Spring Update from Dony St Germain

What seems impos­si­ble to us is pos­si­ble with God.  The task before us is over­whelm­ing but as we move for­ward, trust­ing God, He is putting the pieces together.  We hope in this update you will see the amaz­ing way God is mov­ing and we are going for­ward believ­ing Philip­pi­ans 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strength­ens me.“

Evan­ge­lism through Church Plant­ing and Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment in the USA and Haiti:
In Jan­u­ary, I par­tic­i­pated in two Hait­ian pastor’s con­vo­ca­tions with Dr. Bre­sile St. Ger­main in the Florida area.   We shared about the ESMI church plant­ing efforts with the Pres­by­ter­ian Churches of Amer­ica (PCA) in the USA and in Haiti.  I also vis­ited our exist­ing Haitian-American PCA churches in North Miami and Naples.  Our pas­tors  remain encour­aged and con­tinue to per­se­vere in God’s work.  I am cur­rently work­ing with Dr. Feli­ton Jacquet and Ricot Fer­til, two Knox Sem­i­nary grad­u­ates, who are in the process of trans­fer­ring their cre­den­tials to the PCA.  There is also an inter­est in Boston where an esti­mated 70,000 Haitians reside.
In Haiti, we wel­comed Dr. Neal Hege­man of Miami Inter­na­tional Sem­i­nary (MINTS).  He did one week of inten­sive train­ing with twenty of our key lead­ers from across the island.  He encour­aged us as Hait­ian pas­tors and lead­ers to write and com­pile our own book of Bible com­men­tary for the Hait­ian churches.  Each of us have begun our first draft.  We were all ener­gized and pushed to do more with what we were learning.

Photo: January 2012 lead­er­ship train­ing with Dr. Neal Hegeman

Pas­tor Bre­sile was with us in March and on May 28–31, ESMI will host 120 pas­tors at a retreat train­ing in Jere­mie.Photo: March 2012 Lead­er­ship Train­ing with Pas­tor Bre­sile St. Ger­main in the cafe­te­ria on the Uni­ver­sity of Jere­mie campus.

Here’s a photo of our newest church plant build­ing in Bon­Bon, Grand-Anse.  Pas­tors Ginoits and  Hon­ore have already started evan­ge­lism and small groups in the area.  God’s will­ing, ser­vices in the new build­ing will begin this June.

Photo: April 2012, Bon­bon church con­struc­tion under­way to be com­pleted before ser­vices in June

Photo: Easter Sun­day ser­vice at the Nicholas Chapel on the Uni­ver­sity of Jere­mie cam­pus.  This is seven months after the first ser­vice.  Con­tinue to pray for the sur­round­ing community.

Edu­ca­tion in Jere­mie
When we moved here, the vision was to begin a sem­i­nary.  The fact is that a num­ber of our pas­tors in Haiti do not have any for­mal the­o­log­i­cal train­ing, and those who do have, have not been refreshed in a very long time.  As we are here, the vision now includes a uni­ver­sity, and a sec­ondary school, the School of Joy, is under con­struc­tion to pre­pare the stu­dents for ter­tiary stud­ies.  God’s will­ing, the School of Joy will open in Sep­tem­ber, and by faith, we have begun the sec­ond floor of this build­ing, antic­i­pat­ing that God will bring the needed funds by June.  Madame Pierre, the mer­chant from whom we pur­chase our con­struc­tion mate­r­ial said: “Pas­tor, is the funds what you are wor­ried about? Take what­ever mate­r­ial you need.  School has to open in Sep­tem­ber.”  Such is the trust and faith of one busi­ness woman about the expec­ta­tions of what ESMI is bring­ing to the Jere­mie com­mu­nity.  Pray with us and for us to remain open and faith­ful to His leading.

Photo: May 6, 2012, School of Joy sec­ond floor under construction

And it is by faith, we will have Pas­tor Arcene Nicholas join the staff in Haiti this month.  He is not only a pas­tor but also a lawyer and edu­ca­tor who has served on the board of well-known schools in the Port-au-Prince area.  He will leave his grow­ing church of 4000-membership in Petionville to join us here in Jere­mie.  This is a step of faith that he feels called to do.  He has been with ESMI since the earth­quake; he saw how God used ESMI to respond to not only the needs of the peo­ple but also of the pas­tors and felt led of God to have a more active role in what God was doing through ESMI. Antic­i­pate with us the great work the Lord will do in this com­mu­nity under Pas­tor Nico­las’ direc­tion in the area of education.

Empa­thy
We thank the Lord for the three pastor’s homes built ear­lier this year, a total of 15 homes since the earth­quake.  We praise God for Pas­tor Guercy Meme who has been over­see­ing the rebuild­ing of these homes.  Pas­tor Guercy main­tains a rela­tion­ship with these lead­ers and oth­ers in the area who are still seek­ing assis­tance.  When not in Port-au-Prince, he is  at the Cam­bry Children’s Vil­lage and church.  Pas­tor Guercy will return to the US at the end of May to work on his fund rais­ing. How has he seen his time in Haiti over the last two years?  Hav­ing never shep­arded a church, he believes that God was using these two years as a train­ing ground for him.  His vision is to do a church plant in Gressier, the epi­cen­ter of the earth­quake, with Eve­lyn, his new bride of ten months.

Photo:February 2012, Pas­tor Guercy with team from Boy­ton Beach Church, FL.  House was com­pleted within the week for the pas­tor and his family.

Since Jan­u­ary, ESMI has wel­comed 191 short-termers to Haiti.  We praise God for each team mem­ber and how He uses them as His hands and feet to bless the peo­ple of Haiti.  Teams were involved in children’s min­istry, med­ical mis­sions, con­struc­tion, and pas­toral and teacher train­ing.
The last med­ical team of 12 saw God move might­ily as they min­is­tered to over 600 patients from the com­mu­nity in a two-day period.  Then on the last day, they did a 3-hour sem­i­nar with  about 80 nurs­ing stu­dents rep­re­sent­ing two schools in the Jere­mie area.

Photo: April 2012, Nurs­ing Stu­dents Sem­i­nar with Med­ical Team in the cafe­te­ria on the Uni­ver­sity of Jere­mie campus

Eco­nom­i­cal Devel­op­ment in Jere­mie:
The Chicken Farm busi­ness is cur­rently under­way.  We have received funds to build two of the six stalls needed to house 6000 chick­ens and we are cur­rently seek­ing funds for the addi­tional stalls.  The vision is to con­nect a fish farm to this where the excre­ments from the chicken are used to feed the fish and the excre­ments from the fish, along with the water will be used in an aquapon­ics veg­etable gar­den for the children’s vil­lage in Lundy.

Photo: April 2012, Chicken Farm House-Economical Devel­op­ment Project in Jeremie.

On the Home­front with Dony and Sharon:
As a fam­ily, we praise God for the adjust­ment over the last 16 months.  The girls are keep­ing healthy and our house is being trans­formed into a wel­com­ing  home.  We are blessed to share it with our vis­it­ing mis­sion­ary teams and pas­toral teach­ers.  Most recently, under Louis’ lead­er­ship, we hosted del­e­gates from Port-au-Prince who were in Jere­mie to dis­cuss the preser­va­tion of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment.  The com­mu­nity meet­ing was held in the cafe­te­ria on the uni­ver­sity cam­pus with a good turn-out of may­ors, judges, teach­ers, and com­mu­nity lead­ers from the Grand Anse department/state.  While we were told to pre­pare meals for 17 peo­ple, we ended up host­ing 54 peo­ple in our home! This is just one exam­ple of how flex­i­ble we have to be on a daily basis.  I praise God for the sup­port of my fam­ily as we serve here in Haiti.

Photo: Decem­ber 2011, Dony, Sarah Joy, Sharon and Gracianna

Prayer Requests:
1.  May 28–31, pas­toral retreat for 120 pas­tors at the seminary/university cam­pus
2.  Bon­Bon church to begin ser­vices in June
3.  Sum­mer team min­istry in Les Cayes and Jere­mie
4.  ESMI mis­sion­ary staff sup­port fund-raising efforts
5.  Chicken farm as a lucra­tive busi­ness to sup­port a few of the min­istries in Jere­mie
6.  School of Joy to open for school year 2012–2013
7.  Ongo­ing lead­er­ship train­ing in US and Haiti
8.  The rainy sea­son in May and hur­ri­cane season

Thank you all for your faith­ful prayers and finan­cial sup­port as we serve the Hait­ian com­mu­nity in North Amer­ica and Haiti.  Please visit our web­site, www.esmihaiti.org, to see more of what God is doing as we part­ner together for His glory.