NEWSLETTER

God is great! He is awesome and is worthy of our praise. My family and I were blessed this month of May to see Tarah married. She desired a small wedding, which reflected her introverted and shy personality. However, she did not get her wish to the extent that she wanted. Several family members and friends on both sides witnessed their vows and attended the marriage. All went well on the wedding day. They now live in Lexington, both working from home. Bernadette and I gained a good “son,” Corey Newsome. We give glory to God for him and his family.

Haiti is in turmoil, but HCMKy continues its ministries though at reduced capacity, adapting to conditions on the ground. Tabarre has been under fire from three sides for the last couple of years. Many have died in the town from both the gangs and the police, though some wrongfully. It is surrounded by three different armed groups, who sometimes get violent with the population and the police. Nevertheless, our God has proved faithful, guarding our personal and church family safe thus far.

The church in Tabarre did not have to shut its doors. When the streets are hot with gunfire, many stay home, especially those who live a distance from the church. Others brave the gunshots and come. I have been online preaching to them several times during such conditions, hearing guns firing like popcorn popping in the distance. Several ladies were held at gunpoint once, and had their wallets and phones stolen.  One of our members received a gunshot while sitting near her home a distance away from the shooting. Danger is always looming as people go about their daily business; but life goes on. They have gotten used to the situation.

The school in Tabarre did not function for several months because parents feared for the safety of their children. This situation caused the school children to go without food many times, as their parents are unable to go to work or get out on the streets to do commerce. No money is coming in for many families, which results in a fearful situation of hunger, starvation. In a town not far from Tabarre, it is reported that a whole family, mother and two children died of starvation in their home. The mother could not leave the house to go out to find sustenance for the family because the shooting was so intense in the area for weeks. The police are either unwilling or unable to face the wave of gang violence.

School has now resumed; there is some calm now. The feeding program, which was on hold, resumed as well. Teachers who live in dangerous areas can come to school. And the children are learning after missing most of the year. As a result, school will be held for two months over the summer to try to make up for some lost class time. It is hard on those young ones, the stress of constant gun shooting, the fear and uncertainty for their lives and the future. Many young people have left the country, taking advantage of President Joe Biden’s open border policy, leaving the country depleted of its youth, its strong, and able minds. This is a travesty, unfair, and unjust to the Haitian community and to the American people.

Conditions are a bit calmer outside the Capital city, Port-au-Prince. As Saut-d’Eau (Sodo), life, though tense, seems to have returned to normal after the wave of invading gangs last summer and fall. The population is back to farming, the best they can. Schools are open. The church at Aumont, outside of the town of Saut-d’Eau, gathers every Sunday and Saturday for worship and Bible study. They do not have a preacher, but the preacher in Tabarre and I work using the Internet. He and I take turns preaching. I preach online to both congregations on the second and fourth Sundays and hold bible study for Aumont on Saturdays.

The school construction at Aumont is on hold due to unsafe traveling conditions for the workers and the exorbitant rise in the price of building materials. However, we continued sporadically the digging of the school well and the construction of an underground water reservoir for the property.

One section of the school, the pre-kindergarten is under roof, while the kindergarten classrooms are not finished. Our hope was to begin classes for the youngest ones, three- and four-year-olds until we can resume the construction of the other classrooms, but that will have to wait until security is restored and the streets are safe for traveling and possibly the inflation subsides, and prices go down. We have a saying in Haiti: Only the flag goes up and comes down. (Inflation never goes down.) Our hope is that the new government works to better the plight of the people.

Conditions in the country of Haiti would lead many to question the presence and implication of God in the life and conditions of the Haitian people, particularly His people there. They would say as is said in Psalms 42: 3, “My tears have been my food day and day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”” Death and destruction are all around the country. The people are exasperated, they have nowhere to go and no one to rescue them, while they are hungry and afraid for their lives and that of their children. Despite that visible reality, the authorities are negotiating positions, money, and personal interests using the plight of the people as bargaining chips. While evil seems to be reigning, we know that God is on His throne and in control, and He is longing for us to turn to Him, and that we Christians intensify the call to repentance by preaching Christ and doing our best to alleviate the suffering of the people. But where do we begin, the problems are so many?

We anticipate, as does the UN and many other aid organizations, that widespread hunger will be a natural outcome of the last twenty or so years of mismanagement and violence in the country. As history indicates, the Haitian government, for whatever reason, has not proven to be in favor of the masses in the country. That is what explains the large number of missionaries and non-government organization offering relief to the people without them ever be relieved, on the contrary situations seem to worsen. Bad governance and widespread corruption might explain this.

We are not discouraged. HCMKy does not intend to save the whole country. Our effort is to create better conditions for as many as we can. Such programs as the earthquake relief in 2010, the affordable school for children in the community, the feeding program that brings a hot meal the nearly two hundred kids per day. Though it does not scratch the surface of the food-need in Tabarre. HCMKy does outreach in Saut-d’Eau with medical and dental services, when possible, the school construction project that will serve over 500 children with Christian education, one or two meals per day, agricultural education and improvement for the famers, clean drinking water, and possibly electricity at least for part of the area. None of these achievements and hope could exist without your continued prayers, support, and encouragement.

We are very grateful to everyone and anyone who supported and continues to support the school, the feeding program in Tabarre. Hopefully, when the country opens, many more of you will jump in to help launch the mountain projects, the Bible Institute, the school from kindergarten to high school, the farming project, and other area reforestation projects that are in the works for the community of Saut-d’Eau. We are certain that God will return situations to normal, whatever that might mean, where we can continue working toward the projects set forth before us.

Choubert and Bernadette Rémy

Conditions in the country continue to slide down the path of despair. The government still cannot get a handle on the various armed groups that continue to spread throughout the country.

Port-au-Prince, the Capital, can turn into a trap at any moment, because it is surrounded by armed gangs that wreak havoc on the people of several neighborhoods within the city. The gangs seem to be stronger each day.
The cities and towns surrounding the Capital constitute war zones due to fighting between gangs and the local police. The former seem to have more and bigger guns than the police.

Nevertheless, many communities have managed to defend themselves against push out waves of armed gangs’ attacks. Saut-d’Eau, where the new Aumond school project is, went through several weeks of such fighting. Our police reinforced by special forces from Port-au-Prince, pushed them back several times and managed to regain control of the area.
The shakeup caused fear to grip the people who stayed home, respecting instructions from the authorities. Thank God the people followed the orders. However, our church and Bible study programs were interrupted. We called off church services two weeks in a row. And this past Sunday, attendance was very low at Saut-d’Eau. We missed bible study at the church and our home study groups in the areas as well. Now that the situation is calm upon the mountain, we hope to resume activities.

In Tabarre, the church continues to function as usual. The people are familiar with the conditions and have learned how to navigate the streets and do what they need to do, go to church, to market, or go to their jobs. Nevertheless, it is different for schools. Parents are more hesitant to let their children on the streets. The Christian school in Tabarre has had a very slow start. Though the children come to school, they are now slowly trickling in reduced numbers. We hope in a few weeks, after parents gage the street conditions, they will allow the children to return to school.

I need not expand on the economic impact of the various insecurities, physical, social, economic, have had on the population of Haiti. All the elements of economic distress are present in the country with no visible end in sight. The young and healthy continue to flee the country encouraged by an open-door policy extended to Haiti and three other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Though the program is presented as a relief to Haitians, really, it is a destabilizing factor on the country’s economy and development. And as those who responded and got to the US can attest, it didn’t solve their problems but created new ones. The brain drainage, the brain waste are frustratingly evident, as testified by some Haitian immigrants with whom I talked. It’s a sad situation.

HCMKY is praying and seeing how God will want us to respond to the outcome of these events in the country of Haiti when it is safe to return. My wife and I are in daily contact with our colleagues on the ground in Haiti. We continue to work online with the school in Tabarre, teach and preach at the churches, holding one on one Bible studies and in home studies. One study group has grown to the point of asking to be constituted as a congregation in the North of Haiti. We meet online every Sunday afternoon in a home in the town of Limonade, near the second largest city in Haiti, Cap-Haïtien.

We praise God for His mighty work through us despite unfavorable conditions. We ask for your continued prayers for the country and the various ministries of HCMKY. We are confident God will bring an end to the unrest and we can move forward with the programs that will benefit the children of the different communities in schooling, feeding, and help the people of Saut-d’Eau (Aumond) with their agricultural needs which may be the only real means of financing for the people. Please pray, God is faithful.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us through the years and continues to do so as we go through this difficult journey. May God return blessings on you and yours a hundred-fold in Jesus’ name.

Choubert and Bernadette Rémy