Haiti Bible Mission would like to wish you and your families a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving!
We are so grateful for you!
News
November News from HBM!
As we head into the winter months and start to wrap up this wild year of 2020, we want to get you all caught up on what is going on in Haiti and what God is doing. COVID seems to have swept through Jeremie in the earlier months with little major illnesses, and life is back to normal on that front, Praise God!
We recently had two small back-to-back teams that helped us minister in the local hospital, paint our new school at Makandal, as well as make benches and desks for the classrooms. The teams also helped us prepare for a future solar project, along with getting things ready for rebuilding our church up at Te Wouj. If you remember, we lost the church in Hurricane Matthew, but are looking forward to rebuilding it better than ever!
With the completion of the Jeremie airport, a newly paved runway and more options for flights into Jeremie, we are able to safely receive more teams. We are looking forward to a team coming to serve during the first week of December and another team over Christmas. It’s been a long year without groups and this has made our team in Haiti so excited to have some visitors back helping serve in the communities. If you are interested in joining this group, we have a few spots left! Send us an email at info@haitibiblemission.org to get more details.
We have had a couple challenging months in Haiti as the US dollar value has dropped down 48%. We used to get 120 goudes to $1 US and now we only get 62 goudes per $1 US. This has been a real challenge for HBM and our staff since our money is not going as far. Things are still expensive in Haiti right now, even though we hear prices are supposed to come down soon. Please pray with us as we try to navigate and operate the mission while the money is going half as far! We know God can multiply what we have like he did the loaves and fish, but we must pray!
Huge praises as we are spending more time in the community of Makandal. While we were painting the school, our HBM Pastors took the opportunity to share Christ with the people and SEVEN people put their faith in Christ! Also praising the Lord that FOUR others came to know Jesus this past Sunday in HBM churches around the city! God is moving!
Haiti spent the first few months of this school year catching up on what they missed last year (COVID and political unrest), so the new school year is scheduled to start on November 9th. It will be our first year as the administrators of the Makandal community school and we have several school teachers beginning their first year in the profession as well. Please pray for a safe, productive school year and especially that God would be present in the community of Makandal as we try and saturate that zone with Christ.
We have a new, exciting project that will be announced in the coming weeks. Eldet is especially passionate about the project, as it will have a huge impact in his church community and there will be many ways for you to be a part of it, too! Keep a look out for that big announcement!
Coming Soon...
Keep an eye out for exciting updates coming soon!
Giving Tuesday is December 1st
Check out our Merch Page
Join us for a Missions Trip December 5-12th
Consider sponsoring a student at our new school in Makandal
Exciting News from our CEO!
Dear HBM Family,
We have some exciting news to present to you, our world-changing partners! The Lord has brought an opportunity before us and we would like to step out in faith to see it through. We have been approached by leaders in an urban community in which we serve to help save their school, and subsequently the education and future of their children. The community of Makandal has around 15,000 people and is also one of the hardest and most challenging communities in Jeremie because of the poor living conditions and extreme poverty. While this community has it’s challenges, God has given us favor and great relationships with so many people in this zone along with the local zone leaders. We helped build a basketball court next to the school a few years ago and have dreamed of the potential to make a bigger impact in this community. If we could take over the school, employing teachers and educating the children with a Christ-centered hope and HBM's heart of excellence, the possibilities are endless! A community school is a conduit to community relationships and therefore a path to share the Gospel. So many parents in this community have asked that we step in and help so that this community can change. I’ve talked with many families that want to see this place change for their kids to have a better chance to get an education, learn trades, and hear the Gospel. There is HUGE opportunity here. If HBM can get this up and running and start pouring into these kids and this community, I believe we will see God show up and do miracles! We NEED you on this. We do not have one dollar allocated for this step of faith. I’m asking that you would pray with us and share this with others that have a heart for education and want to be part of helping the zone and community of Makandal become all that God wants it to be. What we need to get up and running is $6,000 to get books, new benches, fans, and a generator. We will also have monthly needs, which would be $1,450/month and include teachers’ salaries, meals for the students, and security. I’m so excited for this chance to help this community! Our leaders at HBM on the ground are equally excited. We get to help create jobs, feed and educate kids while giving them the greatest treasure of all, Jesus Christ! Please consider partnering with us to Live The Difference in the community of Makandal!
Mark Stockeland
Haiti Bible Mission, CEO
News from HBM - June 2020
What a crazy time we are in. We know America is dealing with crisis after crisis, and we are standing with you all in prayer. It has never been more clear that we can do nothing without Jesus.
Here in Haiti, the Coronavirus is in full swing. It seems to be sweeping through, with most displaying only mild symptoms and we are thankful for that. We have been praying and seeking ways to help our communities as they hit this crisis head on. There are already several organizations giving out face masks and water buckets around Jeremie, so we have been looking for other ways to serve and bring lasting change. We were so excited when some of our zone leaders asked for a meeting so they could share with us how we could help the communities. They suggested getting trucks of water each week for our 7 zones so they could fill the buckets to wash hands, cook, and shower. They explained with the current drought conditions, there is a water crisis and the people are desperate to find sources of clean water. The leaders explained they had over 11,000 people that would be impacted each week with fresh water! Our team said yes, believing that God would show up as we took that step of faith. We also saw the opportunity this gives us to meet people and share the love of Jesus with them. When the trucks pull up, people come running! Just this week John Kely, the director of HBM’s Te Wouj school, said that he shared Jesus with many people while they were in line filling up their buckets. Not only do we get to help them in a tangible way with fresh water, but we also get to share about the life giving water that Jesus has to offer! Along with the water trucks, we have had others step up to support community-sized hand washing stations in zones that were lacking. Since there is no running water in these communities, washing your hands frequently becomes a huge challenge. These hand washing stations give the whole community a way to protect themselves from COVID-19 and will continue to help people stay healthy in the future. Thank you so much to all those that have given to the water project, as well as all those that support us monthly so that we can continue to empower leaders to transform communities. It is through our relationships with the community leaders that we are able to truly know and meet the needs of these communities, and this becomes even more crucial during times of crisis.
Our weekly discipleship groups have been such a blessing as we are seeing so much growth in our team. Each group is currently going through Proverbs with time to delve deeper by answering/discussing questions to help each person in their daily walk with the Lord. We are thankful for the times God is giving us to go deeper and build deep relationships in our small groups.
Many of you know about our PBFA (Performance Based Food Assistance) project in Te Wouj where we are feeding 1,000 people a meal daily for three years. We love this project and we can’t wait to see all the great things that will happen over the next few years, however Te Wouj is currently dealing with an even greater food crisis. This meal program is meant to *supplement* a family’s diet. Most of these families live off their gardens by selling their produce and keeping some to help their families. But with the drought and lack of rain for the last 3 months they have lost all that they had planted and have just been living off the MannaPack that we give them. We just took a hike to visit the families and do an assessment and it broke our hearts to see how they are struggling. We decided again to take a step of faith and purchased some beans, rice, and oil (basic staples) to take to the most in need. Praying the Lord will multiply their provisions and meet all their needs.
If anyone wants to give toward the water project or help us feed families we would love to have you partner with us. We have been blessed to have the first two months of the water project covered, but we will continue to do more as funds come in. As more support comes in, our team in Haiti will continue to asses the needs and help bring life transformation to these communities.
How You can help!
Financial needs:
New tires for one of our trucks $1,000
2 new roofs for families $500
2 weddings for our leaders $1,400
1 hand washing station $560
New gate for our front wall $1,600
50 Bibles for our churches $1,000
100 family food kits $25 each
Prayer Requests
Pray for COVID-19 to stop spreading
Pray for the families in the communities where we are giving water, that more people will come to know Jesus as their Savior
Pray for wisdom for our leaders and team that they can lead HBM with God at the center to help transform communities
Pray for rain!
Community Water Project
PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY!
Our community leaders have approached us with a major struggle they are facing right now. As Jeremie is getting deeper and deeper into a severe drought situation, the worst in 40 years, water is becoming more and more sparse. As you know, water is a necessity, especially during this covid 19 crisis, with washing hands as a first defense.
$100 per zone, ensures 400+ families have the clean water they need (for cooking, bathing, hand washing, etc) for a week. This is a huge opportunity for you, your church, organization or small group to meet an immediate need and alleviate some of their suffering during this difficult season!
Haiti Bible Mission is raising funds to bring 6,000 gallons of water to 7 zones around Jeremie, Haiti every week. Join with us to give life-giving water to the people of Jeremie!
$50 - will sponsor one truck (3,000 gallons) of water for one week in one of the seven zones in Jeremie, Haiti.
$100 - will sponsor an entire delivery of 6,000 gallons of water for one week in one of the seven zones in Jeremie, Haiti.
$350 - will sponsor one of the trucks delivery of 3,000 gallons of water for one week to ALL of the seven zones in Jeremie, Haiti.
$400 - will sponsor an entire Month of water for one of the seven zones in Jeremie, Haiti.
$700 - will sponsor BOTH trucks (6,000 gallons of water), for one week in ALL seven zones in Jeremie, Haiti.
$2,800 - will sponsor an entire month for ALL seven zones in Jeremie, Haiti.