we plan to ship a supply container from Tulsa at the end of December. This is always a huge expense, buying supplies, transporting the container from Tulsa to Haiti, getting the container through Haitian Customs, etc.
Jude and Alicia are creating the text books we use in our schools and they have downloaded grades 1 – 9 through Create Space. The cost for these text books is $20.00 per-student and we would like to order at least 2 year supply which will cost approximately $9,500.00. We have raised $4,500.00 to date.
Please keep Missions in Haiti in your prayers. Pray that God will continue to meet all our financial needs as well as the spiritual needs of the people we minister to daily. We truly appreciate your prayers and your financial support over the years. We couldn't do what we do without the Lord and without our loyal partners.