Churches Helping Churches

Chile

Churches Helping Churches is prayerfully reviewing how and when we can best help the areas affected by the Chile earthquake. Since this development is so recent, we still don’t know what the damage is yet. Therefore, we are postponing any type of benevolence offering at this moment. Meanwhile, we continue to remain focused and committed to the efforts that we have begun in Haiti.

Haiti

I’ve come across the word “Haiti” at least 1,000 times in the past week – in the news and on the radio, in conversations and in prayers, in articles and in emails. Most of the time, I hear awful stories and statistics. True confession: I don’t even bother putting myself in their shoes anymore. It’s just too painful. But this blog post isn’t about that. I want to tell you what I hear about the other half of the time.

Relief organizations have flooded Port Au Prince. In some areas, so much aid has reached the people that bags of food are being returned to the distribution centers. So many foreign aid workers have responded to crisis that some are looking for work to do. The job is nowhere near finished, but I am absolutely blown away by the generosity and service of the international community. If you’ve given to some of these agencies, it’s showing.

Furthermore, I am blown away by the generosity and service of God’s people that gave birth to Churches Helping Churches. Here are a few updates for you:

Haiti Trip

I am leaving for Haiti tomorrow with very specific objectives in mind.

• First, I am meeting key Christian leaders within Haiti to refine a church planting strategy into the tent cities. FYI, the tent cities are exactly what they sound like. People who are homeless or afraid to enter their buildings are living in large communities of temporary tents. We are exploring how we can bring the church to them.
• Second, we are partnering with Calvary Chapel, who is launching a holistic care base camp. This project is in full swing! The goal is to provide for all of the needs of those who are displaced, from food to medicine to counseling, even VBS for children. We will bring back pictures!
• Third, remember Jacques? He and STEP Seminary are still housing 2,500 people. The wall to the seminary has been rebuilt to provide protection from the violence outside. Many of these pastors-to-be have had their dreams crushed. We hope to get them back on track, so they can someday lead churches that serve the local community.

In these efforts, we are coming alongside existing churches and organizations that were already in Haiti pre-earthquake. Please pray that this trip would be fruitful and accerate our efforts.

T-shirts

T-shirts are for sale. Proceeds from your purchase will go to Churches Helping Churches. Buying this shirt helps support a church. Wearing this shirt helps promote awareness. You can’t go wrong on this on fellas! =)

Thomas Hurst

Thomas is a Pulitzer Prize-finalist photojournalist who currently serves on staff at Mars Hill Church and was part of a team that traveled to Haiti on behalf of Churches Helping Churches. Check his posts in coming weeks as he shares his thoughts on particular images he took and moments he and the team experienced in their 32 hours on the ground in earthquake-ravaged Port-Au-Prince.

Volunteers

Let me echo James’ statement: We hear you! We have ALL of your requests on file. Thank you for your willingness to serve and your patience with us. We’ve identified the key needs at this moment and have contacted those best suited to help. As soon as more needs or possibly even trip opportunities surface, we will contact you.

Thank you for your partnership!

For a new Haiti,
Tom
Acts 20:24

Hey, Mark Driscoll and I are on the phone almost every day putting together the plan to strategically utilize the funds that have been flowing into Churches Helping Churches. Keep in mind that our long term goal is 10,000 churches in America taking up a ‘love offering’ for any war torn, or disaster devastated area the Sunday following the event itself. Beyond that we hope to locate healthy churches reaching into these areas and assist them in their work. (that makes us “churches helping churches helping churches” : )

We know that our impact upon the church in Haiti has to be powerful and lasting for people to continue to trust us with their relief giving. To that end I have the following updates:

1) Introducing Thomas Kim

I want to introduce you to Thomas Kim, the new Executive Director of Churches Helping Churches. He has great passion for the church. Thomas is a former pastor in a Presbyterian church. He has also delivered expository sermons, given practical seminars, and trained pastors in Cambodia, China, Kenya, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Thomas also scouted church and NGO partnership opportunities internationally. Resulting projects include Bible delivery to the Chinese underground church, North Korean refugee care, and a hope and healing conference for Cambodian youth. In addition to being a pastor, Thomas also formerly worked with Crossing Borders (North Korean refugee shelter) and Joshua Generation (youth workers resource and empowerment).

In addition to ministry, Thomas also brings extensive business experience to this new position. He holds an Engineering degree from the University of Illinois, is an MBA candidate at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business Administration, and has completed coursework at Fuller Theological Seminary in Organizational Dynamics and International Leadership. His business career has focused on manufacturing engineering and supply chain strategy. And in addition to speaking English, he also has a basic knowledge of Korean and Spanish. We believe that he is God’s provision to lead Churches Helping Churches.

Thomas’ focus in the first 30 days will be to:

• Assess the most urgent church needs in Haiti that CHC can start addressing for immediate impact
• Start working closely with our man on the ground in Haiti, Pastor Jacques
• Develop a response pipeline for the increasing number of request for help and offers for assistance
• Identify initial strategic partnerships within North America
• Determine the organizational requirements needed to grow CHC effectively, efficiently

2) Partnership with Calvary Chapel in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Bob Coy, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel in Ft. Lauderdale (CCFL), was one of the pastors that encouraged me to pursue this vision for CHC from the beginning. He has more than 20 years of experience working with churches in Haiti. We plan to use some CHC funds to match the gifts that have already made to CCFL for Haiti. These combined funds will be put to use to rebuild a church and an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince. More details of this work and photos will be coming soon.

3) Increased Media Coverage

Now that the focus in Haiti is shifting to rebuilding the country, interest in Churches Helping Churches increases daily. For a more complete look at the media outlets covering this story, check out the Media page on this Web site.

4) Amazing Response to Volunteer

We hear you! And we are sorry if you have sent an e-mail or not heard back from us about how you can serve with CHC. We are deluged with responses. We are trying to focus on the relief opportunities already in front of us and determining where we can make the most impact. So, I want to ask for your patience with us—and pray for the people and the churches of Haiti. Now that the new Executive Director, Thomas Kim, is on board, you can expect to hear back from us as soon as a plan begins to take shape.

5) Church Planting in Haiti

We are in contact with a number of church planting organizations that want to partner with us to see churches planted in the areas where the Haitian refugees are being relocated to.

Keep us in your prayers, more updates to follow very soon.

James

Prayer Requests for Haiti

Pray that we can serve where we are needed, as reports indicate that so many pastors are dead and churches destroyed that those Christians seeking to grieve and serve need much support.

Pray that we can forge some solid bonds with the best local churches and international relief agencies on the ground.

Pray for the ongoing generosity of people around the world sending in support and supplies.

Pray for the complicated task of getting supplies to needy people when roads are not passable, and only a quarter of the country’s roads were paved before the earthquake.

Pray for the hearts, minds, and souls of the people, who are reportedly 80 percent Catholic and 16 percent Protestant, while roughly 50 percent also practice voodoo.

Pray for the rebuilding of the city of Port-au-Prince as prior to the earthquake it was the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with 80 percent of people under the poverty line and 54 percent in abject poverty with a Gross Domestic Product per capita of only $1,300 with two-thirds of the labor force not even having a formal job.

Pray for protection for disease, as the spread of hepatitis A and E, typhoid, malaria, leptospirosis, and dengue fever is a reality as conditions worsen.

Pray against civil unrest that would further promote chaos.

Pray for the government which has lost many of its buildings and leaders.

Pray for the safety of the people, since some of the jails and prisons are now emptied and dangerous criminals are running the streets without police patrol to contain them.

Pray we get home safely and can take what we learn to help encourage churches and Christians to strategically pray and give of their resources for the long haul, as this will not be a short rebuilding effort.

Pray for the children as roughly half of Haiti’s population is reportedly children.

Pray that Christians will help bolster the remaining churches in Haiti and support the planting of many more Jesus-centered churches so that the people of Haiti can see the gospel rise out of the devastation.

Pray for us as a plan is forming for churches helping churches in places where war and disaster have struck.

We will pray and seek God’s direction for a way to rally churches around the idea of an organization existing for the sole purpose of helping the church help church. Down the road, there will be more needs of this kind and we want to be prepared to work together in our relief efforts on behalf of the churches that do so much, but often such receive so little.

Answered Prayer from Trip to Haiti, January 18-19, 2010

Pray we can get some great stories on video about what God is doing in order to help encourage God’s people around the world to be generous and help those in need.

Pray we can get great photos and other video footage to give away online, to give to Christian agencies who could use it to help get the need out, and to give to mainstream media outlets showing the difference the church and God’s people are making as well as all that remains to be done. There has been a great deal of great media coverage, and we want to add to it some of the stories of God’s people doing God’s work to encourage more of God’s people to support that work.

Going to Haiti early this week to see first hand and assess what can be done to meet the needs of the church in the toughest areas.

We will bring a team to help us capture this story so we can bring it back to you.

We will activate a website churcheshelpingchurches.com. The goal of this site will be to share what we discover and to raise support from churches in North America for the church in Haiti.

We need your prayers for the effectiveness of this first step and invite you to follow our updates on this site and on Twitter while we are in Haiti.

By Mark Driscoll

When Pastor James MacDonald secured our transportation into and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti, following the earthquake, he informed me that I could bring three other men with me to capture the footage in video and photo formats. In God’s providence, we had just the man. Thomas Hurst is the senior administrative deacon at Mars Hill Bellevue. Thomas is a Pulitzer Prize finalist photographer who has covered events in Kosovo, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Rwanda while working for Time magazine, The New York Times, and The Boston Globe. Ten years ago he actually spent a few months as a photojournalist in Haiti.

I first met Thomas when he was assigned to shadow me for a story in The Seattle Times. We got along great and I deeply enjoyed his company. Eventually both he and his wife became Christians and started to rise up as leaders in our church. I love and appreciate this man and his family very much.

On the trip we all loved having Thomas with us. The thousands of photos he took are simply stunning. To help the cause in Haiti, we have decided to simply give away all his work. Feel free to use these photos for God’s glory and Haiti’s good. Individuals, churches, relief organizations, and others are welcome to use these images. If you would like to make a donation, please do so at www.churcheshelpingchurches.com. Lastly, I want to thank Angela Hurst for sending her husband into harm’s way for Jesus, and thank Thomas for volunteering his time to do such a fantastic job.

Free Haiti Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/churcheshelpingchurches/sets/72157623183233883/