Approaching 2012 with Confidence

“What then, shall we say in response to this?  If God is for us,
Who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31

Dear Part­ners in Ministry:

Thank you for your faith­ful prayers and finan­cial sup­port in 2011.  As we approach this new year, I have been reflect­ing on Romans 8:28–39.  There are three truths from this pas­sage that enables me to approach 2012 with con­fi­dence in our Lord: 1) God’s power is depend­able, v.28–31; 2) God’s promise is cer­tain, v. 32–34, and 3) God’s love is end­less, v.35–39.  I pray that as you reflect on these verses with me, you too will be pray­ing and con­fi­dently expect­ing God to do great things as we serve Him together in reach­ing the lost in Haiti with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ESMI’s pri­mary focus will con­tinue to be Evan­ge­lism through church plant­ing and lead­er­ship devel­op­ment. The hope this year is to:

1. plant at least five new churches: two in the Grand-Anse Depart­ment, one in Cap-Hatienne, and two in the South Department
2. assist five of our “preach­ing points” to be adopted by North Amer­i­can churches
3. con­duct six national lead­er­ship retreats for pas­tors and elders in the months of Jan­u­ary, Feb­ru­ary, March, May, June and July.  We expect, as in the past, that there will be over 100 men in attendance
4. con­tinue to equip lead­ers in the dif­fer­ent cities through the El Shad­dai The­o­log­i­cal Seminary
5. see the El Shad­dai The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary in Jere­mie in full operation

In the area of Edu­ca­tion, our goals are to:

1. con­tinue to raise the resources to com­plete Phase I of the Uni­ver­sity in Jere­mie the administrative/classroom build­ing and the dor­mi­tory building
2. develop a spon­sor­ship pro­gram for those older orphaned chil­dren through­out the dif­fer­ent cam­puses who are eli­gi­ble to attend this uni­ver­sity in Jeremie
3. build two sec­ondary schools
4. develop a voca­tional school on the Cam­bry site

In the area of Empa­thy, the desire is:

1. to have a med­ical doc­tor on each of the five med­ical sites: Cam­bry, Les Cayes, Casa Major, Gonaives, and Jeremie
2. to have med­ical short-term teams visit the above sites monthly
3. to see an addi­tional 100 new short-termers in Haiti.  We praise God for the 500 who vis­ited in 2011.
4. to con­tinue to restruc­ture and reor­ga­nize the qual­ity of care for the chil­dren on the dif­fer­ent sites, espe­cially those on the Gonaives sites in Fayeton and Mapou. In 2012, we plan to build two new children’s homes on the recently acquired land in Mapou.
5. to orga­nize retreats for the care-givers on all the ESMI campuses

In the area of Eco­nom­i­cal Devel­op­ment, our prayer is to see:

1. a busi­ness­man join our exec­u­tive team to pro­vide lead­er­ship in this vital min­istry outreach
2. the devel­op­ment of a Tilapia Farm on the Cam­bry and Jere­mie campuses
3. the estab­lish­ment of an ice-factory and poul­try businesses

We look for­ward to a great year of min­istry together as we serve the Lord here in Haiti.  Again, many thanks for your prayers and finan­cial sup­port; and a blessed new year to you and your family.

In His Service,

Dony St. Ger­main
President

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