The Year in Review and a Prayer RequestDear Friends and Supporters of Vision of Hope Ministries,
Another
busy year of ministry in Northern Haiti is nearly gone! As we take
time to look back over these many months, there are so many things that
we are thankful for.
Missions Teams: This has been a
particularly busy year for teams who have come to work alongside us in
Haiti. The year began with a team of seasoned construction project
workers from the Chicago area who made much progress on the new church
building in Grande Riviere du Nord. Next up was a team from New Orleans
that conducted a VBS and a medical clinic. In June a team from New
York arrived to finish building a small home for a needy family, provide
some much needed computer tune ups, and help conduct worship services.
The next group from California helped with the worship services and did
some painting at the school in Cap Haitien. July brought a very large
team of teens who hosted a soccer camp, set up a medical clinic, added a
roof to the upper story at the school, and helped run a crusade in the
evenings. Yet to come this year is a small group who will visit this
month to explore our ministry and make plans to return with teams for
specific projects and, lastly, a small team of teens will spend their
Christmas break serving alongside us in Haiti.
Micro-enterprise Projects:
The group of women in Berard who have been participating in a small
micro-enterprise project continues to flourish. Each lady is given a
small loan to be used for operating her business and is expected to pay
the loan back after a certain amount of time. This project continues to
help the families of the ladies who are involved by providing much
needed income.
The water project in Berard has been in place for
nearly a year. God’s timing was perfect, as always. The water became
available to the community just as cholera was breaking out in so many
places in Haiti. Instead of providing water free of charge to the
Berard community alone, we opened up the free distribution to anyone who
came for it. The second phase of this project, which will begin soon,
involves selling the excess water to a distributor and using the funds
to maintain the well equipment and provide income for those Haitians who
are employed by this project. We are excited to announce that on
November 12 at 6:00 p.m. Michael Card will be doing a concert at
Lakeland Church, 440 North Hunt Club Road in Gurnee, IL. Tickets are
$10 and a free will offering to support the Berard well project and a
recycling project in Haiti will be taken. The Timothy Center for
Sustainable Transformation, a non-profit organization focusing on
lifting lives from both spiritual and economic poverty, is hosting this
event. If you are interested in attending you can purchase tickets by
emailing info@thetimothycenter.org.
The Churches: Henoc
told the board last week that attendance at the church in Cap Haitien
has doubled this year! There are several services every week; these
services meet outside the building in the courtyard to accommodate the
large crowd. The church in Berard is doing quite well and is involved
in the micro-enterprise projects mentioned earlier. In addition, Pastor
Sansoir has begun a Bible study nearby that will most likely become
another church. The congregation in Grande Riviere du Nord is excited
about their church building project and looking forward to the day when
they can meet and worship in a building that belongs to them!
College Susan Schuenke (CSS):
School officially began for the students at College Susan Schuenke in
Cap Haitien on the first Monday of October. Last year, we had nearly
1000 students attending our Pre-K through 13th grade school. We expect
the numbers to be nearly the same this year. Our students continue to
score well in the government’s standardized testing. Graduates from CSS
who have gone on to receive a college degree are serving alongside us
in this ministry. These include the manager of the Berard water
project, personnel at the school, and a medical doctor (Wisler St. Vil)
who has assisted several of our short term medical teams as they see
patients in temporary clinics.
Orphanage in Berard: We
continue to house and care for a group of orphans in Berard. These kids
live next door to Pastor Henoc’s house in a new home built for them by
missions teams. They are cared for by a middle-aged couple who live
with them in the home. These children attend our school in Cap Haitien.
l'Université Internationale en Haïti (UIH): Plans
to build a Christian university in Northern Haiti continue to move
forward. At this time the project is awaiting a land use agreement
contract from the Haitian government. Once this document is in hand,
fund raising will begin in earnest and the first phase of construction
will follow. To be updated on the progress of this effort you can see
their website at www.uihaiti.org.
The ministries of Vision of
Hope Ministries (VOHM) continue to grow and expand. The needs presented
to us in Haiti are, of course, overwhelming. We are continually asking
the Lord to show us what specific needs He wants us to address.
As
this year draws to a close, we find ourselves struggling to adequately
sustain the financial needs of this ministry. Our school, CSS, has
become a heavy financial drain on our General Fund. Each year we offer
our supporters the opportunity to fund the yearly $330 tuition of the
most critically needy students at the school, and we encourage parents
of the other students to continue to make regular payments for their
child’s tuition. In the past few years, income from both resources has
continued to fall below our budgeted income expectations. We have been
forced to lean hard on our General Fund donations to underwrite the
shortfall at the school leaving our operational resources dangerously
low. We are so tremendously grateful to our donors for the support they
faithfully provide to this ministry, and we are most grateful to God
who has sustained us. The reality is that as the U.S. economy
continues to struggle, donations to ministries like ours dwindle. This
trend is easily seen throughout Christian organizations. We
understand. We all have families, and budgets, and obligations to
fulfill and are finding it harder and harder to make our dollars
stretch. While the outlook seems bleak to our human eyes and hearts, we
are reminded that we serve a God who is more than able to provide for
all our needs. We share this letter with you today because we want you,
our faithful supporters, to know just how things stand. We ask that
you commit this need to prayer. We also ask that you share this need
with others who may be interested and would also make this a matter of
prayer in their households. Would you especially make this need known
to your local church? Thank God with us for the work He is doing in
Haiti and for the work He will continue to do. If you feel led and are
able, you can also help us by sending financial support for this
ministry. You can use the Donate tab at the top of this page or
send a check to our office using the address at the bottom of this page.
We
are grateful for the many, many friends who have supported this work
with their prayers, their hard work, and their financial resources. We
wait expectantly for God’s guidance and provision for the days and weeks
ahead. God bless each of you richly!
On behalf of the VOHM Board,
Greg Schuenke
President, VOHM
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