Churches Helping 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.”

Here is a letter Tom received from Dr. Muqaddam Zia, chairman of the Pakistan Evangelical Christian Alliance, a network of 356 churches:

Dear Brother,

Greetings!

I have just got back from Northern Pakistan, where our team is doing relief efforts for the recent flood victims. Pakistan flood damage and human suffering could not be worse. According to National Disaster Management Authority, up until today, there are:

• People affected: 12-14 million
• Dead: 1,680
• Homes damaged: 250,000

Please find attached some photos of a church, a pastor’s house and 6 Christian homes, destroyed in the recent flood in an area of Nowshehra city.

This is an interview of the pastor of that church.

We have also done some more interviews of victims of flood, which will be soon uploaded. Our team has initiated relief distribution and you will be getting the photos and updates quickly.

Be blessed,

Dr. Muqaddam Zia

www.prayforpakistan.org

Many people have asked us if CHC will be supporting relief efforts in Nashville in the wake of the recent flooding.

Helping churches in need is our mission. We hope to do that as deep and as wide as we faithfully can. At this point in time, we’ve made the difficult decision to focus our efforts on helping churches in Haiti.

Disaster relief will always be riddled with inadequate resources for insurmountable needs. That’s why this ministry was born – to add another hand to the plow.  Eventually, we plan to get involved in crises beyond Haiti, but the scale of the destruction from the January 12 earthquake still requires our undivided attention.

For all those that approached us in the interest of giving, thank you for your continued support and belief in what God is doing through CHC. It is largely out of respect and appreciation for you that we have made this decision. We only want to accept funds that we can confidently deploy.

Still, Nashville needs support. If you would like to support churches in Nashville, we recommend giving to local organizations that demonstrate intimate awareness of needs.

Orlando-based aid organization New Missions was profiled this week on local TV channel News 13 as they prepare to ship medical and construction supplies to Haiti. You can watch the video report on the shipment here.

New Missions is the group that will transport $1.7 million worth of donated medical supplies, whose shipment was paid for by Churches Helping Churches. This shipment will be the first of two required to get over 50 pallets of goods down to the Caribbean.

CHC specifically sought out New Missions as a partner for our work in Haiti, as they have long had deep roots in Hispaniola, working in Haiti and the Dominican Republic for over 20 years providing medical care, arranging child sponsorships, feeding children, planting churches, building schools, and training leaders.

An ambitious, unprecedented recovery plan financed by donor countries must be driven and implemented by the Haitian people. It will take a long-term and concerted effort to develop the processes by which a country-led recovery can take place-but we can take meaningful steps now to nurture ownership and make our aid to Haiti more effective.

We could not agree more.

One of the central, guiding principles to Churches Helping Churches’ mission in Haiti is that the Haitian people are ministered to through the local church and through their own pastors. As far as we’re concerned, the Haitian people do not even have know that CHC is in Haiti, but we do want them to know that their pastor is healthy and able to minister, love, and support them. No development project has any long-term viability unless it is owned and adopted by local communities; it is our prayer that by building up Haitian churches through their own leaders, the Haitian Church will come out stronger in the years to come than ever before.

Read more about the strategy behind Phase 1 of CHC’s Haiti Response.

The U.S. military announced today that it will wrap up its mission in Haiti by June 1. Current troop numbers are already down to 2,200, from their peak of 22,000 in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake. Relief effort funds will still be going to local Haitian police and private security forces as they battle Port-au-Prince’s extensive gangs. Notwithstanding, the security situation is relatively “calm” these days, say officials, and is not affecting humanitarian efforts.

Follow us on Facebook & Twitter to stay up to date as we continue to roll out phase one of our response plan for Haiti.

From Reuters today:

Haiti’s parliament has approved the creation of a commission that will allow foreign donors to participate in deciding how to rebuild the poor Caribbean nation after its devastating January 12 earthquake… International aid workers are striving to care for more than 1 million homeless Haitian quake survivors who are camped out in makeshift tent and shelter communities sprawled across the wrecked capital and in other damaged towns.

Aid workers say that unless safer, more secure shelter is found for the hundreds of thousands of homeless quake victims, the imminent rains, and the hurricane season starting on June 1, could cause another humanitarian catastrophe.

Four months after the initial earthquake hundreds of thousands are still without shelter, and there continues to be systemic mistrust of the government making relief efforts complicated and rebuilding slow. Our hope over the next few months is to help in the spiritual rebuilding of the  lives of the Haitian pastors who in turn pastor those still living in these catastrophic conditions. Governmental steps like this are encouraging because infrastructure needs rebuilding, and it will take time and money, and at the same time we pray for the hearts that need rebuilding as well.

Read More from Reuters…

You can read about the first phase of Churches Helping Churches’ response to Haiti, right here.