11 Days in June
In just eleven days during June 2023, the Lord provided Agape Flights opportunities to share His love with hundreds of people in four countries.
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Thursday, June 1: Agape Flights CEO Allen Speer and board member Craig Faulkner, together with members of the Venice High Baseball Team and parent chaperones, share the Gospel with youth and their families in the Dominican Republic through America’s pastime, baseball. In all, over the weeklong trip, hundreds of Dominicans will hear and respond to the Good News.
Friday, June 2: The Agape Flights Embraer, N316AF, picks its way through the billowing storm clouds across the island of Hispaniola, in and out of an advancing weather front. In Haiti, people celebrate the rain. The air turns cooler, streams and rivers come back to life, and children dance in the puddles. But then the weather pattern stalls, and western Haiti begins to flood. Trickles become torrents. Bridges are swamped. Hillsides become mudslides. Homes, crops, and people are washed away.
Tuesday, June 6: Just before sunrise, the ground near Jéremie, Haiti, begins to tremble as a 4.9 magnitude earthquake rattles the region. Homes damaged by earlier quakes quickly collapse. People pour into the streets and the injured begin to overwhelm nearby medical clinics.
In Venice, Florida, a team of ten people (Agape staff and volunteers) board our Cessna F406 for the four-hour trip to Santiago, Dominican Republic, and a long-planned mission trip. As N17CK climbs into the morning sky over coastal Florida, the team hears from Haiti Bible Mission’s Mark Stockeland: “We’re going to need a special flight this week,” he says.
Wednesday, June 7: As food and medical supplies near Jéremie are depleted, Agape staff in Florida begin pulling together provisions for a special relief flight to Haiti.
In Villa Gonsales, Dominican Republic, near the city of Santiago, the Agape Flights mission team shares a lesson about the love of God with a Vacation Bible School group. The team is hosted by Project Mañana International and will see the 13-year-old ministry in action over the next six days.
Thursday, June 8: Stateside staff and volunteers load N17CK with tarps, MREs, generators, and medical supplies to be distributed by Haiti Bible Mission.
Meanwhile, the Agape team in Villa Gonsales begins demolishing a derelict building to make way for Project Mañana’s pastor’s home. Some members of the team begin digging a footer.
Friday, June 9: After being detained by Haitian Customs in Cap Haitien, the relief flight for Jeremie, Haiti, is finally released and arrives in Jéremie without incident.
In the Dominican Republic, Agape team members meet with and pray for several missionary partners in the region.
Saturday, June 10: Several hundred miles east, a dozen visitors make their way through the squatter community of Cien Fuego, hugging the tree line for shade. The team of Agape Flights staff and volunteers is on day five of their weeklong mission trip to the Dominican Republic – and today is a very special day. They’re delivering filters that will provide each family with a decade of pure drinking water, essentially bringing a halt to the waterborne diseases that have been a way of life for as long as anyone can remember. The visitors speak of Living Water, too, and of a Savior who came to cleanse us all from a lifetime of sin. In a community with no running water and with little hope for the future, the ten visitors make quite a stir.
Sunday, June 11: On the island of Sweetings Cay, Bahamas, people deck out in their Sunday best. Four years earlier, the rock of their community – Ebenezer Baptist Church – was virtually destroyed by Hurricane Dorian. Agape Flights and a handful of partners from business and ministry have come together over the past three years to help rebuild the rock of Sweetings Cay. For nearly five hours on this, the 111th anniversary of its founding, the church is alive with praise, prayer, and the Word of God. Agape Flights’ CEO Allen Speer speaks at the pulpit and rejoices with the locals before receiving a recognition plaque from the Ebenezer congregation.
