Pastor Powell's Column

February 2010

Haiti Connections

The sign in front of our building reads: “The Fellowship: A Community Church with a World Vision.” Our networking worldwide brings us into many intersections with Haiti, and the horrendous nightmare that has unfolded there.

The day after the quake, Hans Wolf and Jeremiah Howdy bought their tickets to go down to help. That Sunday before they took off, the church prayed for God’s blessing on their efforts. I admire these young men of faith and courage. I have to admit that when I first heard of their plans, I spent a day or two trying to get them talked out of it. But Hans is resourceful with enough connections to develop plans for many contingencies. Hans had proved himself in multiple Katrina relief trips. I became persuaded that this is God’s call, and joined with those encouraging their rapid response of compassion.

Our good friend Jenny Reks was already on a forty-person medical relief team in Port-au-Prince when the quake hit. Our prayers were answered that she and the team were okay, and then able to move into high gear, saving many lives. She is safely home now, thanks to no small effort on the part of their Stateside coordinator, Wayne Wiersma. Wayne had been scheduled to be our guest preacher on January 17, but had to cancel when the quake hit and his responsibilities grew exponentially overnight. We look forward to having a report from Jenny. Our own Vickie Jaquette is helping with trauma counseling for this team, bringing seven years Asian field experience as a trained counselor of outreach workers.

So far, The Fellowship has been able to forward $2,000 to Haiti through World Relief, another $600 for Hans and Jeremiah’s project, and another $500 through a project of our sister church, Agape Chapel of Raynham. We are grateful for our relationship with World Relief through our former interim pastor Paul Toms (1994). Dr. Toms was for 14 years the Chairman of the Board of World Relief.

Mark Nevens, our GO-Team Leader, has taken part in a conference call with World Relief leadership in Haiti. The WR Haiti headquarters is severely damaged and unusable. Local staff have suffered like all Haitians, with loss of 16 relatives, including children, grandchildren, fiancé, and spouses. Hit very hard, they are pressing on in ministry, feeding thousands daily and cooperating with other agencies in compassionate relief work. We recommend World Relief as one of the most reliable channels for donations. We have high regard for both their effectiveness and efficiency as they work through the local churches of Haiti.

We are already thinking ahead to the long term help Haiti will need after the dust of the immediate rescue phase has settled. Doubtless we will depend on the experiences of the Benevides family. Between the five of them, they have made 19 mission trips to Haiti. They are just one more link in our connection with Monadnock Bible Conference and its ongoing ministry in Haiti for years. We are also exploring the possibility of utilizing the program for community post-trauma recovery developed by Scott Breslin for the Narnian earthquake some 10 years ago. We helped finance the start-up of that program, and it has since been translated and used for disaster situations in other countries.

As a church, we continue to pray for those with loved ones and friends in Haiti: Rony Joseph, Jackson & Orilüs Winchell, Michelle Reed, and the Benevides family. In some cases, these are loved ones still unaccounted for.

Our worldwide connections are not a boast. We do not think ourselves something great, as if we worked up this network by our own cleverness and effort. It is a gift from God, a humbling privilege to be able to partner with so many servants of God. It comes with belief in Jesus, who is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). Believing in Jesus is not simply a private devotional hot tub where we sit and soak. It comes with a global dimension. Learn more at our annual Global Outreach Festival (GO-Fest), March 14-21.