Dear Friends and Family,
2022 has mostly been a year walking through dark valleys but we have also climbed a few mountains and feel God with us in all the highs and lows. A wise friend recently reminded that fruit isn’t produced on the mountaintop but in the valley. Valleys tend to induce anxiety and fear, but they also bring us closer to our Shepherd. It is comforting to be reminded that even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil; for God is with us. (Psalm 23:4a)
After the previous four years of difficult circumstances on all fronts Haiti, health, family and finances, we couldn’t imagine that 2022 would be a year of enduring even greater challenges and painful heartaches. We started 2022 with a household of Covid that lasted most of January but thankful we all recouped quickly. However, Eric has battled lymphatic issues that may have been a side effect of Covid. Looking on the bright side, this complication also ended up being providential as it gave him the disability leave he needed from his Amazon side hustle job (that provides our family insurance benefits) to be in Haiti with Elisabeth for a good portion of the summer! Elisabeth was also able to travel to Haiti in March/April with our daughter Elita. Both Haiti trips were sweet mountaintop moments in the midst of walking through very dark valleys with Haiti. We shared about these ministry trips HERE and HERE if you would like to go back and read those updates. Elisabeth and Esmée had hoped to be in Haiti in September/October, but had to cancel that trip due to the continued gang violence that blocks main roads and prevents gas and goods either entering or being transported throughout the country. We had been preparing and looking forward to this trip, and it was definitely a low that we were not able to go. But we trust this too was for the best even when we cannot see all the reasons in the moment.
May and early June were big celebration times for our family as Eric celebrated another year around the sun, Evan turned 16, Ethan graduated high school and turned 18, and Esmée turned 21! Eric and Elisabeth spent a lovely week in Colorado—after the summer Haiti trip— staying with family/ministry supporters, attending our dear friend’s daughter’s wedding and even getting to see friends who used to live and do life with us in Haiti. We then were in Pennsylvania for two weeks at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with our son Evan who had a Frontalis sling surgery to raise his eyelids to help him see better. Due to his mitochondria condition there was a lot of extra precaution, many labs, a team of several specialists present and we had to stay a week longer than we had anticipated. We praise the Lord for guidance and provision in the difficult journey, a successful surgery and for all the prayers of the saints during this time and month of recovery that followed for Evan.
Elita Marguerite has been working as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home the past year while also putting herself through dental assistant school. She recently finished her course, passed all her state exams and is hoping to secure a job at a dentist office in the new year. Elita has been living at her grandparents’ house (which is next door to our house) this year and taking care of it for them while they are in VA, or traveling all over the world. Elita is contributing to house bills while still saving money she would otherwise spend on rent elsewhere. Elita loves to travel and she has saved enough to be able to go on a 24th birthday trip to Egypt in February 2023 with World of the Bible Ministries! We are excited for her! Elita will get a new housemate in 2023 who will stay with us a couple weeks in January as well. Alexia’s father is from France and her mother is from Mexico so she was raised with a love for other cultures. She is a student at Texas State University near us and works with international students from India which we are sure will also be landing at our house soon! We are thankful God has orchestrated this and looking forward to seeing how God uses Elita and Alexia and our family to reach international students in the new year!
Esmée started the year working at Amazon and worked there until taking a nanny position a few months ago. Esmée’s career goal is to become a midwife in the future and she is working on her certification to become a birthing and postpartum Doula first. Esmée has gone through many transitions this year from new jobs, finishing school, running the household while parents were out of the country, getting her drivers license, navigating new relationships, and addressing her past from very hard places. Esmée has been in Florida since mid December to work through some of the personal struggles that are among our “valleys of the shadow of death” this year. We ask prayers for our precious daughter and as we continue to walk through this valley with her. We don’t know how long Esmée will be in Florida and are trusting God’s timing for as long as she needs. We are thankful we were able to have an early family Christmas together and take these family photos with her before Eric and I took her to her program in Florida this month. We are very proud of our brave girl! We know that God will always use us most where we have been broken the most as we bring all our brokenness to Him. We are thankful that our Heavenly Father is holding our daughter’s hand through this valley and believe in faith that she will see the view from the mountaintop soon.
Ethan is a very independent eighteen year old. He lives in an apartment with three roommates not too far down the road from us. He had already finished a year of college through a dual credit program before graduating high school, but still needs to complete some prerequisites before starting school at Texas State University. He is currently working full time (and often overtime) at Amazon and is mostly figuring out that being an adult is not as easy as he once imagined. We help him as much as he allows with what we are able and we are so thankful our relationship is in a much better place than it was this time last year. While there have been many lows in the past year, some highlights have been Ethan landing the star role as Peter Pan in his school play and getting to work with him on that endeavor, watching him graduate high school and throwing him a big graduation/18th birthday party, getting his driver’s license and buying his first car with his own money, and seeing what a hard worker Ethan is at whatever he sets his mind to do!
Evan will always be the family baby but is definitely no longer a baby. He is now a sophomore at Hill Country Christian School and is very socially engaged at school, his youth group, in community service, as the manager of his basketball team, and doesn’t mind spending time with his family whenever he is not out with his friends. Evan spent his summer working his first job at Alto Frio, a Christian camp in Leakey, Texas (the same camp where Esmée worked many summers and where we spent summers with church youth camps back in the day). He enjoyed the experience and hopes to return this summer. Even though Evan has some health struggles (primarily with his eyes and low mitochondria levels), he is a trooper who almost always looks on the bright side. We are proud of Evan for seeking the Lord, working hard in school and pursuing healthy relationships in new ways this past year.
Elisabeth misses Haiti the most out of our family–the sweetest people and her silly goats. If she had her choice to change certain circumstances, Haiti is where she would be despite the hard life there. Parenting four adulting children with a ton of trauma has been the hardest thing she has ever had to do and if you know her you know she has done a lot of hard things. She loves her family fiercely and would do anything for them. She is not typically an anxious person, but this past year has forced her through so many valleys that she can now relate on a whole new level to those with this condition. It has been a year of more sleepless nights and days than we care to count but in it all we rest in God’s faithfulness. Elisabeth accepted a position in mid October as a teacher/mentor for the junior high girls at Hill Country Christian School (where Evan and our Haiti neighbor’s Jo and Hannah Joy attend). She has worked part time at the school while still working on school sponsorships and year end fundraisers for Haiti, but will start working at the school full time in January. She took this position because it not only allows her more participation in the school where Evan, Jo and Hannah Joy attend, but also because she has always loved working with junior high girls, this job allows for three days a week to still work for Haiti, to have holidays and summers off to be available to her family and be able to travel to Haiti and wherever else God leads us!
Eric misses living oversees and traveling to unreached and unengaged people groups the most. He has big plans for many trips in 2023 and we are praying the valleys of 2022 don’t keep him grounded (if that is the Lord’s will). Eric has often worked four jobs at a time this past year to keep us afloat as we wade through the flooding valleys. He is trying to leave Amazon but we are currently tied up with some heavy insurance needs to stay there. One side job he has enjoyed this year has been teaching ESL through Community Action to foreigners. We have a huge heart for the sojourners and immigrants in our broken US system and continue to pursue ways to reach foreigners with God’s love and the Good News wherever God grounds us! Another exciting addition this year has been Eric’s recent employment at American Airlines. While he isn’t seeking a position beyond the dude that loads bags on planes, this job allows him to work minimal hours for full benefits which includes free flights anywhere in the world American Airlines or their partners fly (and an almost unreasonable amount of unpaid yet permitted time off while keeping those benefits that will allow us to continue to travel and minister in Haiti and other countries)! We have already taken full advantage of these flight privileges and plan to use them to fly to Haiti often in the new year even if the conditions there do not permit us to reach our home.
Perspective and perseverance are essential to survival and we are thankful for a faithful God in Whose promises we stand secure. He has helped us thus far in all the highs and lows and we trust with expectant hope for whatever we will face in 2023.
We are also thankful to have each other to walk through the valleys and climb the mountaintops. We are thankful to have you–our friends and family and churches who have faithfully prayed for us and supported us at all times. Thank you. We love you and pray for you in all your valleys too!
“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
-2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Grace and Peace in the New Year,
Eric and Elisabeth Ream