One of our primary objectives for 2008 is to set up a Christian community center in the McCollough Corner area of Nassau to house and oversee the various community development ministries that Estela has started. Currently, our focus is twofold:
1) Estela meets with a group of women on weekday mornings to provide Christian discipleship and teach sewing, handicrafts, and English as a second language. A major thrust for this year is to teach the women how to sew school uniforms which, in turn, will be sold to the parents of Haitian schoolchildren as a means of generating income for women who are unemployed or underemployed.
2) Back in October, Estela started an after school tutoring program that meets one afternoon per week and currently averages around 8-10 kids each week. Even though one would think that most children would not be inclined to voluntarily come to the church once a week to spend an hour-and-a-half working on homework, we are surprised that most of the children come eagerly and have even complained that one day per week is not enough! We do, of course, hope to eventually expand the program to include additional days as well as add Bible teaching and other extracurricular activities to the schedule. But before that can be done, we need to recruit and train volunteer tutors who can assist us with the program on a regular basis.
PRAYER REQUESTS
Please keep the following items in your prayers and be sure to share this list with others at your church:
• Pray for the salvation and the economic well-being of Nikelia, Danielle, and other residents in the vicinity of McCollough Corner as well as our efforts to minister to these women.
• Pray for the children of the after school program, that they would grow academically and spiritually.
• Pray that we would be able to expand the after school program to include additional afternoons as well as add Bible teaching and other extracurricular activities to the schedule.
• Facilities – Both the women’s ministry and the after school program are currently operating out of the sanctuary at Emmaus Baptist Church. We are currently exploring options to either rent additional space adjacent to the church or construct an educational wing on the property behind the church. Please pray that God would open the doors for us to proceed in one direction or the other and that, in the meantime, we would be patient with the present arrangement.
• Volunteer Recruitment – Pray for us as we begin to actively recruit volunteers to (1) assist with the after school tutoring program for children and (2) teach sewing, handicrafts, and English as a second language to the women. While we are open to the possibility of missionary volunteers we are especially interested in recruitment of local Bahamian and Haitian-Bahamian volunteers.
• Board Development – Pray that God would lead us to the right persons in our church and community who would be interested in serving on an initial steering committee that work to develop a full-fledged governing board and incorporate the community center as a non-profit ministry.
FINANCIAL SUPPORT:
If you would like to support our ministry, please send contributions to:
American Baptist International Ministries
c/o Missionary Partnership Teams
P.O. Box 851
Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851
Please indicate that your contribution is “for the ongoing support of Dan and Estela Schweissing in the Bahamas.”
You can also give electronically by going to International Ministries’ web site at: http://www.internationalministries.org/give and selecting our name from the menu under the section titled “Iberoamerica and the Caribbean.”
THANK YOU!
As always, we greatly appreciate your continued prayers and financial support, both of which make our ministry possible.
Serving Christ in the Bahamas,
Daniel and Estela Schweissing