So today is Giving Tuesday. What does that mean anyway? Shouldn’t we always be looking for ways to give? We are people who truly enjoy giving gifts, but also admit we are not always up for it. We imagine your newsfeeds will be inundated with lots of opportunities to give on this day and on through the end of the year. Tis the season after all! But it’s okay if you aren’t up for it.
Sometimes we get the feeling we are living in a groundhog day cycle of Giving Tuesday. Here in Haiti it is difficult to go anywhere without hearing the words, “Give me….” We get sick of it. Real fast. Give me this and give me that. Give me your money. Give me your shoes. Give me your hair (Yeah, that was an actual request of someone pulling on Elisabeth’s hair.) So to be on the other side of that saying, “Give to us!” sometimes feels a bit nauseating. Wait. Wasn’t this supposed to be a post selling the idea of giving? Because there are real needs in the world and we have some?
Yes. There are pressing needs. But we recognize that there always will be. It’s hard not to think about those things. It’s even harder to ask for help sometimes. We know the best way to lift the worries of tomorrow is to remember the many blessings we have already received and just sit in that thankfulness. Here are some of the things we are thankful for on this Giving Thanks Tuesday!
Our four amazing kids. They may be in an awkward stage, living and homeschooling in a third world country with no extracurricular activities and few friends to call their own (which isn’t exactly a fun place to land for teenagers), BUT they are all seeking Jesus. Sometimes Usually they are seeking video games and Netflix movies too, but we all have our ways of coping and they are still amazing in our book. We love them so much and are really thankful for each of our children and the privilege of being their parents.
Home. We have a house. It is a good house with a really great view. It is usually a peaceful house. It finally feels like our house is a home. It is a place we can get away from all the “Give me’s” for just a little bit. It is still a Haiti house filled with heat and bugs and floor cracks and other ewwww that simply will never go away, but even those things feel a little more like home too. We really love it here and are so thankful we get to live here.
Clean water. We have water. So maybe we doubt the “clean” part a bit when looking in the hole (cistern) under our driveway and see what’s lurking in there, but water is in there nonetheless and comes out of our faucet like a miracle. Having lived without consistent running water for a few years, we sometimes hold our breath when turning on the faucet like Moses hitting a rock in the desert. Most of the Haitians we know don’t have running water and many don’t even have potable water close to their homes. It is bittersweet to turn on our faucet and think about them. We are thankful to know them and to pray and work for them to get water too. We are really thankful we were able to get a water truck delivery last week even though the roads were closed. We are thankful for the Haitian neighbors who let us borrow twenty gallons of drinking water when we were totally out and couldn’t get to a refill station. Water is a really big deal y’all. If you have water you should be thankful too!
Food. We haven’t gone hungry yet and can probably stand to miss a meal occasionally (though the teenage boy will beg to differ). Thanksgiving dinner was great. We were missing friends and a few of the entrees they didn’t get to bring but we had more than enough with a few days of leftovers we just finished today. Eric was reminiscing about this in front of the church on Sunday and briefly recalled a time (that lasted for about two years) when we often didn’t know where our next meal was coming from. Those were scary times that we have no desire to repeat. And yet we are really thankful for those times for we “learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12). We learned in a very small way for only a small amount of time what many around the world experience as the norm their entire lives. We are really thankful for these experiences and also the times we have a house full of food!
Clothes. We definitely can’t keep up with the latest fashions and the boys currently only fit in one pair of shoes, but we live in a climate that demands the least amount of clothing possible and for that we are thankful. Along with clothes we can be thankful again that we have the water and a makeshift washing machine thingy to be able to wash all the sweaty clothes. Washing clothes is a really tough job by hand. Most of the world does it that way. Some people we know can’t go to church (shame on the church) because they don’t have the proper clothes. Some kids can’t go to school for the same reason. We have never suffered because of any lack of clothes. We don’t think on it much, but are truly thankful for clothes.
Transportation. We have an actual working vehicle! Keeping vehicles alive in Haiti is a giant chore. We basically never have one that is working well and have never had two working at the same time. Last month a new to us, low mileage vehicle made its way from FL to Haiti and into our driveway a few weeks ago. It has been such a huge blessing already and we are SO thankful to the churches and dear friends who provided for us to purchase and get it here. Traversing the roads in Haiti is dangerous on a good day. Having a reliable commuter vehicle truly feels like a life saver to us. Having personal transportation at all is the perk of a privileged life. We don’t deserve that. But we are thankful and pray we can use the much we have been given to bless others in return.
Education. It is never wasted. We are so thankful for all of our teachers who invested in us so we could invest in others. Many of you have graciously given so many kids could have an opportunity to be educated. THANK YOU! Elisabeth works all year connecting with parents, students, administration and tutors to give the Haitian kids we have come to know and love a chance at an education. Without you, many of these kids would be collecting sticks to make charcoal, walking to bring buckets of water home, going to the river to wash clothes, working in the fields with their parents all day and not just after school or on the weekends. Thank you for giving the gift of education. We believe it will give back to these kids, their families, and the future of their communities.
Eric loves sharing the education he has been gifted to teach Haitian pastors in the Word each week and also shepherding our international church on Sunday mornings. We are so thankful for the opportunity of education that many around the world never receive.
Medical care. We have the opportunity to find and acquire the medical care our family needs. We sit with these moms whose kids could have been saved by a surgery that would have already happened in our country of birth and ask, “why?” We have watched as several have slipped away this past year due to lack of medical care or resources. We think about our Evan whose complicated medical condition we are trying to navigate. We wouldn’t have the opportunity to get the support we need to care for him well if he could not leave Haiti. So many don’t have that option. We are overwhelmingly thankful and humbled that we do.
We are thankful to be able to come alongside struggling Haitian families and often end up helping with medical needs. Relationships built through difficult times usually end up being the sweetest. We helped bury a little boy named Christian in August. His sweet life brought the community together and brought awareness to children with special needs. The community reached out to a family who was once ostracized. We are so thankful for the relationships built by burdens shared even through the sad lack of medical care. This week we got to meet Christian’s new little sister. She is healthy. Her mom named her “Elisabeth” because of the sweet relationship we now have. Such a gift!
Sharing the gospel. We are thankful that we know Christ and have the amazing privilege to make Him known around the world. Family and friends thank you for your support to give the best gift of all–Jesus! We truly have everything we need. What a gift it is to get to share the best gift of all! Eric just got to do that this month with an unengaged/unreached people group on the other side of the world who had never heard about Jesus.
We have so much for which to be thankful! It feels wrong to ask for more.
The other stuff. The other stuff is just about unmet budgets, worries about fuel shortages and rising fuel costs, violent political protest that have the whole country upset, blocked roads that prevent us from finding fuel (all that fuel stuff translates into us not having electricity which means no Facebook, video games or Netflix—which we shall surely live without though honestly don’t know if we can go back to living without fans), landlords who broke promises (we seem to be prone to this problem) and are charging $8,000 more than we expected to pay for rent (that has to be paid all at once for the year) medical and travel expenses for our family, and feeling guilty and weird about the upcoming family vacation we planned for our daughter’s graduation/Christmas present to our kids and each other before all this other stuff came up and made us try to get our money back—which was not refundable. But the most burdensome stuff is that we are struggling to be able to pay our eight Haitian ministry partners and employees that bear numerous job descriptions and keep us and the ministries running. We have been struggling to come up with the money to pay them since September when our regional mission office told us they have to make budget cuts and could no longer help fund the majority of these stipends/salaries. We know this will hurt our Haitian friends, their families and our ministries here. We also know God is good and we are trusting His faithfulness in bringing all these things together for our good, for their good and His glory.
We don’t care if you don’t give on Giving Tuesday. We understand if you aren’t up for it or have already given all you got. We just wanted to share our thankfulness for all that has been given to us along with sharing some of our current burdens. But if you ARE looking to give and if you would like to give to us out of the millions of other great options, below are a few ways to do that. It doesn’t have to be on Giving Tuesday. We promise to keep up the thankfulness on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday too! 😉
KOFAEL is our Haitian women’s ministry that provides business loans to seventy-five women so that they can provide for their own families. There are four Haitian directors who volunteer and work hard to love and serve these ladies. We have provided a monthly stipend to each of the directors that helps them cover travel, phone and even purchasing water and small snacks for the women at the monthly meetings. Each director receives a stipend of $100 per month. We need $400 per month to continue to grant their stipends. Anything will help and you can make your tax deductible donation here: https://kofael.org
We have five employees that perform various jobs for us and the ministries in various ways. Honestly, we don’t know what we would do without them or what they will do if they do not have these part time jobs—for some they are the only jobs providing for their households. Our mission organization (that KOFAEL is also under) will continue to pay these employees for us if we can raise the $400 funding per month for them to be able to do so. If you would like to help with this you can make your tax deductible donation here: https://heartofgodhaiti.org
Personally, we are about $12,000 shy of paying for our year end expenses such as the unexpected $8,000 for our housing rent, the current need for bulk emergency fuel storage, medical and travel expenses to get to Texas for Evan’s specialist appointments (pediatric cardiologist every six months as well as endocrinologist and geneticist are upcoming appointments we currently have scheduled) and then flights back to Haiti. We thank our team who gives monthly to enable us to live and serve overseas. End of year giving is an opportunity for others to partner with us and help meet yearly budget needs. Please click here www.reamteaminternational.org or by text “Ream” to 419-504-4461 and follow prompts if you would like to make a tax deductible donation to the Ream Team.
The best gift you can give us is your prayers! Please continue to pray for Haiti during this time of political unrest that impacts the daily livelihoods of millions. Pray for our children’s hearts to be encouraged and filled with peace. Pray for our marriage to be strong and sensitive to put one another’s needs above our own. Pray for the ministries to continue to thrive and bless the Haitian people. Pray for protection over our home (and all our pets) when we travel to Florida and then Texas during December. Pray for healing for our son Evan. Pray for our daughter, Elita Marguerite, as she spends January-May away from us at a Discipleship Training School. Pray for the remaining finances for her to be able to pursue this. Pray for our ministry partners and employees to be well and be able to serve their families and communities well. Pray for those who don’t have family, homes, food, water, clothes, safe transportation, education or medical care. Pray especially for those who don’t yet know Jesus. Pray that no matter our lot in this life that we will,
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus” -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.
Pray that together we will always be looking for ways to give back!
Giving Thanks,
Eric and Elisabeth