Meet Nickson Sainlius...

Nickson Sainlius is 12 years old & is in the 4th grade at the MTM Gramothe School. He likes school & works hard at his studies. When he grows up, Nickson would like to be a dentist & pull teeth. He said that he still has all of his teeth & his smile is a testimony to that! My guess is that Mr. Nickson must have spent time watching Dr. Lorre pull teeth in the MTM Gramothe clinic recently!

What influence have you been to the young people around you today?

They are watching us!

HAPPY 12TH BIRTHDAY STEPHEN!

(Stephen is in the 2nd row in the middle wearing his white uniform shirt. He is the tallest of his class.)

Yes, April 21st Stephen celebrated his 12th birthday with his classmates enjoying their pizza, root beer & cake. The rest of the day was pretty low-key as he went home sick & stayed home until Thursday with a very bad cold.

David is next, June 6th he'll turn 8. He is busy now planning his own celebration :)

Stephen was also busy at the beginning of the month preparing a science poster project on the biome of his choosing, the desert. We had a fun time collecting information & pictures together. After giving his oral presentation, Stephen recieved a B+!

Way to go Stephen!

We should be in the Terre Haute area about June 23rd for the summer. Everyone is getting excited & making plans about what to do!

We'll see everyone then!

HAITI UPDATE

Food, that is the big issue in Haiti right now. If you go to your favorite address bar & type in the word, "Haiti", you can read the latest happenings that are going on here. Many are hungry & tired of no jobs, no money & no food. It's a world-wide crisis; the price of grain which affects the price of basic staples like rice, corn & wheat are on the rise. Prices have doubled & are increasing here in Haiti daily & weekly.

Some are already asking what they can do. Our suggestion is this: If you are already giving to a reputable organization that is involved in an active food program, continue to give faithfully & consider an increase in your giving. If you are not currently giving to a reputable organization that is already active in a food program, find one & start giving today.

Mountain Top Ministries provides alot of opportunity for you to get involved in such a program. At our Gramothe school (Pre-K thru 10th grade) we are providing a hot meal at noon for each of our students & staff, about 600, 5 days of the week. At our Dumay school (Pre-K thru 6th) we are providing the same, feeding about 500. MTM also has a children's home of 13 children that recieve 3 meals each day. Keep in mind, all our staff continue to be paid the same salary thru all the rising of food prices. We will soon need to raise their salaries to help them meet the needs for their own families.

For the last 3 months we have had to increase the amount of money that we pay for the same amount of food for each of these programs. If you are already giving, thank you! This is an important time to give faithfully.

If you would like to send a gift to MTM to use towards our feeding programs, you may do so by sending your check or money order made payable to Mountain Top Ministries to:
MTM
C/O Calvary Chapel of Danville
2165 East Main Street
Danville, IN 46122
Please designate your giving to "food programs".

At the very least, please pray for Haiti. This last week has been a very difficult one for most who live here & we still have some difficult times ahead of us.

Thank you in advance for considering what you can do.

Sincerely,
Willem & Beth

Lunch in Dumay!

Since the opening of the MTM Dumay school, we have faced many obstacles there. It's an area steeped in voodoo which has led to great poverty in the midst of wealth. Wealth of water, wealth of fertile, tillable ground & the wealth of other natural resources. When the heavy spring rains fall, the nearby river floods over & often time washes away part of the village with it leaving many homeless & not allowing our trucks to cross over with supplies & encouragement.

Despite the obstacles, MTM is extremely blessed to have good teachers that want to come to work each day & give to the children who attend the school. MTM is also extremely blessed to have good students who want to come to school each day to learn. We are also blessed to have good parents who understand the value of an education & that faithfully send their children to school each day.

Friday, March 28th, MTM was finally able to fulfill our committment (in full) to the families of Dumay & open our school cafeteria for full service to the students. Thank you Rice Raisers/Canada for the extra push to help us get this going! Before, we simply got by with a small pastry & whatever that could easily be prepared for the children. How wonderful it now is to give each child at the MTM Dumay school a big, hot plate of rice & beans & other nutrious sides to enjoy! Take a look at the pictures below to see how these children appreciate their new school lunch!

Class by class the students are served in the new cafeteria!

Faithfully sponsoring a student thru Mountain Top Ministries is a very simple way to help Haiti. For $25 each month, you can help a child recieve an education which includes school expenses, Biblical training, medical care & a nutrious hot lunch each day.

For more information about our student sponsorship program or any other information, please email us directly at wbcharles@hughes.net or contact Jimmy Metheos, CFRM, MTM Director of Develpment/Management at mtm@q.com or call 563-556-give.

Will somebody update me, please?....

Forgive us! Time has once again gotten away from us, but we want to take opportunity to back up & share with you!

January 9th-16th our friends & ministry partners, Brian & Sue Walsh, brought a 20 member medical team of friends, collegues & pediactric nurse practitioner senior students to minister to the children and adults of Gramothe & the surrounding villages. They quickly filled the MTM Gramothe medical clinic with supplies and began their tasks.


The children of Haiti are at the center of Sue's heart as she brings her associates to minister to their needs.


A stop at the MTM Laboule Children's Home is always on the team's agenda. All 13 of our children checked out A-ok!



Gail Randolph, a long time MTM student sponsorship partner, also arrived with the team. She delighted us by giving 2 weeks of her time to better understand our clinic records in an effort to keep those maintained for MTM. While here she helped with the clinic week, spent time with her sponsored student, help me to do "mommy" things for Stephen & David's school & a lot more. We enjoyed getting to know Gail better & were also encouraged by having her here with us.

Gail at church with her sponsored student.

Gail helping Stephen's classmates with a craft project during Read-A-Thon activity week.

One of my "mommy" projects for Stephen & David's school in January was being a part of their Read-A-Thon week. Our theme had an emphasis on Ancient Egypt, so having families from the Middle East at their school, those from that community contributed to the week's activities. In this picture, David has been dressed like a boy going to school in Egypt. It was a great & informative time for the children.

Last, but not least, we had puppies & kittens to start the new year off! What fun they were!

1 of 5 puppies

Fanny & family

Well, that's it for now, but do stay tuned because there's more to come!

Blessings abundant!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2007 at the Mountain Top Ministries Gramothe School

Jumping castle, hot dogs, popcorn, sno cone and lots of Christmas cheer!

Christmas 2007 at the Mountian Top Ministries Dumay School

A big thank you to our friends and ministry partners at the Zanesville United Methodist Church in Zanesville, IN.

Each year they see to it that our M-T-M Gramothe school has some kind of Christmas celebration. This year was no exception. Their vacation Bible school worked hard last summer to raise money for the jumping castle to return to our Gramothe school.

Canadian ministry partner, Ron Ediger also gave a donation that helped to pay the balance of the jumping castle as well as to help provide aditional gifts for the M-T-M Dumay school students.

Thanks to all of you who helped to make this Christmas a little more special for the children of Haiti.

May God bless each of you, our ministry partners, in the new year!

Thank you Deb!

We want to take time to say a special thanks to our ministry partner, Deb Williams, who recently came to Haiti to spend time to help with the student-sponsor correspondence for December. Deb and her husband, Bob, have been long time student sponsors and have made several trips to Mountain Top Ministries in Haiti. It was great to have Deb with us!

While she was here, Deb helped in a lot of ways and she got to see a lot too!

In September we were finally able to bring in over 2,000 pairs of shoes that Deb and her husband collected. She was thrilled to be able to help distribute some of the shoes to students at both our Gramothe and Dumay schools.

Deb in Dumay helping students find shoes that they like and that fit their feet!

Deb finds a pair of shoes for her own sponsored student at the M-T-M Dumay school.

Deb is able to send 2 pairs of shoes home with her husband's sponsored student from the M-T-M Gramothe school.

Students at theM-T-M Gramothe school have fun choosing a new pair of shoes.

While in at the M-T-M Dumay school, Deb got to visit the village and also see first hand some of the flood damage from recent tropical storm flooding.

I (Beth) was very grateful of the help that Deb provided in an effort to prepare and mail student correspondence to our sponsors for December. This involved going into the classrooms to collect writings and handprints from students to send to their sponsors, translating the writings and then putting it all together with a newsletter to mail. Deb had a great experience at both schools as students were receptive and excited to participate.

While here, Deb also helped me (Beth) to package up gifts for our Dumay students; over 300 bags! A huge thanks to Mr. Tim Jarvis for arranging to send all those wonderful Christmas bags with Deb!

The M-T-M Laboule Children's Home was another fun spot for us to visit with Deb. Stephen, David, Deb & I (Beth) loaded up the car and off we went to decorate the home with the children there. It was a fun time for all, see...

While some of us decorated the tree...

others helped the children to make paper chain decorations...

while others did some holiday coloring...

and we all enjoyed a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich when we were done!

Children of the M-T-M Laboule Children's Home.

Deb's week ended with attending Sunday church services at the M-T-M Church in Gramothe village. To her delight, Deb recognized many of the shoes that she'd given throughout the week, but moreso, the happy faces that are etched in her memory.

Thank you, Deb, for coming to serve with us, to encourage us and to love us.

God bless you always!

Your friends at Mountain Top Ministries, Gramothe and Dumay villages, Haiti.