Faithfully Together
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Sunday, May 24, 2026 - [click here to support the continuing work at MOHI]
Today's update is from Jonathan and Taran
Encouraging One Another Through Every Season
This week during our international staff meeting, we reflected on a powerful verse from Hebrews:
As we discussed this verse together, we were reminded how important encouragement, partnership, and consistency are in ministry. None of us are meant to carry the work alone. When people come together with shared purpose, they strengthen one another and become better equipped to face challenges, care for others, and continue serving faithfully.
That spirit of collaboration continues to be one of the greatest strengths within Mission of Hope International.
Every week, our teams in the US, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic continue showing up — serving side by side, encouraging one another, and stepping up in ways that beautifully reflect our mission and core values. During our meetings, we intentionally take time to recognize staff members who have gone above and beyond. It is always inspiring to hear the stories of faithfulness, compassion, creativity, and perseverance unfolding across the ministry.
And this week was no exception.
Dominican Republic Updates
Business Academy – Investing in the Future
The Business Academy in the Dominican Republic continues helping students grow both personally and professionally.
Vanessa, one of our first-level students, is already applying what she is learning while helping prepare meals in her family’s business. It is encouraging to see students building confidence, developing practical skills, and learning how to strengthen the businesses that support their families and communities.
Students are currently preparing final business presentations as we look ahead to graduation later this month. We are incredibly proud of all the hard work they have put in throughout this year.
These programs are about far more than business knowledge. They are about creating opportunity, building confidence, and helping individuals discover that they are capable of creating a brighter future for themselves and their families.
Community Health & Nutrition
Marlouse continues faithfully serving families across the villages in the Dominican Republic by providing meals and vitamins to children in need.
Families continue sharing how grateful they are for the care they received during the recent visits from Bless Back Worldwide. It has been beautiful to see the lasting impact of those clinics and the ongoing follow-up care happening within the communities.
One of the greatest blessings of these partnerships is that the work does not stop when a team leaves. Relationships continue. Follow-up care continues. Encouragement continues. Hope continues.
Farming, Feeding Programs & Sustainability
In Luperón, the garden is now producing pumpkins and bananas that are helping feed children in the feeding programs, as well as visitors and mission teams. The chicken project is also continuing to produce eggs regularly.
We would especially like to recognize Viliane for the time and energy she pours into caring for the garden and chicken coop. Behind every feeding program are faithful people quietly working every single day to sustain these efforts.
These projects may seem simple, but they represent something deeply important: long-term sustainability, nourishment, stewardship, and care for the community.
Preparing for Summer Mission Teams
The Dominican Republic team is also preparing to welcome another visiting team from Full Gospel Interdenominational Church. Summer ministry season is quickly approaching, and teams from many churches and organizations will soon be serving throughout Luperón and the surrounding villages.
These partnerships continue creating opportunities for encouragement, relationship-building, children’s ministry, medical outreach, construction projects, and ongoing community development.
Every team brings something unique. Some come ready to build. Some come ready to teach. Some come ready to lead children’s programs or support medical clinics. Others simply come willing to listen, pray, serve, and encourage.
And every single one matters.
Haiti Updates
Medical Care & Follow-Up
This past week, our medical team shared about a patient who arrived with a severe infection after an abscess had ruptured and gone untreated. The situation had become very serious, but staff worked diligently to provide the medical attention and care needed.
Stories like this remind us how important accessible healthcare continues to be for the communities we serve.
Another encouraging testimony came from a patient who had been struggling with significant scalp and skin conditions. After receiving treatment and follow-up care, there has already been major improvement. Even small treatments can make an enormous difference in someone’s quality of life.
In places where medical care is often difficult to access, simple interventions can become life-changing acts of compassion.
School & Leadership Conference Preparations
The school in Grand Goâve is now preparing for final exams, which begin on June 10th. Students are working hard as the academic year begins winding down, and preparations are also underway for the graduation ceremony scheduled for June 28th.
In addition, planning has already begun for MOHI’s annual leadership conference taking place this July. This conference continues to be an important opportunity to encourage, equip, and strengthen pastors and leaders serving throughout the region.
We are excited to see how God continues raising up leaders who will impact their churches, families, schools, and communities for generations to come.
Gratitude for Consistent Infrastructure Support
Our local staff recently shared their gratitude for Pastor Lex and all the work that has gone into helping maintain reliable electricity for the school, church, and clinic campus.
In places where power can often be unstable, having consistent electricity plays a major role in allowing ministry, education, and medical care to continue effectively.
Many of the things we take for granted become critically important in these environments, and we are grateful for everyone who helps keep these systems functioning well.
Business Academy – Haiti
Nathalie, one of our students in the Learn to Advance Business Academy, recently shared how much she appreciated the creative thinking lessons taught through the program.
The Academy, operating in partnership with Bless Back Worldwide, focuses on three pillars of creative thinking:
Fluency — the ability to generate many ideas
Flexibility — the willingness to explore different perspectives
Originality — the ability to develop unique concepts
With these ideas in mind, Nathalie has started a barbecue business and has been doing extremely well for herself.
It is always exciting to see people take what they are learning and turn it into meaningful opportunity.
James’ Surgery Recovery
We are so grateful to share that James’ surgery was successful.
He is recovering well and currently staying closer to the hospital so he can more easily attend follow-up appointments with his doctors. Not much time has passed, and we are already seeing incredible progress. This past week, we received an update that James was able to walk around an entire block in the neighborhood where he is staying.
We are excited to continue watching this young man regain strength and improve in his health.
Jonathan’s Update
Mission work is often measured in movement — teams arriving, construction projects advancing, clinics filling, worship services overflowing with energy and noise. But there’s another side to life here in Luperón, in the quiet stretches between the groups and schedules and organized chaos. And honestly? I’ve grown to really love those moments too.
When there are no visiting teams staying at the Mission House, life settles into a slower rhythm.
I’ve been fortunate to find a lovely little private apartment not too far from the beach, and most mornings I start my day walking down toward the coastline to get in a few thousand steps before the heat settles in. The scenery catches me every single time. The coastline here looks so much like Haiti — because in many ways, it is the same coastline. The same Caribbean waters. The same tropical air. The same fishing boats rocking in the distance.
And with that familiarity comes nostalgia.
There are mornings when I walk quietly thinking about Haiti and how dramatically life there has changed over the last several years. I think about friends. Communities. Ministries. People displaced by violence and instability. I think about what was, what still is, and what I pray can someday be again. Sometimes those thoughts sit heavily on my heart.
But then — almost like clockwork — I run into my favorite beachside entrepreneurs.
A woman stands along the roadside selling coconuts with her two small children. Every morning it’s the same enthusiastic greeting: “¡Buenos días!” accompanied by huge smiles and relentless optimism. Her children hold up bracelets and little souvenirs, asking me every single day if I want to buy one.
And every single day, I give them my same rehearsed response.
“I basically live here now,” I tell them laughing. “I don’t need a souvenir. But when groups come next week, I’ll bring them down here so you can try your luck with them!”
They laugh. I laugh. It’s become our routine — anticipated, scripted, familiar. But it’s one of my favorite parts of the morning. And I like to think maybe they enjoy it too.
Though I’m fairly certain they’re still convinced the gringo is eventually going to buy something.
Most days I end up over at the Mission House to work because the internet is good and there’s always plenty to do behind the scenes. There are schedules to coordinate, plans to prepare, projects to organize, medical fundraising to work on, and enough moving pieces between groups to keep everyone busy.
The wonderful thing is that I’m not actually needed there in the way I once would have been somewhere else.
Met Ben and Marlouse run the house and the ministry like a well-oiled machine. And for the first time in probably twelve years, I’m not the boss — and I don’t need to be.
It’s freeing.
Though I’ll admit it can sometimes be easy to forget that fact and casually insert my opinion into conversations anyway. Thankfully, they always receive it with grace — even if somewhere deep down they might secretly be wondering, Who does this guy think he is?
We genuinely have fun together at the Mission House. I’d like to think I contribute a little relaxed energy to the environment. Haitians can sometimes be wonderfully serious about absolutely everything, and I’ve occasionally made it my personal mission in life just to get someone to crack a smile or laugh.
Unfortunately, sarcasm doesn’t always translate well across cultures.
Which is a shame, really, because I personally find myself extremely entertaining.
My evenings are usually quieter. I’ll often find myself sitting in a local café, restaurant, or little pub somewhere with my laptop open working on one thing or another — job applications back in the States, fundraising efforts for medical patients in Haiti, consulting projects with organizations in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, or simply trying to untangle the thousand little administrative details that seem to follow nonprofit work everywhere.
What’s funny is that when I came here on November 1st, I genuinely thought I might stay a few weeks.
And now here we are — almost seven months later.
Wow.
But strangely enough, it feels familiar. Comfortable. Right, at least for this season.
One of my favorite things to do in the evenings is wander through the barrios where many Haitian families live. I get to speak fluent Creole with them, which is usually entertaining for them and deeply enjoyable for me. Then I stumble my way through practicing Spanish, which is progressing at what can only be described as a painfully slow and humbling pace.
Honestly, I’m embarrassed by how slowly I’m learning it.
But in fairness, when you spend most of your time speaking Creole with Haitians, your brain tends to stay parked there.
I enjoy the quieter moments between groups, but I also love the energy that comes when teams arrive — and we’re excited because another group is coming next week.
After they leave, I’ll head back to the States for a bit to deal with some family matters and hopefully spend some time visiting James in Plano, Texas — who, by the way, is doing remarkably well following his heart surgery.
Thank you all so much for your prayers, encouragement, and support for him. Watching people come together around the value of a single human life has been genuinely incredible to witness.
Sometimes ministry looks big and dramatic.
And sometimes it looks like beach walks, coconut vendors, late-night laptop work in a café, awkward Spanish conversations, and learning how to live faithfully in the quiet spaces between the bigger moments.
Both matter.
Closing Thoughts
As we reflect on this past week, we are reminded once again that ministry is never built by one person alone.
It is built through faithful partnerships.Through encouragement. Through consistency. Through people choosing to show up again and again.
Whether it is a nurse caring for a patient, a student preparing a business presentation, a gardener tending crops, a pastor preparing leaders, or a supporter praying faithfully from thousands of miles away — every role matters.
Thank you for continuing to walk alongside us.
Thank you for believing in this mission.
And thank you for helping bring hope to Haiti and the Dominican Republic every single day.
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