Churches Helping Churches

Below is an excerpt of a letter from a pastor in Haiti. Let it be a portal to peer into the lives of ministers who are plagued with burdens – their own and their people, pre-earthquake and the flood that came post-earthquake. Let it also serve as a source of encouragement—that amidst it all, while many are trying to flee the country, he is committed to staying. Pray for him, pray for pastors like him, and pray for Churches Helping Churches as we finalize our first major response.

For a new Haiti,
Tom

***

Dear friend,

I regret that I could not write you after the terrible event of January 12, which devastated Port-au-Prince. I have definitely appreciated all of your phone calls.

Since last December I have been suffering from pains in the neck, shoulder and right hand. I could barely sleep at night, but I still managed to take care of my responsibilities at the seminary and at the church during the day. At the beginning of January, my doctor referred me to an orthopedist who diagnosed that I suffered from osteoarthritis. But, the medication and collar he prescribed did not relieve my pains.

Meanwhile, the earthquake of January 12 occurred. That day I could not go to teach because of the pains. I would have been in the building of the campus that collapsed. Divine providence! At the time of the earthquake, I was at home in pain, my wife was in a taxi, and the children were at their schools. And God saved us all. He also saved our temple, which could withstand the shocks. However, our school building can no longer be used.

What saddens us most is that more than twenty of the faithful members of the church died. Some at home, others at their schools. Many others lost their houses. A deacon lost his wife, his two children and his mother-in-law. An assistant-pastor lost his wife, one of his children and his mother-in-law. Another assistant-pastor lost all his possessions in the home he was renting. A brother lost his wife while she was in a car at the time of the earthquake. Several members of the youth group died in their schools. So was true of the ladies group. That profoundly saddened us. In spite of my pains, I was on the streets visiting some brothers and sisters of the church. They spent their days and their nights on the street.

On Sunday, January 24, we had our first worship service after the earthquake in the courtyard of the church. It was a time filled with emotions. I preached on the love of God, reminding people of the words of the apostle Paul that “nothing can separate us from the love of God demonstrated in Jesus Christ.”

After that Sunday, I began feeling sharper pains, and this, continuously. One evening, it was a severe crisis. It seems that the days spent sleeping in the car had aggravated my condition. The doctor recommended hospitalization. But, since no hospital was available, I stayed in my tent under the care of two nurses for five days. I thank the Lord for those sisters who were available for me.

After my release from the “hospital,” i.e. from my tent, the pains persisted. It appeared that my body could no longer respond positively to the medication. The doctor urged me to be patient. After two X-rays, he referred me to a physiotherapist. I have to undergo twelve sessions of therapy for a month while taking the drugs prescribed by the orthopedist. I am beginning to see a big improvement. And as evidence, I can now write this letter with my right hand. I hope that in a month I will be able to return to my normal activities at the church.

Now, God puts before us a new challenge. How to help so many people to recharge their batteries after so much suffering? We now have a group of absolutely discouraged believers. Young people do not believe any more in the future. Those who could, they have gone to the cities away from Port-au-Prince, to their birthplaces. Others left the country for the United States, Canada and the Dominican Republic, with all their emotion and without any prior planning. I must work with those who stayed and those who will hopefully return. I already think that I must have a week of retreat during the summer with the youth to help them build up their trust and return to a normal life. I count on your prayers for an effective ministry.

Together in the grapevine of the Master.

Photos taken by Kenny Nakai.  You can view more pictures from this trip at his blog.

Uriel is a first year student at STEP, a well-respected seminary in Port-au-Prince. His bright-white dress shirt was soaked in sweat as he dropped his schedule and rushed across town to meet with us. He is soft-spoken, gentle, and unassuming – carrying a rare blend of humility and conviction.

You can barely hear his voice over the background noise on our video footage, but I didn’t want you to miss out on Uriel’s story. So the transcript of our meeting is below.

Uriel: The earthquake hit everybody, so my home is completely destroyed. But nobody died. My family is ok. We didn’t go to a tent city because we setup our own tents in the yard of our house.

Tom: Who’s staying there right now?

Uriel: My mom, my brothers and sisters, and my grandma.

Tom: I understand you’ve been doing Bible studies with them?

Uriel: Right now, I study the Bible everyday with my family like we used to do for family devotions. And I have many people who came after the earthquake to my yard. They were talking about God, many in the wrong way. So I decided to study the Bible with them and tell them about the plan of God for the world.

Tom: So this Bible study is not just your family anymore?

Uriel: We have three groups: my family, a group of 10, and a group of 30.

Tom: (Laughing in astonishment) So you started a family Bible study, and God gave you a lot more.

Uriel: When I came to STEP, this was my plan. To go to my community and transform the community for the glory of Christ. And this is what I’m doing.

Tom: It reminds me of David, who took care of sheep. Later, God gave him a much bigger flock – the nation of Israel. He who is faithful will little will be given more.

Uriel: Thank you. May God do as He pleases.

Tom: The people in your small groups right now. Were most of them Christians before?

Uriel: The group of 10 some of them went to church before. But the group of 30 – they did not go to church before the earthquake. I’m working with them and going to introduce them to my church. My church currently worships in the yard.

Tom: What was it that made the people want to come to these studies?

Uriel: When people who are confronted with difficult situations, even those who say, “There is no God” realize, “Maybe there is a God”. When they saw the earthquake, they thought, “Maybe I’m going to die.” I heard them say many things, and I knew that was not the plan of God, so I decided to tell them the truth.

Tom: Did you invite them?

Uriel: The first day, they just came to me. (Laughing) It’s like I had my own tent city. God is sovereign. He does everything the way he wants. God brought them to me. And as a Christian, I have to use every opportunity to present the gospel.

Tom: What kind of Bible studies are you doing?

Uriel: I have a book from Theological Education by Extension called “Beginning the Christian Life”. And I also do something else with those who are more mature.

Tom: What kinds of lessons are you teaching them?

Uriel: I have one group that I am focusing on more because I know they were Muslims. So I study Jesus Christ, the Spirit, and angels.

Tom: Currently, you’re a first year student at STEP. Why are you studying here?

Uriel: I always wanted to study at STEP. Because before I studied at STEP, I went to Theological Study by Extension. I was in a seminar on missions, and after the seminar, I was very interested in missions.

Tom: So you want to be a missionary?

Uriel: Yes.

Tom: It sounds like you already are one.

Uriel: I’m searching for my gift. When God gives it, you know that it’s there.

Tom: You have the gift. Uriel, God bless you!

In another conversation, Uriel mentioned that although the people are open and coming, he needs help and guidance. CHC is seeking to encourage and equip pastors and layworkers like Uriel to reach their communities. You and your church can support the mission by getting involved here.

This article first appeared on the Washington Post.

I was in Haiti less than a week after the earthquake. I went with Churches Helping Churches on a aid-delivering and fact-finding mission to help the country and it’s churches. What follows is an excerpt of my journal from the trip. Amidst the chaos I captured what I saw the best I could and am including pictures from our trip that help tell the story. Video from our trip and the individual stories from Haiti can be found here and here.

Snaking through the city on back streets, we started to get a glimpse of the scope of damage away from the earthquake’s epicenter. As we passed the waterfront we could see that all the docks had sunk and that no ships could bring supplies to the shore, thereby crippling any aid effort by water. As we got deeper into the slums, the devastation became more massive and overwhelming. Buildings were folded up like pieces of paper. Entire blocks were rubble. There was no food or water or any sign of any store in business anywhere. Children were wandering everywhere. Garbage filled the streets. Small fires were burning. Bodies lay on the roadside. Every inch of seemingly every block of the city had people simply sitting on blankets as their temporary homes both day and night. And no one was crying. Thousands upon thousands of people were walking around emotionless and seemingly in shock.

Finding the seminary was difficult because many buildings in the city do not have addresses, and with the city in ruins, even using landmarks as navigation points was impossible. We ended up in front of a large church that was empty and chained shut. Our hearts sank as the one lead we thought we had to get interviews with Christians and an understanding of the plight of the church seemed to have been a dead end. Then, an elderly woman with a wonderful smile approached us. Realizing we could not understand her Creole, she sweetly touched my face with her wrinkled hand, smiled warmly, took my hand and kindly led us to a large metal gate down the street, which was opened by the men standing guard upon her request. Passing through the gate, we were on the large grounds of the seminary.

We followed a steep winding path up a hillside to reach the main building on campus. Once there, we immediately noticed that the walls on two sides of the building had collapsed and were rubble. An American man approached us to explain that the school had been there roughly seventy-five years and that he was a third-generation servant of Christ there serving under the leadership of Haitian nationals. He told us that, when the earthquake hit, classes had just let out and students were headed to chapel, and had it occurred a few minutes later, they could have lost most of their 160 students studying for pastoral and church planting ministry. Nonetheless, one student did die, and five more were pulled from the rubble by fellow students and faculty. The president of the seminary later told us, with tears in his eyes and quivering in his voice, that he personally had lost at least a hundred Christian friends and fellow church leaders in the city.

Looking around the campus, it was obvious the school was no longer functioning. Instead, it had become something of a refugee camp, with upwards of perhaps five thousand people sleeping all over the grounds at night. But, unlike the rest of the city, there was a joy among these people. Tensions were low and it seemed God’s peace rested there to comfort the afflicted. Many children, some among the roughly eight hundred who attended the Christian elementary school on site, were playing games, singing, dancing, and making toys out of empty water bottles, using the caps as wheels.

To be continued…

You can’t spend a week in Haiti without experiencing sensory overload. Trying to absorb the sights, sounds, smells, and stories is like drinking from a fire hose. There’s just too much that happened and too much that is happening to take it all in. And if you try, you’re going to get hurt.

Take a look at this picture. It says a lot about the current condition of Haiti. What were once impressive displays of architecture and engineering are now unstable piles of rubble, just waiting to buckle if you breathe too hard. In Port-au-Prince, you can’t turn your head away from that scene. Nothing was exempt, not even the Presidential Palace pictured here.

But if you look at the base of the flagpole, you’ll notice two men. They may not have caught your eye at first, and therein lies the problem. The massive, imposing piles of rubble overshadow the people. As I talked with and lived with the people last week, I realized the greatest damage caused by the earthquake was not to the buildings, but to the hearts and minds of those who are still alive.

That might sound very ethereal, but that’s coming from a former engineer with a just-fix-it attitude. Why do I say that? There are plenty of unscathed buildings. Not a single crack. Even after structural engineers deem a home structurally sound, it remains empty as families choose to live in their tents. Even if we build new buildings, the people won’t go in.

Fortunately, churches have a Ph.D. in offering hope and peace that can be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a ripe hour for the local churches in Haiti. This is a time when believers can provide a kind of relief work that no other human beings in the world can.

Progress Update: I’m thrilled at last week’s meetings with Haitian churches and organizations. We discussed how Churches Helping Churches can get behind and support them. I’ve worked with many church and business leaders in the past, and I have never seen this degree of unity and humility. So many groups are putting aside their own agendas, and saying, “We just want to help.” One of those plans is coming together very fast. After a few more details are ironed out, I’ll be the first to share with you.

Tom Kim, Executive Director of CHC

Acts 20:24

(Photos on this trip were taken by Kenny Nakai)

I was in Haiti less than a week after the earthquake. I went with Churches Helping Churches on a aid-delivering and fact-finding mission to help the country and it’s churches. What follows is an excerpt of my journal from the trip. Amidst the chaos I captured what I saw the best I could and am including pictures from our trip that help tell the story. Video from our trip and the individual stories from Haiti can be found here and here.

Upon departing the plane, the first thing the soldier said to me was, “You will now see a crisis of biblical proportions.” Looking around the tarmac, it was surprising how little aid we saw being unloaded and how few supplies were on the ground.

After helping unload medical supplies from our plane, we needed to secure two vehicles, a driver, and a translator. Our security specialist had come into the country to help mobilize peacekeeping efforts and within minutes he had two vehicles and a security detail from a private security firm, and we were on our way.

God had pulled off another miracle to get us around Haiti.

We carried our backpacks, loaded with minimal supplies along with a few days' worth of water and food, through the airport, which was so damaged that water covered the floor where ticketing had been and the power was out. As we pressed through a small crowd toward the airport exit, we saw a mob wanting to get to the food and water supplies that were being unloaded under US military protection. A soldier told us that if we exited the airport we could not return, as they would not open the door for us. Admittedly nervous, we exited the airport, pressed through the mob, met up with our local security detail, and jumped into our vehicles.

The scene surrounding the airport was complete chaos. Like in the rest of Port-au-Prince, there was not a street light or sign to be found. Thousands and thousands of young men were literally just standing on the roadside. People were walking everywhere. The roads were completely jammed with cars and there was no sign of anything to keep order, such as a traffic light, a traffic sign, or any police presence. Our goal was to get to the Port-au-Prince Evangelical Seminary that was roughly six miles away. We had heard that thousands of people were taking refuge there, although our information was merely speculative, since nearly all forms of communication were down across the city. If this lead came up dead we had no backup plan and trusted Jesus to figure it out for us.

Snaking through the city on back streets, we started to get a glimpse of the scope of damage away from the earthquake's epicenter. As we passed the waterfront we could see that all the docks had sunk and that no ships could bring supplies to the shore, thereby crippling any aid effort by water. As we got deeper into the slums, the devastation became more massive and overwhelming. Buildings were folded up like pieces of paper. Entire blocks were rubble. There was no food or water or any sign of any store in business anywhere. Children were wandering everywhere. Garbage filled the streets. Small fires were burning. Bodies lay on the roadside. Every inch of seemingly every block of the city had people simply sitting on blankets as their temporary homes both day and night. And no one was crying. Thousands upon thousands of people were walking around emotionless and seemingly in shock.

To be continued…

This article originally appeared at The Washington Post.

I was in Haiti less than a week after the earthquake. I went with Churches Helping Churches on a aid-delivering and fact-finding mission to help the country and it’s churches. What follows is an excerpt of my journal from the trip. Amidst the chaos I captured what I saw the best I could and am including pictures from our trip that help tell the story. Video from our trip and the individual stories from Haiti can be found here and here.

It’s approaching 2 a.m. and I cannot sleep. The images of what I have seen today in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, keep haunting me. And I cannot get the taste of decomposing bodies out of my mouth.

The adventure I am on started a mere five days ago with an early morning call from Pastor James MacDonald. We had met through mutual friends and an organization called The Gospel Coalition. He called to discuss how we might mobilize churches from the US and world to help the Haitian churches following a massively devastating earthquake and powerful aftershocks. After that initial conversation, our day was spent texting, calling, emailing, and strategizing, ultimately culminating in a plan to visit Haiti to witness the need firsthand.

On Friday I prerecorded a sermon to be played at Mars Hill Church on Sunday, on Saturday morning my renewed passport showed up just hours before my flight, and after some time with my family celebrating the birthday of my four-year-old son Gideon, my wife and five children dropped me off at the airport with tears. The Mars Hill team and I arrived in Chicago Saturday night, worshiped at Harvest Bible Chapel on Sunday morning, got our vaccinations, debriefed for the trip with a tactical team, and drove to Grand Rapids, Michigan, with our crew that had grown to include a seasoned security specialist, a two-man film crew, an award-winning combat photographer, the creative director of John Piper’s Desiring God Ministries, and a senior staff member of a relief organization.

After a few hours of sleep, we drove to our small plane that was packed with medical supplies and doctors who traveled with us. Our flight left the US around 3 a.m. and by sunrise we were circling over Haiti, which looked like a battlefield from the air. Unsure if we could land because of the numerous reports of planes that had been denied landing privileges, we prayed and waited. Before long we were on the ground in Haiti, a mere four days after my first conversation with Pastor MacDonald and less than a week after the earthquake hit. I turned on my iPhone to discover multiple messages from international aid workers who were unable to enter the country asking how we did it. We did not do it.

God had pulled off a miracle to get us into Haiti.

Upon departing the plane, the first thing the soldier said to me was, “You will now see a crisis of biblical proportions.” Looking around the tarmac, it was surprising how little aid we saw being unloaded and how few supplies were on the ground.

To be continued….

STEP (Evangelical Seminary of Theology in Port-au-Prince) is one of the most prominent seminaries in Port-au-Prince.  Twice in the past, when crises hit the local community due to gang violence, people came knocking on the doors of STEP to find temporary refuge.  Within minutes of the earthquake on January 12, it once again became a trusted safe-haven.  Currently, STEP cares for 2,500 people on campus.  All of STEP’s normal classroom operations are on-hold, but the students and faculty minister to this “tent city” throughout the week.

After a series of meetings today in Port-au-Prince, I drove into the campus and heard the sound of music in the distance.  I continued up the hill, turned the corner, and there it was: everywhere, the shadows of Haitians joyfully bouncing to the rhythm of music.  Though I can’t understand Creole, this song was loud and clear: “Hosanna!”  Again and again, with hands in the air, the people sang “Hosanna!”

So far, the faculty estimates that 300 people have made decisions for Christ.

STEP is proving to be a key partner with Churches Helping Churches in helping the local churches.  Many of their alumni and current students are pastors who have lost church members and buildings. Also, today’s meetings in Port-au-Prince were charged with Spirit-filled like-mindedness and conviction.  Thanks to all who have been praying.  More to come!

Thomas Kim
Executive Director of CHC
Currently in Haiti