Churches Helping Churches

After about 27 minutes in Haiti, we discovered something important: our original long-sleeve, black CHC t-shirts are not convenient in tropical climates. So, we decided to rectify that.

We now have some brand-new t-shirts that are short-sleeve, but importantly, better reflect CHC’s Haiti mission specifically. The new shirts read “Bondye Beni Ayiti”, which means “God Bless Haiti” in Creole, with colors that mimic the Haitian flag. They come in all sizes and are made out of a super-soft, combed ring-spun cotton. You can order them through Harvest’s Walk in the Word online store. This can be a great way to wear your support on your chest, or maybe you just need some new prizes for your church’s youth group nights. Either way, this is a limited edition batch, so get yours soon.

All that said, if you live in a climate where it will not go above 70˚F for another eight months, you might still prefer the original t-shirt.

Pastor Vijonet is a lead pastor, educator, and advocate for capacity building of future global leaders among youths in Haiti. He has a special story to tell. At the age of seven, he was accepted into the Child Sponsorship Program with Compassion International. Coming from a family of nine siblings, this gave him much needed attention as well as opportunities for education. His training and equipping continued as he completed graduate studies and professional development programs from schools including Harvard University, Jacksonville Thoelogical Seminary, and Dallas Theological Seminary.

With a sharp mind and a huge heart, God is using Pastor Demero through many different channels. He currently serves as the Senior Pastor of the Eglise de la Bonne Nouvelle. He has also held a position as the Partnership Supervisor at Compassion International for the past 13 years. Additionally, he is the General Secretary at the Institut Universitaire de Formation des Cadres (INUFOCAD), an institute prepares educators, pastors, entrepreneurs, and business managers for a new Haiti.

Especially after the earthquake, he has proven to a pastor of pastors. On top of his current responsibilities, he recently decided to shepherd 30 pastors from all over Haiti. With CHC, Pastor Demero helped organize one of the pastors conferences. He coordinated logistics and brought his 30 pastors. CHC provided teaching and subsidized the conference. I was shocked to discover that he was doing all of this in spite of a church building that had collapsed. He never mentioned it to me. I discovered it on my own. The earthquake made him even more outward oriented, a rare trait among pastors whose buildings that have collapsed.

Eglise de la Bonne Nouvelle (Good News Church) is a unique congregation with many influential governmental workers. On Sunday, Pastor Demero picked me up with an armed member of the SWAT team. After service, he introduced me to the Director of Customs, who helped CHC with our container clearance. This church body’s commitment to this ministry is demonstrated in the sweat and blood to manually remove rubble from their building site.
CHC has funded half of the temporary structure seen in this photo. The other half was funded by MAIS, a Brazilian organization committed to the suffering church. Pastor Demero has become a close friend and ministry partner. He is organizing three of the future Churches Helping Pastors retreats.

In this video, the people singing are from Pastor Demero’s congregation, and the pile of rubble was their church building.  Artist Mateus Ortega wrote this song on the spot in Creole, which the church now sings during worship service.

“It’s like they were waiting for us. It was a dry land, and we were pouring water on it.”

This was Jacques Louis’ comment to me as we evaluated our time in Léogâne, the city nearest to the epicenter of the earthquake.  From September 2 to 4, pastors and church leaders from a wide-range of denominations and affiliations showed up, and they were on-time everyday. (This does not happen all that often here.)

Hungry to know, eager to grow

Our meeting site was dark and poorly vented. The STEP faculty, who took more ownership of the teaching this time around, and I were constantly making eye contact and shaking our heads at the unbearable conditions. And when Haitians say, “It’s hot”, it is indeed sweltering. Every shirt in that room was drenched.

Yet, none of the attendees complained. As we taught on crisis, the emphasis was on the personal healing of the pastor first, then to their congregation. These men and women quickly embraced this vision and were unusually hungry for God’s truth. They were unphased in their learning, frantically jotting down notes and asking to repeat key phrases. In our Q&A sessions, they were looking for coaching on current, hands-on struggles. As we equipped them with Biblical responses to shed light on their situation, they were so grateful for each answer. I felt terrible each time I had to end the session.

One pastor stood and spoke on behalf of the group: “Thank you for thinking of us here in Léogâne. The teaching that we received here is worth more than a million dollars.”

Stirring one another up to love and good works

A major component of this retreat is the mutual ministry to one another. We give them a vision for small groups and coach them daily throughout the conference. During a morning huddle, one small group leader said, “We have never seen this (small groups) before. We ask a question, and it’s like a free ride! I will continue this in my ministry after the conference.” When I asked if any others were planning on implementing small groups in their churches as a follow-up, they responded in vehement agreement. (Special thanks to Pastor Mike Wilkerson of Mars Hill Church in Seattle for his instrumental leadership in small group architecture for this retreat.)

Thankful and thoughtful

At the end of the retreat, we always have a closing ceremony. We hand out certificates to recognize and celebrate the successful completion of the training.  (To some of these pastors with no formal seminary training, that certificate is a big deal.)

After all the formalities, I was getting ready to make closing remarks. Much to my surprise, a small group had prepared some words of thanks and a gift for the organizers of the conference. I got ready to go up afterwards, but the organizer of the conference had also prepared a gift with some words for me. Again, I prepared to go up, and another person prepared a thank you speech on behalf of the entire group. I was overwhelmed with the sense of gratitude in the room – gratitude for one another and most of all, gratitude to “the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 2:4).

Below is the schedule of the remaining Churches Helping Pastors retreats along with the contact information for the local coordinator. If you know any pastors who are interested in attending, please have them contact the local coordinator closest to them. The international country code for Haiti is 509. (To call Napoleon Valdes in Leogane from the U.S., for example, you would dial 011 + 509 + 3725-3680.)

It’s Sunday in Delmas, Haiti. Pastor Blanc wakes up at 4:00 am. He rushes over to a tent city halfway across the town east of the capital.

He arrives to a small, makeshift shelter that can comfortably seat 25 people. People begin to arrive with their own chairs as the sun is rising. The small tent is filled within minutes. Pastor Blanc shakes hands and hugs old ladies. He knows some of them very well. They’ve been his church members for years.

Today, he is especially happy to see a few folks. Last night, 34 people gave their lives to Jesus Christ, and they are returning for their first Sunday service. A small generator powers up and a keyboard fades in. The drums join in, the people soon follow with clapping and cheerful singing. By the time the music stops, the shelter is overflowing, and many stand around the tent. They can’t see, but they can hear. Pastor Blanc preaches a heartfelt message to a struggling people. When service is over, he individually greets them with a smile.

He dashes over to the other side of town. He arrives at Elise Brebis de Jesus Christ, his church of many years. It’s 8:15 am, just in time for service. He wipes the pouring sweat from his forehead and looks at a badly damaged building. He’s not quite sure how or when he’s going to repair it. He rethinks the decision he made: to build a structure in the tent city rather than repair his church building. He nods, deciding all over again that it’s the right thing to do. The singing begins as he heads into another service.

*

This is a snapshot of Pastor Maxi Blanc’s morning. He is man of character, constantly making the difficult decisions as he listen to God’s voice. Many of his church members moved to a tent city after their buildings were destroyed. His regular visits to pray for them turned into a church service. Now, many have to know Christ, and the church is growing.

Tent city management has recognized him as an important figure for this new community, and they have issued Pastor Blanc a piece of land to build a larger temporary structure for their meetings.

CHC is funding this shelter, scheduled to start building in one week, on Tuesday, Sept. 14. Please pray for Pastor Maxi Blanc and both of his congregations. He’s planted a new church, and he doesn’t even know it yet.

For more on how you can support pastors like Pastor Blanc, please visit our giving page, or contact information [at] churcheshelpingchurches [dot] com.

In this video, Pastor Mike talks about how he responded to that question, and how the Holy Spirit intercedes in the deep suffering we don’t even know how to identify.

In this clip, Pastor Mike Wilkerson of Mars Hill Church in Seattle talks about how the team prepared to minister and teach Haitian pastors, despite very real language and life experience barriers. Haitian men, especially pastors, are expected to be strong and are not often allowed to be vulnerable; this retreat was one of the first times these men were able to let themselves be ministered to, as Pastor Mike saw.

Pastor Mike, who oversees the Biblical Living department at Mars Hill’s Ballard campus, was one of four biblical counseling experts CHC brought down for the first Churches Helping Pastors retreat in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in May 2010. The goal of the retreat was to support and renew the pastors as they personally recover from the earthquake, and also to build them up as they go back into their communities and support the people in their churches.

CHC Haiti partner Pastor Jacques Louis is featured in the summer issue of Neue magazine. Here is an excerpt from the story, found on pp. 46-48:

What kind of messages are you preaching now?

At first, people were thinking, “This is the end of the world.” You have to tell them the earthquake is a natural disaster; it’s not the end of times. … But right now, we’re preaching that God is involved, that God can take care of you and that it’s OK to grieve. God can comfort you because he’s powerful enough.”

Incidentally, CHC co-founder Pastor Mark Driscoll is featured on the cover of this issue, which is just the third issue of the new magazine. Neue is published by the same team that puts out Relevant magazine, but with a specific focus on “Church leaders and innovators.”

In this video, Daniel Ulysse, a Haitian chaplain from Brooklyn, talks about the relationship between the Haitian government and Christian churches, and the importance of Paul’s words to the Haitian Church today.

For more, watch Chaplain Daniel interview the small group of pastors he led at our Churches Helping Pastors retreat in May in Port-au-Prince about their churches, how the earthquake affected them and their communities, and their vision and prayers for the future.

In this video, Daniel Ulysse, a Haitian chaplain from Brooklyn, interviews a group of pastors who attended our Churches Helping Pastors retreat in May in Port-au-Prince about their churches, how the earthquake affected them and their communities, and their vision and prayers for the future.

Stay tuned over coming weeks for more videos from Haiti from pastors from this conference and others we’ve held or sponsored in other cities around the country.

Inside a Tent City from Thomas Kim on Vimeo.

Last week, I worshipped in a tent city called Pétionville Club. What was once a golf course is now home to an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 people. Jacques Louis, a Haitian seminary professor and one of CHC’s dear partners, told me they cleared the trees on the course to make more room for people.

At one point in the service, I took a risk. The people were so used to being asked what their problems were and what they needed. Instead, I asked if anyone wanted had a testimony of what God had done since the earthquake.

Immediately, a thin lady jumped to her feet.

“Praise the Lord! God has given us so much. Yes, we’ve lost a lot. We don’t have much. But we believe in Him and we worship Him and we are so happy!”

She went on for a few minutes, filled to the brim with enthusiasm and conviction. Her joy brought smiles to both my interpreter and me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing – far more than optimism, but intense God-besotted gratitude.

When taking a step back, it almost looked ridiculous. No home, no job in a crowded makeshift tent, boldly standing in front of other people to declare how thankful she was.

Her testimony was followed by another, which was followed by another. So many people seized the opportunity to share a “what my God has done” story that regretfully, I had to cut it short. Since then, I’ve often wondered how long they would have gone if I wasn’t such a Westerner on a schedule, running late for another meeting.

Those people ministered to me deeply that day. They are amazing Christ-followers who have unshakable joy. I am so privileged to know them and have much to learn from my brothers and sisters in Haiti.

The Pétionville Club I visited was smaller than it once was. A portion of this tent city was relocated due to overcapacity. (To me, it was already bursting, so I had a hard time picturing that in my mind.)

One pastor, Maxi Blanc, has many church members in that tent city. He now feels burdened to plant a church there. The Haitian government has recognized Pastor Maxi as a community leader and subsequently, gave him the land to start a church. Churches Helping Churches is going to build Pastor Maxi a structure for this unique church in mid-September. We can’t wait to see all that the Lord does through Pastor Maxi and this church within their new community. Thank you for your continued prayers and support of Pastor Maxi, the church in Haiti, and this mission we’re on.

–Tom