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.

Spiritual revival in Ft Myers

February 2 to 5  Church growth seminar at Foundation of the Apostle Church in Delray Beach. February 7 and 8 Leadership seminar at Grace Baptist Church in Miami. February 10– 20, Spiritual revival and Church Growth seminar on the island of  St Marten.  Thirty-one people  accepted  Christ as their personal Savior.  Praise the Lord! As you know that since September 2011, I joined ESMI team before the closure of Ministries In Action (MIA).  My ministry goals remain the same : Evangelism and Education.  At ESMI I am serving as the Church Development Director. On March 10, I went to Haiti to offer teaching to 21 students at the ESMI Seminary in Jeremie,  and to preach the Gospel to the local churches.                    Everything went well by the grace of God.  Before I  came to Haiti on March 10, Pastor Alneve Emile, the new President of Members of the Evangelical Baptist Churches of S. Haiti (MEBSH) asked me for a meeting.  Pastor Louis St. Germain planned  the meeting with him in Les Cayes.  Dr. Dony St. Germain and myself were able to sit down with him and listen to him for two and half hours.  In that meeting he requested  from us to reinstate the evangelistic program “Christ Pour Tous” (Christ For All) in all the MEBSH Churches.  He wants the church leaders (pastors and lay leaders ) to be trained.  He coveted my advice and redeemed the time to invite me to preach at the Annual Convention in April.  It will be a big event with an estimated 15 to 20,000 people gathering . After spending 13 days in the country, I take the opportunity to send this letter to you in order to solicit your partnership in this endeavor.   ESMI church planting team would like to respond positively to his requests but we don’t have the means.  This is the reason for  writing this letter to you at this time.  MEBSH is a mission organization with over 400 churches but they are struggling. Here is the plan we have to resume Christ Pour Tous Program: A. Do the following . a . April 18–23 Meeting the Executive of the MEBSH Mission. b. July –Training seminar c. November-Training seminar d. 2013– 3 Training seminars. B. Budget for 2012.a. Raising $ 5,000 to print the following French material

1. 5000 copies of “Prayer Cell” brochures
2. 5000 copies of “Five Steps to Possess Eternal Life”
3. 5000 copies of “ Four Phases for Evangelism Team”
4. 5000 copies of “Friendship Evangelism”
5. 5000 copies “Five Steps to Grow in the Gospel”

b. Raising $ 5,000 to cover the cost of the three central and regional seminars.

1. Feeding 60 Pastors for 2 days.
2. Travel expenses for 60 Pastors
3. Write materials for over 400 Churches.
4. Other related expenses.
5. Travel expenses for the teacher

We are presenting this budget to you for your consideration by prayer and financial participation.  We are hopeful that God will make it possible for you to help us fulfill this project .  Feel  free to participate in aspect of the training of these leaders.  For further information, please contact us at the following numbers: Haiti cell: 509–3-702‑3348; US Cell 786–362-5929. Click Here to Support Online Your support is tax deductible.  Make your check to the order of: El Shaddai Ministries International, Inc. P.O .Box 811000 Boca Raton, FL 33481–1000. Memo: Christ Pour Tous Leadership Program. May God bless you and keep you in a good physical health. In His service. Bresile  St.Germain. Church Development Director. El Shaddai Ministries International, Inc. 13651 S. Biscayne River Drive. Miami, FL 33161.

Wednesday started off with a typical Haitian change of plans. We have a school bus that we use to transport the teams to the various sites while they are here in the Les Cayes area. On our way to Cherette a couple of the lug bolts broke off of one of the tires and we ended up transferring all of the supplies and passengers into various vehicles so that we could still conduct a medical clinic. We made it there a couple of hours later than planned but the medical team was still able to serve about 115 children. They perform checkups, then administer to any special needs, perform lice and scabies clean up procedures, then provide the children with a new set of clothes, shoes and a toy. The team also took pictures of the children and recorded key information for the church members back in the States that are supporting this site with their prayers and resources.

Collecting the Vitals for one of these precious children.

Three of us spent the day staking out the riverbed so that on Thursday we could survey the property. You might remember from my earlier posts that last year we built a set of gabions to protect the Cherette Children’s Village as well as the surrounding homes from being destroyed by the river, which was washing away the bank. Last November we were impacted by one of the hurricanes and the village area still ended up with 2 feet of water in it, but at least the bank was saved. The riverbank is still in need of additional repairs. Our current thought is to modify the flow channel of the river in this area in order to reroute the flow as well as minimize the impact of the rush of water in this sharp bend of the river. The first phase of this activity was to layout a grid in an area of about 350 feet by 200 feet.

Laying out the cross sections to be surveyed.

As you can see from the picture above we had plenty of volunteer help from the men in the community. The Haitians are always eager to step in and help with these kinds of projects. I have always found that if we just take the time to show them what it is that we want to do and how we want it done then they take off doing it. We were able to layout (mark with paint) close to 400 points to be surveyed. When we finished this we still had enough time to measure all of the buildings of the village so that I can draft up the property when I return home.

Thursday started out with us splitting the team. We had one go to the new church in Savannes so that they could operate a medical clinic. A smaller group, plus the survey team, went back to Cherette. The medical team finished up providing care to the children and then provided care for the house moms. They served about 50 more people today. This day also saw its challenges as the driveline on the truck that we were taking to Cherette broke on the edge of town. We had to wait for an hour while the school bus was unloaded at Savannes and then brought to take us to the city of Cherette. From there we transferred to smaller vehicles and drove out to the site.

The survey team (David, David, and Rex) getting ready to head out to the river.

The survey team was able to collect the data on almost all of the points. Since we got there a little bit late we had a delayed start. Even so, we spent about 5 hours taking the readings from the points that we had laid out on Wednesday. The last time that I had done any surveying was 37 years ago in college. I guess you never forget some things. It was so great to have the other two guys (3 as we added a recorder later in the day) so willing to spend their time in Haiti walking back and forth across a dry riverbed in the direct sun all day.

Rex shooting a reading while Chuck records the numbers (notice the children that were providing shade for Chuck).

Friday we spent the whole day at the new church plant in Savannes. This is one of the hardest areas in the city of Les Cayes. The church is about a year and a half old and already has about 450 people coming on a regular basis. Throughout the day the team conducted a medical clinic and children’s activities. A couple of us also took the opportunity to measure out the property and the location of the church on it so that

I can finish the design of the new school and medical clinic that we want to put on there.

On every trip there shows up one scene or picture that deeply touches me. When this happens I am overcome with tears for these precious people that are in such need. Today in the middle of all of the scurrying around…people getting checked for illnesses and urgent care, children being bathed for scabies and lice then receiving new clothes, children singing and doing coloring projects, and many other chaotic events…there was this beautiful little boy whose mother had laid out on the floor to take a nap. There he rested in the midst of all of these attempts to bring just a little bit of love and care to the Haitian people.

The REASON we are here in Haiti…

This will be the last email related to this trip. I leave at 3:30 AM in the morning so that I can make it to the airport for a 9:20 AM. I get back home in Dayton at 11:00 PM in the evening. Once again I am deeply moved by both the precious people of Haiti and the hardships that they deal with every day. I am also moved by the many people back in the states that give of their time and resources to be here to serve our Haitian brothers and sisters.

Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers.
David Short

Sorry for missing the last couple of days for updates. We have a large group here at the Cambry guesthouse and the Internet access been fairly limited. The first half of my trip has been very productive. The team that I have been escorting from Shreveport, LA has covered a lot of ground in the last few days and will be going home tomorrow with many ideas for planning their future trips. Here are some of the activities that we have accomplished since arriving on Friday:

• Visited Bigarouse Children’s Village and spent some time with the children and met with the pastor to lay out a teaching program for the next trip.
• Visited Darivager Children’s Village and did the same as at Bigarouse.
• Visited various historical sites that will be used to teach the college team
  coming down in May about Haitian history.
• Participated in the church service at Cayes BonBerger church.
• Walked through Les Cayes identifying various cultural activities to continue
  the history lessons.
• Visited the Port Salut facility to investigate the possibility of having a group
  spend a month there on site ministering to the community.
• Got to see a little bit of the Carnival activities (image below) including stuck in a traffic jam
  while the entourage escorting President Martelly drove by.
• Took a hike around the Cambry facility to identify some areas close to the guesthouse where the college students could get involved in the local environment.
• Visited the American University of the Caribbean to explore possibility for future activities that might be able to be worked on.

Carnival Float

American University of the Caribbean

As you can probably see, these past few days have been very busy and productive. It is once again so awesome to see God working through team members and orchestrating so many connections and networks. It will be exciting to see where He takes some of these.

We have also seen the Chicago, Las Vegas, Florida team being extremely active in their work here. Yesterday they were able to conduct medical clinics at Cambry and Cavaillon. Today they were at Cambry and Casa Major. Tomorrow I will be joining them in Cherette as the Louisiana team heads back home. We hope to be getting some engineering work accomplished on the riverbank.

The weather has been good. We have been blessed with wonderful breezes and no rain. This has made it much easier to get around to some of the more remote places that we have been visiting. I cannot be expressive enough of my appreciate for the many team members that have given up there time and their resources to be here in Haiti. They may not be able to solve the major problems of this country, but they are bring the love of Christ to each person that they spend time with.

Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers.
David Short

I made it into Port-au-Prince yesterday without a hitch, but after that things got fairly interesting. The team from Shreveport, LA got in about 30 minutes after I did. We loaded up the van and started heading to Les Cayes…normally about a 4 hour drive. On the way out of Port-au-Prince we found out that the president had declared that Carnival would be in Les Cayes this year. Carnival starts tomorrow afternoon and runs through Tuesday. The expectation is that close to 1,000,000 people will be in Les Cayes these three days. I think we were caught in the traffic with half of them. It took us about 7 hours to get here.

Our first site to visit today was Bigarouse (also known as Big House). On our way there though we stopped at a local street market. This picture is of the parking lot. Part of our team is here to plan for a group of college students to come this summer to teach in two of our orphanages. Their desire is to immerse the students in the local culture. This market will be one of those opportunities for immersion.

While at Bigarouse we met with Pastor Jean Elysee. We shared with him the plans to have a team here this summer that was going to focus on teaching French, math music, art, history, and geography. He was very excited. We also came up with a plan to have some of his children and members of the church community prepare some lessons for our team members. We thought it would be great for them to teach history, local customs, and some songs and dances. This is where his and Pastor Louis’ excitement and enthusiasm really lit up. He shared that the American teams always come down here to teach and that he really appreciates that. This is the first time that one of these teams has asked him to prepare some things to teach the Americans. He feels like it is a group that wants to “circle the wagons” around him and his ministry.

Our next stop was Darivager. The team will also do their teaching program at this facility. Once again the pastor, Pastor Monregard was very excited about the ideas for the program that was set up at Bigarouse.

After visiting these two sites we were able to visit some historical sites that date back to the 1700’s when the French occupied the country. These areas will be part of the cultural immersion for the college students. One of the sites that we visited was Fort Cachalou (not sure about spelling).

Tomorrow we will be participating in a couple of churches services and possibly checking out Carnival. Thanks for your prayers. I will send out my next email on Monday.

Prayer Updates:

• My mother had her gall bladder removed and should be home by the time you
  get this email.
• Please continue to pray for Ben and Susie as they walk through the illness of her brain tumor. You can follow here progress at http://www.benandsusiethomas.com.

Map of Les Cayes area

Dear Friends and Family…

Well, I am on my way back to Haiti. I will actually be arriving tomorrow around 3:40 PM in Port-au-Prince. On this trip I will be spend most of my time in the Les Cayes area (see map). I will be visiting our sites at Bigarouse, Cambry, Cayes, Cherette, Darivager, and Savannes (Bon Berger). While at these sites I will be updating my assessment information from September 2010.

During the first half of the trip I will be meeting up with a team from First United Methodist Church and Centenary College, both in Shreveport, LA. Louis St. Germain (ESMI Haiti Field Director) and I will be showing this team some of our facilities for hosting teams and some of our sites with churches and orphanages. This group has planned additional teams later this year and this trip will provide the detail information needed to put those trips together. One of these future trips will include a one to two month English and French teaching program for orphans at some of our sites. It is always great to finally meet people that you have been talking to on the phone and exchanging emails with face-to-face.

During the second half of the trip I will be meeting up with a team that is comprised of members from the Chicago and Las Vegas areas. They will be primarily focusing on medical clinics and orphan care. The engineer that designed the riverbank repair at Cherette (check out details on this blog and pictures on my Flickr account) will be with this team. We will be working together to survey the riverbed and see if we can come up with a solution to reroute the flow of the river away from the Cherette orphan village. Surveying…another long-lost activity from my past that is being resurrected.

As with my other trips I will try to send out a daily email with some pictures from the day and brief descriptions of the activities. If you do not receive any of these then it will most likely be because I do not have an Internet access.

Special Requests at this time:

• Please pray for safe travel for the team members coming down and for our loved ones that we are leaving behind.
• Please pray for my mother. She went into the hospital earlier this week for the third time in the past nine months with an issue with her pancreas. The doctors are doing some testing and non-invasive tests to try to determine the source of the problem and a strategy going forward.
• Also pray for my father…he misses his bride very much, plus he is scheduled to have a defibrillator installed in a couple of weeks.
• Please pray for Ben and Susie, friends that are serving with Athletes in Action. They have three children and a fourth one on the way. They recently found out that Susie has a cancerous brain tumor. They are working with their doctors to determine a strategy to deal with this and also protect their unborn child. You can follow their progress on their ministry website.

Well…another month has already zipped by. I don’t know about you and where you are living, but this winter has been quite a different one for us here in Ohio. Even today I am sending out this email with a clear and sunshiny day outside with the temperature hitting the low 60’s. We still keep asking, “When is winter really going to hit us?”

January has once again proven to be a busy month with ESMI. As in the past, as the holidays slip into our past we start hitting the road running. I hope and pray that you enjoy hearing about some of our activities from the Projects and Development perspective and that you will continue to keep us in your prayers.

Projects/Construction

Homes for Pastors and Widows

Pastor Jean Edouard’s New Home

We were able to finish our 13th home this past month. This home was built for Pastor Jean Edouard and his family. This family lives in the Bois-Gaman area near Gressier. We sincerely appreciate the efforts of our friends at Christ Presbyterian Church in Richmond, IN for raising the funds to help this family receive a home and move out of their tent…two years after the earthquake. Please continue to pray for this Pastor as he also tries to rebuild his church that was lost in that earthquake.

Pastor Jean Augustin and Family

We were also able to start construction on home #14 this past week. Our friends at Boynton Beach Community Church in Boynton Beach, FL provided the funds for this home and they also have a construction team in Haiti helping to build it this week. Pastor Jean Augustin is the recipient of this home. He has a family of 5 children and is the pastor of a church with 350 members.

We are so excited that our partners are still providing funds and short-term teams to build these homes. Not only are we able to help families move from temporary structures into permanent homes, we are also able to keep 6 to 7 Haitian workers fully employed and able to support their families. Thank you for your contributions and prayers for this part of our ministry.

Facility Modifications and Upgrades

School of Joy Under Construction

In the Grand-Anse department we are continue to build out the University of Jeremie. The structure that we are working on now is the School of Joy, which will ultimately provide primary and secondary education for up to 1,000 students from the surrounding area. We have also completed the design for a solar power solution for the entire university campus. The components are being ordered this week and our plan is to install the components and set up the existing buildings with power the last week of March. We are finding that this will be a very exciting beginning of a new era for our churches in Haiti. We believe that we will be able to start implementing basic power solutions for each of our churches for about $5,000 each. This will allow the members of the church to start using their facility more hours of the day, provide power for their schools, and enhance the lives of the members of their communities.

Leadership Development

Pastor Training in Jeremie

Dony St. Germain (ESMI President), Bresile St. Germain (Leadership Development Coordinator), and Louis St. Germain (Haiti Field Director) have also been quite busy over the last month. They are busy conducting pastor training and leadership seminars in Jeremie and Les Cayes. We are looking forward to getting the University of Jeremie to a state where we can start hosting the seminary there. Our plans are to begin this year with 150 fulltime students. Please continue to pray for us as we work to complete the university and pursue new opportunities for funding and grants this year. Pray that we will have more pastors from churches here in the United States and Canada volunteer their time and talents to help in the teaching programs that get established.

Micro-Businesses

As I mentioned in one of my earlier newsletters we are doing a lot of work in the area of identifying micro-businesses that we can establish with our churches across Haiti. We have several friends and partners of the ministry that are working with us as we investigate poultry farming, fish farming, and ice factories as businesses. Please keep me in your prayers as I begin to develop business plans for these, identify locations best fitted for them, and seek to secure funding to make these happen. These will become a critical component for our work in Haiti because through these micro-businesses we can help our churches become self-sufficient as well as create centers where valuable training can be provided to the people of Haiti.

Upcoming Travel

I will be heading down to the Les Cayes area February 17th through 25th. While there I will be participating with our friends from First United Methodist Church (FUMC) and Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, LA on a vision trip. This team will be assessing some of our facilities as a place to stay for future trips and together we will be coming up with a plan for them to do some great work at some of our orphan villages throughout the year. FUMC and Centenary have a great partnership and will be putting together some summer long teaching activities at our facilities in the Les Cayes area teaching English and French. We are very excited about building this relationship and reaching the people of Haiti in much broader and deeper areas.

I will also be meeting up with one of our short-term teams comprised of members from churches in the Chicago, IL and Las Vega, NV areas. They come down on a regular basis and do some awesome work through neighborhood medical clinics. One of the activities that I will be doing with this team is assessing the River Bank Repair at Cherette and see how it weathered last year’ storms and what we can do to take it to the next step.

Coming up in March I have a mission’s conference that I am attending at our partner First Presbyterian Church in Macon, GA and then heading to Jeremie the end of March to help with the installation of the solar solution at the University. Please keep us in your prayers as I do this travel, and especially Laura as I leave her here in Ohio.

Personal Fundraising Status

Once again, Laura and I would like to thank you for your prayers, your thoughts and your financial support in our work with ESMI. We are so blessed to have friends and family like you standing behind us in this work. We have so much work before us and your support is what is making it possible to maintain focus and energy.

For those of you that have been following our progress on raising our support we are currently at 36% of our monthly support. I am active in the fundraising process and seek your prayers while I reach out to people that I know for support consideration.

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.

Projects/Construction

Homes for Pastors and Widows
Under the in-country guidance of Pastor Guercy Meme we have completed five homes. Another one is currently under way, which brings the total number of homes that we have been able to provide to those who lost there homes in the earthquake to twelve. We were also able to finish Arcene Bac’s home, which was a special project sponsored by a church in Columbia, SC. If you check out some of my earlier updates in my blog you will see pictures of some of these homes. The exciting news with this part of the ministry is that we already have three churches lined up to build new homes after the first of the year.

Facility Modifications and Upgrades

ESMI Locations

This year has been very busy from a project perspective all across the country. As you might
recall, we are operating facilities in four major Departments in Haiti: Artibonite, Grand-Anse,
Ouest, and Sud. Below are some of the activities that we have been conducting in these areas.
Note that this does not include some of the smaller projects that our short-term teams
worked on such as painting buildings, building school desks and church pews, building gardens
and sports fields, and various other critical activities that helped to improve the lives of our
brothers and sisters in Haiti.

Fayeton School Reconstruction

Artibonite, Fayeton Orphan Village — The main project here was the reconstruction of the school. We had to remove a second story that was not built to our standards and then add new classrooms to double the size of the school. The school started operating in October. We also added a cistern under the floor of the church. This area is very dry and the need to store water is critical. We started working on a project with the city of Gonaives to run a water line out to our facility but the project has been held up by the city officials trying to redirect our funds to a different, non-related project. We also had one of our short-term teams install a playground structure for the children (orphans and students) at this facility.

Mapou Orphan Village (WMI Unit in back)

Artibonite, Mapou Orphan Village — We were able to partner with Water Missions International to install a
community-based water purification system at our facility in Mapou. This unit can provide up to 10,000 gallons per day of purified water. We are now able to provide this clean source of life to the orphans, students, church members, and surrounding community. We have also been able to enter into a partnership with one of our sponsoring churches to adopt this site. We are sure that you will hear
many reports next year from this site as it grows and gets enhanced. We are already in the process of negotiating for adjoining property so that we can build new homes for the orphans here.

Jeremie University Layout

Grand-Anse, Jeremie University — This facility has probably consumed the most of my time throughout the year. At this site we are in the process of building a national level university. We will begin with the
first department being a seminary, but our desire is to add other departments that might include business management, construction management, language, and various technical programs (machine repair, solar energy systems, etc.). So far this year we have been able to construct the Dr. David Nicholas Chapel, the Cafeteria/Fellowship Hall, and various infrastructure projects (Water Missions International water purification system, septic tank, and public restrooms). The next structure to be started before the end of the year is the School of Joy, which will ultimately provide primary and secondary education for up to 1,000 students from the surrounding area. We also have the designs done for the Administration / Classroom building and are working to secure funding for this. Another critical component of this facility is that we are working with SonLight Power to implement a solution that will provide solar power for the entire campus.

Lundy Retaining Wall from above

Grand-Anse, Lundy Orphan Village — We have had a lot of activity at this facility. The church that has adopted this site has built classrooms, support buildings, and many other critical support projects. I have not been managing these projects but have been excited to see all that is being done for the children at the orphan village and the members of the church there. This partner averages one team per month working at this facility. If your church would like to discuss partnering with one of our facilities please let me know. A major project that I did oversee was the installation of a retaining wall. When we first built this facility the decision was made to put the boys dormitories on the hill. This was before we
started implementing more rigorous engineering standards. It became necessary to add the retaining wall to ensure that the hillside did not collapse below the buildings. The Dominican Republic Rotary International funded this project.

Sud, Bighouse Orphan Village — At this facility we were able to install a security wall around the facility. This area outside of the city of Les Cayes has a lot of voodoo activity and having this security wall is helping the children feel much safer.

River bank after last flood

Sud, Cherette Facility — This facility sits on the edge of a river in the Sud Department. The storms this year have cause this river to flood multiple times. We have been able to build a large retaining wall, however, the flooding has been so bad that the damage to the river bank has extended much further upstream than we were able to address. We are still reviewing our options with this site and are blessed to have a civil engineer coming down on a short-term trip after the first of the year to continue to assess the problem. He was the designer for the solution that we put in place.

Sud, Les Cayes #1 — This is one of our larger churches in Haiti with a weekly attendance around 4,500. We will be working with one of our donors before the end of the year to put in a cistern and solar-powered pump to provide water to this church and the surrounding community.

Sud, Savannes — Savannes is an area within the city of Les Cayes that has been deemed as one of the roughest areas in the city due to drug and gang activities. Last year we planted a church there and this year we were able to finish it and start having services there. We also have some partner churches from the Chicago area that are going there on a regular basis to do church related work and medical clinics and we are seeing an enormous impact on the community. We are now in the process of seeking funding to build a school and medical clinic on the church property. Hopefully I will be reporting on these next year.

Total Value — Thanks to your contributions to this ministry and my personal support to do this work I have been able to manage approximately $800,000 worth of projects this year. Many of these projects have been completed and some are in the final stages of design and fund raising. Thank you again for making it possible for me to be able to do this work.

Micro-Businesses

One area of the ministry that I am also getting involved in is the establishment of micro-businesses. We work with donors here the United States and Canada that desire to help the churches that we plant become self-sustaining. Some of the micro-businesses that I am investigating and will soon be putting together business plans for are ice factories, tilapia farms, poultry farms, and cyber cafes. This is a whole new area of expertise for me so please be praying for me as I develop the skills needed to do this effectively. I will also be working next year to build relationships with donors outside of our normal church circle to donate funds to these activities.

Travel for 2011

One question that I often get asked is when will be my next trip to Haiti. In 2010 I traveled to Haiti ten times for a total of eleven weeks. Most of this travel was related to the earthquake and getting up to speed on ESMI and the work that we are doing in Haiti. This year has been different. I have been able to travel to Haiti for a total of four weeks so far. However, I have also traveled to Florida, Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Chicago, Indianapolis, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and California to participate in various meetings with donors, organizations, and conferences to help build the ESMI base
of partners. It is a blessing to have such a dependable team in Haiti to work with so that I can manage the projects remotely and leverage my ability to work with donors and supporting organizations here in the United States. As my personal funding gets more stabilized I will be travelling to Haiti at least once per quarter.

Personal Fundraising Status

As I have shared in past updates, our ability to do this work is based on the generous support of friends and family like you. Many people that we run into still believe that this is something that we do in our retirement years. Unfortunately that is not the situation. This has become my new career and it is such a blessing to be able to use all that I have learned working for big business to make a difference in the lives of those in desperate need. My salary now comes from donations from people like you. As you can see from the news above there is a lot of work being done with your investment with so much more to do.

We have been blessed with enough donations this year to keep us fully focused on doing this work. Below is the last report that I submitted to the ESMI Board of Directors so that they were aware of how we are doing on our support. January begins a new year and we will be starting from scratch again. If you would like to provide either a one time donation or a recurring (monthly) donation to keep us doing this work you can do that on our website at Donate for David Short. It is also important for you to know that 100% of these donations go to what you are designating them for. ESMI operates with no administrative overhead.

Once again we want to thank you for your ongoing support in the form of thoughts, prayers and financial donations. This coming February will be the two year anniversary of doing this work in Haiti and it has only been able to be accomplished by your support. We will be praying for you and your families throughout the Christmas season.
Thanks…

David B. Short, PMP, SCPM
Projects and Development Director

ESMI, greets you this holiday season. Christmas is a time of great gifts and celebrations; everywhere there is joy, happiness, and peace. Christmas can also be a time to receive a small gift from someone even though you may not deserve it.

This year, ESMI would like to appeal to your generosity to help the children (in our churches and orphan villages) with the opportunity to experience the splendor of the Christmas season. Over the past 16 years ESMI has had the opportunity to have many children come under our care. Some are orphans, some have been left at our facilities because their families cannot take care of them, and some are students in our schools and members of our churches.

Many of these children were deprived and they did not have what was needed to become good citizens later in their lives. Some of them have been abandoned, left alone and without any protection. To survive, they begged in the streets and sometimes like dogs, searched in the trash to survive. These children had no childhood, no dignity, no life and no future, facing humiliation, discrimination, hunger, nakedness, deprivation of affection and love, and lack of health care.

This year, we would like to organize a party for these children so that they may finally have a taste of the flavor of Christmas. Each child would be given a small gift and we will have a party with songs, a meditation, skits and a movie.

We know that it is late in the season to be making these plans, but who says that Christmas cannot go past December 25th. Would you be able, or willing, to give $25 gift toward a child for what might be their first Christmas celebration? This is a big undertaking because we have 750 children that we are hoping to bless.

Follow this link to make a donation towards the Orphans’ Christmas Celebration. The donation button is located near the bottom of that page.