February, June, & October 2016
February 2016
When I think about all the things that have taken place since our last newsletter, I say WOW! We are very busy, but I wanted to take time to update you on all the exciting things going on here at Missions in Haiti!
BUILDING UPDATE – In our last newsletter we shared the need for a steel building to house our elementary school. As you may recall, we have been leasing an unfinished house located mile from all our other facilities for our elementary school. The rent is $4,000.00 per-year.
Last October, I stepped out on faith and ordered another two-story steel building, just like thetwo buildings we are now using for schools. At the time I wasn't sure how we were going to pay for the building, purchase provisions and pay to ship two containers filled with the building and supplies from Tulsa, OK to Port-au-Prince.
Our family returned stateside last fall and we made a 6 week, cross-country fundraising tour. The Lord blessed our efforts and about 1/3 of the funds came in. In December many of our faithful supporters sent special Christmas offerings and the balance needed to fully fund this project came in. Truly, this was a miracle and the answer to a lot of prayers!
The building was delivered to Tulsa, OK in late December and we shipped two containers from Tulsa to Haiti within a week of each other! You can probably visualize the amount of effort that goes into gathering donated supplies, purchasing supplies for the mission and loading everything into two shipping containers. This was no small task but God gave us the strength we needed to do the work. We would like to thank everyone who provided financial support, donated supplies and we would like to thank the crew that loaded the two containers. I am pleased to report that both containers arrived at the House of Compassion and were unloaded without any problems. The new building is here and ready to be erected in March.
We returned to Haiti after Christmas and immediately began work on the foundation for the new building. My Father, David Lloyd Sr., has done foundation work most of his life and he came to Haiti the second week of February and set the building anchor bolts in their proper places and set up for the pouring of the slab. The slab is complete and we have a group scheduled to come in late March to erect the building. We would like to be out of our rented building mid-April. I notified our landlord that we will not be renewing our lease after it expires in June.
Once completed, all three of our school buildings will be across the road from the House of Compassion and having everything in close proximity will be a huge blessing!
We just wrapped up our annual Mardi-Gras Crusade. This year's Crusade began February 3rd with the Sent Team from Free Gospel Bible Institute. Richard and Nancy accompanied the Sent Team again this year and it was great to have them here. The team did children's ministry and youth seminars for our Haiti Christian School during the day and revival services at night. We kept them very busy while they were here.
On February 8, Brother Darrell Meadow arrived and preached the first four nights of our five-night Mardi Gras Crusade. Brother Meadow was scheduled to be here five nights but had to leave one day earlier than planned. Brother Meadow brought us great messages each night and many people were blessed and helped during altar services.
If you have been to Haiti, you know the roads in Haiti are terrible and very hard on vehicles. In fact, my Father-in-law said, “miles in Haiti are like dog years, you have to multiply the miles on the odometer times seven!” That is not too far from the truth! Our main family vehicle, an Isuzu pickup truck, is seven years old. We spent around $3,000.00 for repairs on this truck last year and we need to replace this vehicle. Aside from the cost for repairs, having reliable transportation in Haiti is a must. Breaking down out on the road is not good - you can't call AAA for help! Our Isuzu is worth about of what a new replacement truck will cost so we need $17,000.00 to upgrade this primary vehicle. Please pray with us that this need will be met, we need to purchase a new vehicle very soon.
Looking back on 2015, I can truly say it was another amazing year! God answered many prayers, He kept His hand of protection on us and our work here in Haiti and we saw some fruits of our labor! We are excited about 2016 - we are expecting great things this year. We serve a great God and we are thankful that He has allowed us to be of service to Him here in Haiti.
Thank you for your financial and prayer support for Missions in Haiti. You are truly partners with us in this work. We couldn't do what we do without your prayers and support.
June 2016
Congratulations Richard Desir and Nancy Desir, they graduated from Free Gospel Bible Institute on May 14! It was a joy and honor for us to attend graduation and celebrate this great accomplishment with them. Richard and Nancy were among the first Haitian Children to join House of Compassion just over 15 years ago and they were the first to graduate from our High School.
Both Richard and Nancy have accepted full-time positions at Missions in Haiti effective June 1, and we are excited to have these two energetic young people join our staff! Richard is now officially our Youth Pastor and will assist in day to day operations as needed. Nancy will lead worship services and Sunday school as well as help out in the children's home and our schools.
Miriam and Yanick completed their first year at Full Gospel Bible Institute and they are bothworking with us here in Haiti this summer. They plan to return to Bible school this fall.
We will apply for a three year student VISA for Adline and if we are successful, she will join Miriam and Yanick at Bible school this fall. Please pray with us regarding the VISA for Adline!
Praise the Lord! The school building project is complete! In our last newsletter, we reported that we were pouring the foundation for the third school building. A group of hard working guys from Oklahoma, Missouri and Indiana came to Haiti the first week of April and erected the building in 6 days! We wrapped up the move from the rented school house to the new school building. It is a true blessing, having all our school facilities in one location, now everything is right across the road from House of Compassion! We are so thankful for everyone who helped accomplish this goal. We appreciate all of the time, effort, prayers and money that you gave. As I frequently say, this work is a team effort; we couldn't do it without the Lord's help and without our faithful supporters.
The 2015-2016 school-year is finished and we thank the Lord for His help! June 10 was the last day of school and we wrapped things up with Kindergarten Graduation and our end of school year ceremonies. Both the children and our teachers are excited about summer vacation break. We will be very busy during the summer break printing school books, preparing uniforms, painting and doing routine maintenance on school facilities in preparation for the 2016-2017 school year.
T
he question we hear most often nowadays is, “what is next for Missions in Haiti.” The building phase of our original vision for Missions in Haiti is now complete. At our first board meeting 16 years ago, we decided to incorporate Missions in Haiti, purchase property and build a home for ur family and 12 boys. We also planned to have a Church and school on the property. That vision evolved over the years as we decided to bring girls into the orphanage, increase the size of House of Compassion to accommodate 36 Haitian children instead of 12, added an additional boy's home for 24 additional boys, added an ACE American school, etc.
After much prayer and soul searching, Alicia and I both feel the Lord directing us to concentrate our efforts on repairing and maintaining the facilities that He has blessed Missions in Haiti with. As you can imagine, the wear and tear resulting from 60 + people living in this facility plus 400 children from outside House of Compassion attending our schools each day, is tremendous. Add to that the tropical climate, proximity to the ocean along with the total lack of infrastructure; sewer, water, reliable electric service and maintenance becomes a huge issue here in Haiti. For the next year, repairing and maintaining will be our focus.
A couple immediate needs are; a large diesel generator that we depend on is nearing the end of its useful life and must be replaced and the pickup truck that we use every day needs to be replaced very soon. These two machines are an essential part of our daily operations.
If you would like to contribute toward these needs, we would appreciate your help very much.
Continue to pray for Haiti, we are in a political crisis. Last year's Presidential election was thrown out and the interim President has not been well accepted by the Haitian people. There is a lot of political unrest so please hold us and Haiti up in prayer!
Thank you for your prayers and for your support!
P.S. Pastors – If you would like to schedule a Mission Service at your Church, please contact Wanda McCrate at 918-341-8911, contact us by e-mail at lloydsinhaiti@msn.com or correspond by U.S. Mail to P.O. Box 2996, Claremore, OK 74018.
October 2016
It has been another hot summer here in Haiti and we are looking forward to the cooler 90 degree fall and winter weather! The difference that a ten to fifteen degree drop in temperature makes here in Haiti is amazing!
We thank the Lord for everything He helped us accomplish this summer. The boys and I completed numerous maintenance projects, added a reception area, kitchen area and teacher’s lounge in the office building. We repainted facilities and landscaped the school grounds so that everything was ready for the first day of school on September 5th. We appreciate Jonathan Hosmon coming down for a week and doing the electrical wiring in our new office and two of our school buildings. All our students and staff members were excited when they saw all the improvements.
Nancy, Richard, Yanick and Miriam held a Kid’s Camp during the month of July and all the children who attended enjoyed crafts, learning new songs, playing games and learning more about Jesus. In the afternoons, we had English classes and sewing classes for the older kids. I was proud of the great job our four young people did with the Kid’s Camp.
We appreciate all your prayers for Adline’s VISA, she was able to get a three year VISA from the USA and in late August, I flew with our three “Bible School Students” to Pittsburg to enroll them at Free Gospel Bible Institute. Yanick and Miriam are in their second year at FGBI as Adline begins her first year. This was Adline’s first trip to the USA and it is always entertaining to see the reaction Haitian kids have their first time in the U.S.A. and their first trip to McDonald’s or Walmart! Pray with us that these three young ladies will do well at Bible School and will become great soldiers in the Lord’s Army!
We are grateful to have Richard and Nancy back helping us here in Haiti! Richard stepped into the role of Youth Pastor and Office Manager for our Haitian School. Nancy is doing the job Adline was doing at our ACE school in the morning and she teaches English in our Haitian School in the afternoon. Nancy is the Children’s Pastor and she leads Children’s Church and Sunday School. Nancy and Richard are doing a great job and we are keeping them busy 24-7!
For a number of years, Alicia and Judes created the curriculum for our Haitian School. A tremendous amount of work went into the development, printing the books on copiers and putting the workbooks together so as to include everything needed to pass the Haitian State tests. If a student fails the Haitian State test, they don’t graduate. During his visit in January, Brother Palhman told Alicia about “Create Space” an Amazon company. Alicia began downloading our workbooks onto Create Space and the savings in time and money have been huge. The finished product consists of seven workbooks of approximately 100 pages each and the cost for all seven workbooks, a full year’s curriculum is only $20.00 per set! Alicia is working on grades 1 through 6 and she hopes to have them completed by mid-December so they will be ready for next school year. If you would like to help with the school book project, we need 150 sets of workbooks and the cost per-set of books is $20.00.
In our last newsletter, we mentioned that we planned to work on maintenance and improvements here at House of Compassion, to the Church building and school facilities. Given the number of people using these facilities daily, there is a tremendous amount of wear and tear.
We mentioned that we needed to replace our pickup truck and Praise the Lord, that need was met! We purchased a new Nissan FWD, diesel pickup truck and we are very thankful for this new vehicle. We depend on our truck, it is vital to our daily operations.
The next “big item” we need is a new diesel generator for our Church. Our current generator provided 10 years of service and it is just about worn out. The replacement generator will cost $12,500.000 and we need to order the generator A.S.A.P. so that we can have it shipped to Tulsa in time to load on the container we will ship from Tulsa in December.
Haitian electric service is unreliable and unbelievably expensive. Solar panels have proven to be a blessing; they provide “free” electricity for our home, our boy’s home and schools during the daytime. We need to add additional solar panels to recharge our inverter’s batteries during the daylight so we can operate on battery power during the evening/night time hours. We would like to ship additional solar panels on the container in December also. Please pray with us about these needs.
Thanks for your continued prayers and financial support for God’s work here in Haiti. The Presidential election has been canceled and these are troublesome times so please keep us in your prayers. Our family along with our Haitian friends is praying for a good outcome for elections here and in the USA too!
May God bless you and your family, thanks for all you do!
P.S. Thank you for all your prayers for Missions in Haiti and for Haiti during hurricane Matthew. We appreciate all the e-mail and phone calls.
Matthew came ashore in the Southwest portion of Haiti as a Category 4 hurricane with 145 MPH winds and torrential rainfall. We are far enough East of the eye that we had rain and wind but nothing destructive or dangerous. We didn’t have any storm damage here at Missions in Haiti.
Our hearts are breaking for Haitians in the South of Haiti, many experienced total destruction, losing the little that they had. Tens of thousands are homeless, trees uprooted, gardens destroyed and livestock lost. Matthew hit an area of Haiti with over a million people and many face a very tough road ahead. Please keep Haiti in your prayers.