The Van Dam Family
In January we will celebrate 18 years of life and ministry in Haiti. The work has evolved quite a bit, but we still feel a strong sense of God’s vision and calling to serve our partners here in this place.
Howard’s main foci are with our three partners, the Ministry of Christian Development, the Christian Reformed Church of Haiti, and CRECH, an organization producing Christian school curriculum and training teachers.
Ruth’s main foci are managing the home and doing administrative tasks and communications at the office.
Every missionary family needs to raise a mininum of $67,725.00. or a total of $112,875.00 by June 2010. As of November 30, we reached 39% of the minimum goal.
A Generator for the CRCH
Lights, fans, computers, a sound system, the refrigerator, and a newly installed water pump. What do all of these have in common? They need electricity to function. In Haiti, the electric company provides about 5 – 8 hours a day of power. After that, we rely on our battery and inverter system and when those fail, we rely on a generator.
The Ministry Center of the Christian Reformed Church of Haiti is in need of a new high powered generator to run their offices, the offices of two other organizations on the grounds, the guest house for all of our teams and visitors, conferences, theology classes, and a brand new church start.
The goal is $15,000.
Strategies of Transformation
With the challenges of ministering in an urban context where there is a growing number of “youth at risk,” many church leaders in Port-au-Prince are struggling in how to respond. Strategy of Transformation, a para-church organization working in Central America and the Carribean equips church leaders to serve the least, the last, and the lost in Jesus’ name.
In collaboration with Sous Espwa, Strategy of Transformation has recently begun training in Haiti. Our goal is to identify 60 church leaders who have a desire to minister and reach out to youth at risk. Over the course of three years, we hope to form a missional community that can provide effective leadership and can live out the Gospel in hard places.
Needed: a total of $12,700 per year to cover salary and travel.
