Dear friends;

We want to thank you very much for all the prayers and support and friendship we received during our time of grieving for my mom’s passing. In both countries we were surrounded by our Christian brothers and sisters. It was so good to feel loved and cared for. In the US, we had a beautiful, Christ-filled funeral for Mom.

I got to see all of my immediate family and lots of the extended family. In Haiti, we have been receiving visitors all day since we came back. Some of the most touching have been the kids in the feeding centers who came and sang for us, most of our youth group kids coming to give hugs, pastors who came hours just to be able to pray with us, and especially JeanJean’s loving family. Praise the Lord for the family of God.

We were going to write a newsletter back at the beginning of July because there was so much to report. It didn’t happen all month and now we have even more news! I’ll try to be concise in reporting all the great things God has been doing.

On July 1, UCC school had their first kindergarten graduation. The kids sang, danced, recited, did skits and showed off their English and arts and crafts. We are flooded with applications for next year’s term. People are amazed at how the kids have learned. Can’t wait until this year starts with a new grade added!

Pastor Marvil from Cerca la Sous has been faithfully walking 13 hours to come to JeanJean’s seminars each week for the past 3 years. For his perseverance and servant heart, he received a brand-new motorcycle from Santa Cruz Bible Church!

Westgate church of San Jose has been coming to Caiman, Haiti for 5 years now. Each year they come back with more exciting ways to help in Haiti. Last year, Carl Crizer, an engineer saw the deplorable condition that our community water system was in. For a year he has held that in his heart and researched ways to fix the system. Mind you, this is a huge system that provides thousands of people with water. It has been broken and unreliable for years. He and his team came in with heavy-duty tools and were able to fix it! All the communities rejoiced!

Meredith Drive Church of Des Moines and the VandeZandschulps from Sioux City have put in 3 wells into our communities! Water is a precious thing.

I can’t list all the people that participated in putting in 219 cement floors and 22 houses and 5 churches for people in need.

We also had a lot of interest in a youth camp this year. So much interest, in fact, that we had to split the kids into 2 different camps! One was held in July and the other is coming up in Sept. It was during the 2nd day of the youth camp in July that we received the phone call about my mom’s death. We had to leave immediately due to flight schedules and such. But, we are happy to report that the camp continued on. New Hope youth group and team remained in Haiti and served in the camp. When I got home, my youth group was full of praise about how awesome the camp was. 49 kids came to Christ or re-dedicated their lives to Him during this time. My youth kids and the UCI staff stepped up and put on a terrific camp while we stayed in the US. Isn’t that great?! I tell you, though—I can’t wait until Sept. so that I can participate in the next youth camp, too.

Summer is a busy time for teams and projects. Our thanks to all of the people that helped make thesethings possible: women’s, youth, kids’, pastors’, ecology conference; medical and dental clinics, paintingand construction, garden work, VBS, welding of more benches for the school and church, prayer walks,food and clothing distribution, electricity projects, and lots of good cross-cultural friendships. God bless you.

Perhaps the biggest news we have right now is another praise from God. After 4 years of praying and waiting on God’s perfect timing, UCI will be beginning construction on a Bible trade school!! WestGate church is partnering with UCI to begin this exciting program. We will be breaking ground next week! I can’t tell you how much it means to the people here to know that there will be a university for this community. Kids will be able to further their education without having to go to Port-au-Prince or Cap Haitian where it is so expensive to live and commute. To show their appreciation, the community and several churches from near and far are offering to give of their labor to help with this school. Communities and individuals that have received nutrition centers or cement floors or churches or wells want to be able to show their appreciation by giving back. UCI is readily accepting their gifts because we want people tosee this as a community program—not just for UCI. Keep praying that the construction goes well and that we find the right teachers and administrators for our school!

Thank you again for your faithfulness in prayer and the love you have shown to my family!

JeanJean, Kristie, Tana and Kerri Mompremier