The official LEAP (Lavanneau Educational Achievement Partnership) Fundraising event will be held Friday evening March 16, 5 to 8 p.m. in the 9.23 Community Center at Christ Church Vero Beach.

The event will include delicious Haitian food, entertainment, a silent auction and a Haitian craft bizarre. Everyone will have the opportunity to meet Pastor Thomas in person, meet the teachers through pictures and biographies as well as watch a video of our work with the Lavanneau teachers.

Tickets are $15.00 and are available following each of the Christ Church worship services or by contacting the Church Office.

The purpose of this event is to help fund and expand the growing mission program called LEAP (Lavanneau Educational Achievement Partnership).

5 GREAT REASONS TO ATTEND THE LEAP 2018 DINNER EVENT

1 - Learn how LEAP started, how it works, and is changing lives and the futures of so MANY!

2 - Meet the Teachers at the school in Lavanneau, Haiti, VIA Skype in the 9.23 Community Center!

3 – Laugh and enjoy the witty and entertaining personality of Emcee, Andy Lewis!

4 – Expect great time with family/friends!  Free face painting, gift drawings, Silent Auction, more!

5 - Enjoy delicious, authentic Haitian Cuisine!  Italian spaghetti also available!  Come! Enjoy!

The Mission to Lavanneau

The mission, supported by Christ Church and other churches, is multi-faceted.

It brings state-side partners together with a single classroom teacher during the school year to provide supplies needed for his/her particular classroom. (Currently there are 9 teachers we will be looking to partner with someone here in the U.S.)

Additionally, we are hopeful that through donations we will be able to award scholarship money for those teachers who wish to further their education as well as provide money and resources to enable Missionary Pastor Etzer Thomas to organize professional development for teachers, offer small bonuses to teachers, and provide Bibles in Creole to the children at the school.

It is quite an undertaking, but God is clearly moving to form this mission and we are answering His call. It’s our sincerest prayer that you will help us.

Even before returning from Haiti in March, it became clear that we could, with God’s guidance, expand our aid to the children and teachers in Lavanneau with the establishment of a new mission—one specific  to the needs of the classroom teachers at the mission school.  Moreover, this mission will initially bring four churches together for God’s work at the Lavanneau school: Christ Church of Vero Beach, Church of God by Faith in Wabasso, Church of the Nazarene in Vero Beach, and New Prospect Baptist Church in Manchester, Kentucky with hopes to expand this to include more churches as the outreach grows to include two other schools in the Lavenneau area.

Mission teams from Christ Church regularly visit Lavanneau, Haiti for short-term missions. Mission team members last spring installed two modern bathrooms for the teachers at the Lavanneau school, refurbished playground equipment, built and painted a dozen picnic tables, painted rooms in the mission house and provided professional development for teachers at both the Lavanneau school and another school further up the mountain. 

But equally as exciting was the surprise the teachers in Lavanneau got when team members arrived with half-a-dozen large crates of school supplies: supplies many of the children had never seen before like construction paper, globes, and pencil sharpeners!

But the teachers and kids weren’t the only ones surprised. Team members marveled at the outpouring of Christian love that happened when a last minute call went out to parishioners at Christ Church of Vero Beach and New Prospect Baptist Church in Manchester, Kentucky for those school supplies, and bag after bag began showing up in the church office. So many supplies were donated for the Lavanneau school, we were able to share some of those class supplies with that school further up the mountain. What a tremendous reflection of God’s abundance!