It takes about 7 hours for our team to drive from Santiago, D.R. into Port au Prince, Haiti, cross the border and get to work. The roads are tough and the border officials are tougher; yet God has abundantly blessed us with grace and health. Once on the ground, we work at a feverish pace, anywhere from 6 - 12 days, only to return, catch up with our ministries, re-supply and repeat it all over again. Neither Pastor Dial, myself, nor our team, ever imagined we would be doing this for this long, but we are extremely content with the spiritual fruit God has supplied, as well as the physical blessings.

Believe it or Not - we still have a little over $12,000 worth of needs:

• $4,900 - Final EPS Foam Panels for Church divisions & inside roof's. 
  
• $1,750 - Construction Rebar for Church and "TLC" projects
  
• $2,150 - Last of 5 Semi Truck's Customs & Import Taxes from the D.R.
  
• $3,450 - Haitian Concrete Labor

If you can help, please send that to the missions office P.O. Box 191 Springfield MO 65801 marked "Tom and Regina Franklin - Haiti".

In the News

We are very excited about coming home, reporting as a family and sharing our vision this year and we have put together an online calendar that is already being used.

GREEN - Open appointment with our general location and service times.
YELLOW - Specific or General area in the country we will be located.
RED - Filled appointment with our specific location, time and the churches name.

If you would be interested in us reporting or to just get together please don't hesitate in contacting us.

Finishing Construction in Haiti

We are anticipating the arrival of our last construction group from Florence, S.C. in Haiti this month.  We are going to weld and mount large metal trusses on 24 foot concrete columns.  Please be in prayer for everyone's safety.  Hope orphanage has loaned us all kind of tools including a power trowel.  This really helped us with the church floor.  In addition to this hurdle we have also completed the septic system, the water pump project and the TLC has a new Ondura roof.  
       
We are very grateful for our pastors and churches that responded to our communications in February.  We raised half of the $24,000 needed to complete the major engineering projects.  While we still lack a little bit from being where we want to be, we know God is in control.  Pastor Clifford keeps working daily and several new families have joined the church.  All this and preparations are underway for his and Luisna's wedding in June.

Family nights grow church

Part of our Church's evangelistic activities include "Family Nights."  Our Church people invite friends and family to enjoy movies or other types of organized fun.  On two such nights, we showed christian films from Sherwood pictures and both resulted in people receiving Christ as their personal Savior.  In February, we showed "Fireproof", played several games and had several couples make decisions to improve their marriage.  Regina was able to lead Andrea to the Lord and both her and her husband are now saved.  A few weeks later, we were able to show "Courageous."  We had a great attendance and served traditional Dominican "Cold Sweet Beans".  Fabio and Rosalie, both expressed a desire to have a relationship with Christ. Rosalie accepted Christ as her personal Savior; however, her husband, Fabio, who was visibly convicted, still was unwilling to cross the line.  Please pray for Fabio as we continue to work with him.

How to connect with your teen" was the theme of our ladies evangelistic activity in Tamboril.  Our special speaker, Yaquelin Brito from the Converted to Christ Baptist church in Santo Domingo, did an excellent job challenging everyone.   Group Pictionary was the favorite and the funniest game of the night, as the ladies tried to understand exactly what their leader was drawing. Many times with absolutely "off the wall" guesses, making everyone laugh.  The game served to remind us of how parents and teens can be in totally different "worlds" when communicating.

It has been really neat to see our ladies grow spiritually and encourage those they know to have a relationship with Christ.  Neri, brought her 3 neighbors and Rosa brought several guests, just to name a few. Through all the fun, food and games, the most important event of the night was to be able to share with our guests their need to have Jesus; because it is only through Him, that real solutions can be found for teen and parent challenges.