An update from Dony St. Germain

Dear Part­ners in Ministry:

I thank God for the oppor­tu­nity to serve Him in Haiti. We’ve been here ten months now and it hasn’t been an easy adjust­ment. There are many chal­lenges that we have faced and con­tinue to face almost daily: chal­lenges with the children’s health; car inci­dents and acci­dents; lim­ited elec­tric­ity and plumb­ing at times; the heat (it still feels like sum­mer in Jere­mie); dif­fer­ent pace of life– a bank errand that should take 30 min­utes ends up tak­ing four hours when the van radi­a­tor over­heats and so I never know when I leave my home what time I’ll return because, here in Haiti, life is def­i­nitely unpre­dictable; and the list goes on. Then just recently, Sharon met in a seri­ous car acci­dent in Miami in which the car she was dri­ving was totaled. All these can be dis­cour­ag­ing but we cling to God’s faith­ful­ness and His word of encour­age­ment from 2 Chron­i­cles 20:15b: “This is what the LORD says, ‘Do not be afraid or dis­cour­aged because of this vast army. For the bat­tle is not yours, but God’s.’” Through all these and oth­ers, we’ve seen God’s pro­tec­tive hands. Thank you for your faith­ful prayers on our behalf that has kept us encouraged.

I thank God for the exec­u­tive team He has put together to share the weight of min­istry as we serve our sixty-plus pas­tors, their con­gre­gants and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties; the 6500 school chil­dren and their teach­ers; the 1400 orphans and their care-givers; and as we train pas­tors and lead­ers for the other departments.

• Bryan Clifton serves as our Chief of Staff fill­ing in the gap between our US and Haiti staff as well as focus­ing on the orphan ministry.
• Dale Austin, US Field Direc­tor, over­sees our short-term teams and we praise God for the more than 500 team mem­bers who have served this year in Les Cayes, Port-au-Prince, Gonaives and Jeremie.
• David Short, ESMI’s Project/Development Direc­tor, is devel­op­ing the new con­struc­tion projects in Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, and the seminary/university in Jere­mie, and is doing an excel­lent job at keep­ing every­one informed on the dif­fer­ent projects.
• Bre­sile St. Ger­main, our newest staff per­son, serves as the Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Coor­di­na­tor. In the recent train­ing in Jere­mie, one pas­tor com­mented that the sem­i­nars with Pas­tor Bre­sile are enough to bring about revi­tal­iza­tion in the Hait­ian churches. Praise God for how He con­tin­ues to use this servant.
• Louis St. Ger­main has been work­ing this year with Pas­tor Nico­lais, whom you will meet in another update, on devel­op­ing the new denom­i­na­tion: L’Eglise Reformee d’Haiti (ERH), trans­lated “The Reformed Churches of Haiti.” Louis is also over­see­ing the devel­op­ment of three pres­by­ter­ies as he works with Pas­tor Wood­man in the Art­i­bonite depart­ment, Pas­tor Moril in the Grand-Anse depart­ment, and Pas­tor Mon­ger­ard in the Sud department.

I’ve been focused this year on men­tor­ing and coach­ing pas­tors in cre­at­ing strate­gies for healthy church devel­op­ment. In the com­ing weeks, I hope to intro­duce you to some of these lead­ers, and to share how ESMI is com­ing along­side these men to enable them to preach the gospel effectively.

Praise and Prayer Requests

• Praise God for our US pas­toral col­leagues who came along­side us in con­duct­ing sem­i­nars focused on: “The Pas­tor and His Prayer Life,” “The Pas­tor and the Word,” The Pas­tor and His Min­istry”, “The Pas­tor and His Fam­ily.” These have been refresh­ing for the pas­tors who have given tes­ti­monies of how these have impacted their min­istries and their rela­tion­ship within the home.
• Praise God for the 147 con­ver­sions since the Dr. Nicholas Chapel opened its doors in mid-September. Weekly dis­ci­ple­ship and lead­er­ship train­ing classes are being con­ducted. We praise God for how He is chang­ing this com­mu­nity one soul at a time.
• Praise God for His con­tin­ued pro­tec­tion over us as a family
• Praise God for the two com­pleted build­ings in Phase 1 of devel­op­ing the seminary/university in Jere­mie: the Dr. Nicholas Chapel and the Multi-Purpose Build­ing, to serve the imme­di­ate com­mu­nity and those in the sur­round­ing Grand-Anse department.
• Urgent Prayer Request for two new 4x4 diesel pick-up trucks for the min­istry. The rough ter­rains, gas mix­ture of water and kerosene, high gas costs, high main­te­nance cost on these older auto­mo­biles, etc. have taken its toll on all ESMI’s vehi­cles. The cost to pur­chase one in Haiti is $33,000.
• Prayers for needed funds for new church plants
• Prayer to com­plete Phase 1 of the seminary/university. After the earth­quake, there is an esti­mated 21,000 col­lege stu­dents who returned to the Grand-Anse depart­ment. Our goal is to tar­get these stu­dents for the Uni­ver­sity of Jeremie.
• Prayers as we begin reg­is­tra­tion for sem­i­nary classes. We’re thank­ful for ESMI’s part­ner­ship with MINTS (Miami Inter­na­tional Sem­i­nary, Miami, FL).

Again, Sharon and I thank you for your faith­ful prayers and finan­cial sup­port of us as your mis­sion­ar­ies here in Haiti. To God be the glory!

The Dr. Nicholas Chapel (Left) and Multi-Purpose Build­ing (Right)

Lead­er­ship train­ing in Gonaives (Novem­ber 1–2, 2011)

Ser­vice in the Dr. Nicholas Chapel — 1

Ser­vice in the Dr. Nicholas Chapel — 2

To see more about what God is doing through ESMI, visit our web­site: www.esmihome.org.