Dan and Gillian Shoemaker - Serving the Lord in HAITI

The media shares stories of Haitians succumbing to eating mud cookies to mask hunger pains. In no way do we want to diminish the serious condition of people’s lives; we do want to share the stories behind the cookies that you don’t hear. The mud cookies are not new to the Haitian diet and actually have nutritional value. The special soil they use has dietary minerals needed for nutrition. In recent months the price of food has exceeded many families.

Many of our kind hearted team members have asked what they can do to help. It has been amazing to see how we are all part of a solution, whether we are at the beginning, the middle or the end of the process. While OMS is not a disaster relief mission, nor are we equipped to feed mass populations, we do have access to and a working process for feeding 6000 needy children in Haiti through Starfish Kids. While we at OMS are not equipped to import massive quantities of food, we have built a relationship with an organization that is. While they are not equipped to daily cook a hot meal for our 6000 children, we are. This alliance is a win, win for our children.

Last week we got the good news that we had been chosen to share in the 8 million tons of food that the UN has just released to help alleviate the suffering from the recent price increases in Haiti. We now have 6 of our 31 schools entered into this government program that the Haitian government has arranged. We are thrilled to see the efforts of the new government, and how they are blessing our kids personally.

So how can you help? Many of the schools are still waiting to get into the hot meal feeding program and will not qualify because they don’t have the required food storage depot/room that is needed to securely store a month’s supply of rice, beans and oil. We would like to challenge you to get involved and challenge those around you to join the effort. Think about your families, Vacation Bible School, Sunday School classes. We have the food, the means of delivery, the cooking materials, the volunteer cooks and the hungry children but we don’t have the storage rooms. It will cost $2000 US to build each 10 x 10 x 10 room with a secure, locked door. Can you help? We can provide flyers, fact sheets and photos to help you share the need. Contact me at fishing@starfishkids.org to learn more about getting involved. The best part is, lives will be transformed as we work together to walk out the promises of the Lord’s provision.

Any gifts to this important cause can be sent to OMS Intl. attention USA project# 407200. For Canadian donors, please contact me at fishing@starfishkids.org as the project number is still pending.

Let the little children come to me…

The Jesus Film has been presented world wide with immeasurable success in growing the kingdom and giving children a visual picture of the life of Jesus.

OMS-Haiti has been blessed with a portable video machine complete with its own gas generator. It takes 5-minutes to set up and can project a picture big enough for 100s of people to watch. Starfish Kids will be presenting the Jesus Film in 22 of our schools in the next 5 weeks. In our first school 70 children bowed their heads in a first time prayer to Jesus!!