Helping the plight of the Haitian people...

Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. The second largest island of the Greater Antilles, Hispaniola lies west of Puerto Rico and east of Cuba and Jamaica. Its western third is the nation of Haiti, and Eastern two thirds is the nation of the Dominican Republic, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are occupied by two countries.

Haiti is a country caught in a time lapse, being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It is the only nation to win its own independence from slavery. Haiti has a violent history with frustrations that surface in the form of violence even today. The education level is between second and third grade. Estimates are that Haitians make from $200 to $400 per family per year, with supplies and food costing as much and more than in the United States. Jobs are very rare, with hundreds of people for each available job. Infant mortality is extremely high, so Haitians have many children, hoping that some will make it to be adults in order to have someone to take care of them in their old age. Tuberculosis, AIDS, Malaria, and Typhoid take the lives of people of all ages. Malnutrition is prevalent with most people

There is an estimate of more than 2,000,000 Haitians of either transient workers or individuals who have settled in the Dominican Republic, looking for work and a better way of life. Generally, they take the basest jobs, doing whatever they are able at a minimum salary, and are employed for the majority of unskilled jobs. Haitians are often mistrusted and live with prejudice. Some live in worse housing conditions that they did in Haiti, trying to make enough money to live and if there is any left over, to send back to family in Haiti. Language barriers due to not speaking Spanish well or due to accent can also contribute to misunderstandings and prejudices. Haitians generally live in communities of Haitians and often live in groups, depending where they came from in Haiti. The Dominican Republic was under Haitian rule at one time, which is a major contributor to prejudices against Haitians in the Dominican Republic.

News Update

October 31, 2008, 12:04:09 AM

Slowly, but surely, the website is changing to reflect the changes in our work. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so go to our website and see thousands of new words through new pictures. Gradually, you will begin to see changes is each of the areas, as each area is updated. www.ruralhaititeam.org

Pray for the Haitians in Los Santos Abajo. We have two faithful young men who will be our leaders, but as a whole the rest of the group may or may not participate from week to week. Pray that the Holy Spirit would work in their lives and draw them to know Christ.

Pray for the Haitians in Los Ciruelitos. Each week they increase by one or two or more. There is more interest in this group for some reason. They seem to have a desire to learn and have a potential of several leaders there.

Sam is going tomorrow (Friday) to Santo Domingo that is a meeting with the Haitian leaders that was set up by another missionary. We don't know the agenda of this meeting, but do feel that it will help give us more contacts and a better idea of what has already been done. Pray for discernment as we meet more and more people, to know who God has as our man of peace in each situation. (Not all motives are good.) Thank you in advance for your keeping this work bathed in prayer -- things happen when you pray.

October 02, 2008, 10:30:41 PM

A week ago Sunday we had around 40 people meet for our first Bible story in Los Santos Abajo. There seemed to be a lot of interest. We found out later that 19 other Haitians walked to where they thought we were meeting just to find out that church knew nothing about a Haitian Bible storying group. We praise God for the good first meeting and have decided that there are enough of the second group to try to start a second group with them closer to where they live. Pray for wisdom and for our eyes to be open to where God wants this group to meet.

This last Sunday there were fewer in attendance, but we didn't go visiting beforehand. We had announced that we would be there, but apparently that wasn't enough to get them there yet. We were encouraged to have two young men who were there both weeks for everything who seemed to catch the songs and remember the details of the stories. We will start working more directly with them to help develop their leadership skills. Pray for these two young men as they grow spiritually and for faithfulness to develop in the group as a whole.

We met today with a Dominican pastor to talk about how to address the needs of the Haitians in his area. We plan to meet again tomorrow with a Haitian member of his congregation that he trusts present. Apparently this pastor felt like he was taken advantage of by a group of Haitians in the past and is not very trusting of them at this poin t. Pray for us to have wisdom in how to proceed and not make the situation any worse.

We leave Thursday for a pastors and families retreat at the beach. Yeah, I know, you feel sorry for us. Its a tough life, but somebody's got to do it. I did call the association office last week to see if I should pack a dress. The secretary laughed and said, "To the beach?" (Be aware that the dress codes for churchy meetings in Haiti was quite different from here!) Be in prayer that we will have good communication with the Dominican pastors and be able to start developing some friendships and working relationships. Pray that we will see the vision the Dominican pastors have for the Haitian work and that we will be able to work together to the glory of God.

We will have new information and new pictures up on the website soon.

September 17, 2008, 08:31:18 AM

So many of you have written to ask how we made it through the storms. Actually, we did much better than Haiti, Cuba, or Texas. There is some disaster relief going on in both the Dominican Republic and in Haiti at this point that we are aware of, but not involved personally in. The loss of property is sad, but the true sadness is for those who died without knowing Christ as personal Savior. Surely, it is a wake up call for all of us to share our faith at every opportunity. We do not know when a person’s last chance to make a decision to follow Christ will be.

We are making progress on the Spanish, but it seems to be two steps forward and one step back. We had been practicing speaking Spanish all day, attending church in Spanish, reading a Spanish newspaper, talking with friends in Spanish, and everything seemed to be going better and better. That is up until we found a bunch of Haitians and when I stopped to tell them good afternoon, the words would not come. That is such a common phrase, but everything I wanted to say came to my mind in Spanish, rather than Creole. I am praying (and asking you to pray) that this will clear up. It seems that once I start heading in ONE direction language-wise, I get to at least a passable level, but switching is either very hard or impossible at this point. I can't imagine trying to translate for a pastor from the D.R. To a Haitian group right at this point – it would be disaster. A dear friend said she thought we knew Spanish. Well, yes, but that was two languages and ten years ago, plus there are different words for things here and the accent is different….and we are older than we were. It all adds up, but God can get us through this. We feel this is His plan (we certainly didn't ask for it), so He will accomplish what must happen for us to be able to communicate. (By the way, there are a lot of German, Dutch, Italian, and Chinese here, but we aren't planning on learning any more languages than we already are working on.)

We are excited about meeting with a few of the Haitians living in the community of Los Santos Abajo, where we were told that there are over a thousand Haitians. We have set up a meeting at 4:00pm next Sunday for a Bible study in the Baptist Church. As we met people, we met varied responses, but the most curious was from the few women we met. A couple of them wanted us to believe they were involved in the church where the meeting will be, which isn't true at all. A couple of others were almost rude, telling us that they were already Christians and didn't need anything we had to offer. There was snickering by those in earshot, indicating that perhaps these two women were anything but Christians. There were some men and boys who seemed interested. We put up a couple of papers announcing the coming meeting. The first meeting we are likely to have some show up to see what we have to give away and they will drift away as time reveals that it is Christ we have to share and not “things”. We mentioned this language thing earlier, so please pray that we will have the words to say at the right time and that God will be glorified.

August 30, 2008, 08:13:25 PM

This will be short, but we wanted to thank you for praying for us during this transition period.

Tinana is over the Dengue Fever, but has an extreme dislike for mosquitos. Also, Sharon Coleman is over her Dengue and we appreciate your prayers for her, as well. We are trying to mosquito-proof our house in Santiago, since we have had a lot of rain lately. We have not had damage the places we have been, but there are always those who have weaker houses and low lying areas where water collects, so please, continue to keep the people living in the Caribbean in your prayers, especially during rainy season.

We are still trying to get paperwork done to get our belongings across the border, so that we can get settled in. There are papers that we need in order to get Tinana in school. Your prayers for this, as well as getting our vehicle legal and our cedulla (official papers for us personally) completed in a timely manner. We hope to get Internet set up in the coming week and we will make every effort to respond to those of you have patiently been waiting for us to respond -- we will even respond to those who may not have been patient! (Please, know that was a joke.)

Please, continue to pray for our leaders in Haiti, for our language learning of Spanish, and for us to make the God led contacts with Haitians and Dominicans on the Dominican side of the border. Again, thank you! God is faithful.

Sam and Delores York
Southern Baptist Missionaries

August 15, 2008, 10:33:39 AM

First the good news: Sam was able to get our vehicle and himself across to the D.R. And he is headed for Santiago today. Our household belongings will arrive sometime in the coming week.

The bad news: Tinana has an ear infection and probably Dengue Fever, as well. Her fever has been around 104, but has dropped to 101 this morning. We have a pediatrician in Santo Domingo, where we have been staying this past week, so we are staying here where we know the medical care and have beds, refrigerator, cooking utensils, fans, etc., until she is able to go to Santiago.

Sharon Coleman (IMB missionary in the D.R.) has just gotten out of the hospital with Dengue Fever and complications. She could use your prayers for continued healing, as well.

I have not started answering the many e-mails, as yet, so please be patient with me, as it may be another week before I can begin. Your prayers are so very much appreciated for all of the above, plus language learning in Spanish, and God appointed encounters with the Haitians that we will be working with in the future.

August 06, 2008, 11:03:53 PM

It looks like it is time to change the name of our prayer newsletter, as we are now working with Haitians in Hispaniola, rather than only rural Haitians. Many of you have guessed that there were changes afoot and now we are able to share with you more clearly exactly what is happening. Our leaders asked us to pray about working with the over 2 million Haitians living in the Dominican Republic back in about March and as part of that, we were to see what was going on in the D.R. We sought God's will and prayed, but just did not see us totally leaving Haiti - the work is progressing, but it isn't finished.

We came to a meeting in the D. R. In mid June that was directed directly at Haitians, and meeting simultaneously with the Dominican meeting about their own work. We still did not feel "the call". To say we were struggling would be like saying Niagara Falls is a stream of falling water. Then we had our annual meeting of missionaries in the D.R. We were able to hear our leaders' vision and we were told to look for even an obscure verse from the Bible that might seem somehow out of context and that it might be our answer. We continued to prayerfully seek God's will and I am so happy to report to you that He gave us that reassurance that we had been seeking. After the meeting, we took a drive around the island to see what God had to show us. He showed us the Haitians and we were able to make contacts and see the eagerness to have a church in their own heart. It was an eye opener to see who these people were, as compared to who we thought they were. We were also very pleased that our leadership has agreed to consider keeping the work a free flowing work of Haitians in Hispaniola, rather than only Haiti or only the Dominican Republic, since there tends to be a fluid travel back and forth by many of them. The understanding is that we will spend almost all our time on the Dominican side of the border and will be living in Santiago.

Sam is still in Haiti, waiting on paperwork so we can cross our vehicle into the D.R. And finishing up the paperwork to get our furniture to the D.R. I flew into Santo Domingo yesterday afternoon and am at the mall doing Internet, so please have patience with me as I try to respond to e-mails, as it will take a few days to catch up. It was a tough time saying goodbye to everyone and packing up nine years worth of memories. We definitely felt the strength of your prayers during this time. So many things in Haiti are always the same, but of course there are some who have died during our year in the states and many more are thinner. Prices have gone up and up. Some things had tripled in price. Crops failed when a hurricane passed, so things will likely get worse in coming days. For me, this was the last time I will see many of our friends this side of Heaven, unless the road is fixed. Even sadder, is the many people who I will never see even in Heaven, if they do not accept Christ as Savior. Please, continue to lift Haitians on both side of the border in prayer.

I want to share one of the most encouraging things that we found. Our leaders had continued meeting every Monday at three o'clock for encouragement, study of the Word, singing, and prayer. They had kept records of who was there, how many were in attendance at the different Bible studies and churches. At first it was the hardest saying goodbye to this group of dedicated lay leaders, but as they heard what God was doing and how He is leading us, we found them to be enthusiastic and encouraging to us. It was not what we expected and their faithfulness was so wonderful! We had fifteen leaders show up at the first Monday meeting when we were there. We didn't know if they had continued to meet or not and hadn't even thought about it being time for the Monday meetings that we used to do, but here they came down the road, Bibles under their arms, walking happily. We had been packing and were covered in cobwebs and dirty, but it was a wonderful time of sharing both directions.

Please, continue to lift our leaders in prayer. They will be affiliating with CBH, as we have been told for the first time that the leaders of CBH want these new little churches with them. "Pastor B" lives near our area and he can cause problems, so pray that God will work in his life to help him see the bigger picture as God sees it and that he will be held back from discouraging the churches.
Pray for Sam as he finishes up the paperwork and gets our furnishings and truck into the D.R.
Pray for Sam, Delores, and Tinana as we all start this new adventure and start brushing up on our Spanish and learning what needs to be done in this new location. Travel will definitely be easier, so we will be able to cover a larger area more easily. Prayer for "a gift of tongues" would be wonderful for our Spanish acquisition!
Pray for Tinana as she starts school in a new country soon. Pray for us to make the right choices regarding her education.
Rodney Coleman, one of our leaders, and a young volunteer named Caleb both have Dengue Fever, so your prayers for both of them would be greatly appreciated.
Next time you will be hearing from "Holding the Ropes for Haitians on Hispaniola" or something similar.

July 18, 2008, 08:18:38 AM

We have need of a small work team to build two garage-like buildings to protect emergency water for disasters in two different locations in the Dominican Republic.

If anyone is interested, please contact Sharon Coleman at: colemanrs@sbcglobal.net

July 06, 2008, 12:47:50 AM

We have been meeting with leaders for both the Dominican work and the Haitian work here in the Dominica Republic. There is definitely a need for workers in the field. We are looking at housing, schools, meeting people, working on language and culture, trying to learn to get around, etc. We are praying as we go. We need your prayers for wisdom, ears to hear, and eyes to see. Pray for our tongues to be loosed so that we can speak both Creole and Spanish here. We are more than "rusty" on our Spanish, so it can be very confusing and your prayers are needed as much as ever. We will be at our annual meeting next week, then traveling more in the D.R. The following week. We will be heading back to Haiti after that to get ready to come back. Be in prayer for that time, especially. Many of you have written that you want to work with us, but we will be out of contact again for a while, but we will get back with you when we have more specific information. In the meantime, we thank you so much for your prayers and for continuing with us. We will let you know where we are when we have an address.