Why Exuma?

Tijuana was a side-trip that would change Ron’s life.  Knowing that his wife was able to properly care for his newborn daughter, he saw not what the tourist industry would like the world to see of Tijuana, but he instead saw women unable to care for their newborns; he saw squalor that, for the rest of his life, defined the meaning of the word.  This was poverty unlike anything he had ever seen in the United States.  This was the detour that would correct the course of Ron’s life and result in the eventual founding of Starve Poverty International.

For years after the visceral experience that was Tijuana, Ron carried with him a desire to minister the gospel of reconciliation with his hands and the hands of those who, along with him, would build for those who have no building to call their own.  With a desire to go back to Mexico and minister there, Ron also believed that a more effective ministry could take place in a region where a language barrier was not a hindrance to the work at hand.

When asked to visit the islands of Exuma to train local pastors in counseling, Ron Fraser found that the people of Exuma were of the same tongue as those in the U.S. (both countries have histories linked to the United Kingdom). He also found that the physical needs of the people on the island were nearly as desperate as those in Tijuana; in addition, those with housing one day could be without housing the next, depending upon the severity of storm activity in the region.