A Call to Partnership With Haiti

Prayer Brunch notes from Hershey Free Church

 

 

May 11, 2013

Dr. Dorlus explained that the earthquake in Haiti was a wake-up call for the church.  There are obvious changes in society in Haiti, and not just structural changes.  There are questions being asked that were not asked before by both Christians and non-Christians.  How do people begin to see ministry?  What is the church?  Church before was defined as where you meet instead of as the people meeting.  Dr. Dorlus told a story to illustrate the point. 

Right after the earthquake, a couple of pastors called, and the first one said, “I no longer have a church.”  Dr. Dorlus asked, “What happened?”  The pastor replied, “The church was destroyed.”  Dr. Dorlus questioned, “Do you mean everyone in the church died?”  “No.   The church collapsed.  The building collapsed.”  Quite a few pastors equate the church with the building.  The earthquake helped them realize that the church is the people.

Dr. Dorlus stated, “I don’t have a watch, but I do have time.”  That was something that came out again and again in the meetings.  He is taking time to build relationships, disciple other men, and build into lives around him.  Many have come to visit Haiti since the earthquake to help.  There were problems there before the earthquake, and they cannot be resolved that quickly.  Groups are needed who are willing to make a long-term commitment.  Protestant churches grew by 50-60% after the earthquake, but not everyone stayed.  There is a 30% increase in church attendance at this point over the pre-earthquake numbers.  Working with ReachGlobal helps give us time to deepen relationships so we can understand deeper issues.

Dave Hyatt, missions pastor

 

at Hershey Free Church, stated that we are partnering with ReachGlobal in Haiti which is different than wading in alone.  We can find out if ideas are right for this particular area.  We are hoping to learn from ReachGlobal and our partners in Haiti so we do not have to pay a “dumb tax”.  Paying the dumb tax is when you make a poor decision but then learn from your mistake.  If you have an idea, they can say, “Yeah, someone else had that same idea 18 years ago, and it failed.  Someone else had that idea 17 years ago, and it failed again.  So, let’s not do that one.”  Dr. Dorlus added, “At least be original in your mistakes.”

Mark Lewis was asked how he knew to connect with these particular Haitian partners.  Mark went on to explain the process of how they decide to pursue a response in an area and how this occurred in Haiti. 

“We always want to go to a place where there is a local partner, a national church movement, where there is, frankly, a need from a spiritual standpoint.  The day before the earthquake, if you had asked if we were going to be in Haiti, the answer would have been ‘No, absolutely no.’ The earthquake changed everything.  The compelling human need necessitated us to go as Christ followers.  Once we were there, we had to go through an assessment process.  Do we stay?  Whenever we go to do crisis response, it is always with vision mission.  The mission is multiplying transformational churches among all people.  It is making disciples that make disciples.  We are looking for that kingdom expansion Gospel influence.

“Our vision within the mission is to influence a million disciplemakers across the world to impact 100 million people with the transformational Gospel.  As we got beyond the relief stage, the conversation then switched to where do we see multiplying transformational churches in this context?  What is the potential for ministry influence, for coming alongside the disciplemakers that are already in the country and adding wind to their sails at this particular time.

“I was in Haiti for probably the most amazing three days that I will ever experience in my life.  They were three days of fasting and prayer, and I’ve never seen the movement of the Holy Spirit in such a way where so many people just broke in, came before the Lord repenting, just receiving Christ in amazing numbers.  Easily saw in one three hour period at one church service, 35 people prayed right in front of us.  It was just an amazing movement of God. I’m seeing this and thinking, ‘What’s disciplemaking going to look like in this context?’  We’ve had all these people come to Christ.  We started then to really seek God for direction and opportunities. Just seeking out, ‘God, what would you have us to do?’  I asked lots of questions and then just followed, prayed, and followed doors open.  So it was through relationship, not necessarily with the intent of finding partners, but just knowing David and Lois, Bruce’s brother and sister-in-law.  They are very close to me. …  I knew their brother was in Haiti, so I just went and looked him up, and it was in that conversation, in the questions I was asking, he said, ‘Wait a minute.  I have a guy you’ve got to meet.  He pulled Jean (Dorlus) into the conversation.

“We probably spent a couple of hours talking, and I left there with, ‘This is why we are in Haiti.’ … Here was a place we could dialogue with these questions, where there was similar thinking.  Jean said the earthquake changed everything.  It really shook these guys to the core- what they were thinking, what they were doing, why they were doing what they were doing. The more we gain understanding, the more we know we don’t know.”

Pastor Craig Maart asked how we were doing at listening and if Haitian leaders had to faciliatate something just so Americans felt they had something to do.  Wawa, Wadestrant Jean-Baptiste, addressed this question.  He related how God worked from the beginning when ReachGlobal came.  Dr. Dorlus was president of the seminary at the time and was able to call the seminary leaders together so Mark and his team and Dr. Dorlus could ask questions.

“We realized, even at the seminary, we were not doing the right thing.  We were doing something that was good from the beginning, we were preparing leaders, but they were not ready for what happened in 2010.  They were not quite ready to answer the questions that people were having.  So, even at the seminary right now, the way we approach the classes we are teaching, the way we approach the whole issue at the seminary is different.  We have a course that is called The Philosophy of Ministry right now that we teach.  We didn’t have it before. … So, these are things that are coming, taking place, because of the questions that they have been asking and answers that we are trying to find.

“The way we are together trying to respond to the new reality is with, as Mark talks about mission in vision all the time.  So, for us to remain focused on what our vision is, what the mission is, and to be able to do what we are supposed to do, we Haitians on the field help Americans that come to not just … say that I am coming to fix, stay two weeks, and say I got to fix this, and you go back.”

Americans go home feeling they fixed things and boast of how many they fed and what they provided.  Wawa revealed, “The people will just swallow what you do, and they would remain the same.  So now, we are working on moving past relief stage and go on to what you would call rehabilitation stage, and then we come to developmental stage.  This is the developmental stage that we are looking at.  This is the one that takes a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of resources, and a lot of people pulling together to do.  So, in our study groups, we are working together with input from Americans and input from Haitians to be able to see the things as clear as possible and then see what the next step would be.”  This would be something that would last past the individual leaders and be an ongoing process.  “It’s not just a better week with some people that played with kids, … but something that even after you leave, when you come back in 5 to 10 years, you see that it is still ongoing, and you see changes really happen.”

Dr. Dorlus elaborated on this answer.  He explained that both he and Wawa were educated in the United States, and they copied what they saw here.  They were not prepared for an event like the earthquake.  ReachGlobal did not come saying we have to build this for you, but they came asking questions to the Haitians.  “What is it you want to do?  What is it that should be done to change this country?”  Dr. Dorlus explained, “It is a long-term approach. … That’s why, one of the things we are doing, is to study the Haitian culture itself to see how we can do discipleship in a completely different way than we did in the past.”

Mark Lewis explained things more.  From the perspective as an American facilitator of teams, he wants teams to come to challenge the paradigm of both short-term teams and of the American church.  “When we enter into any situation, whether it’s the caring closet or ministry in Harrisburg or ministry in Haiti, when we enter into the situation thinking that we have something to give, we put ourselves in a position of being above the other people, and just that alone is bad.  That is not honoring God.”  Mark recalled that he has had hundreds of conversations where people all knew someone doing ministry in Haiti, which is a good thing that people are responding to God’s call.  He quoted Jim Collins.  “Sometimes good is the enemy of better and best.”  Mark went on to explain, “And so, though it is a good thing, it’s good at the cost of better and best.  Better and best is something that changes us. Why are we going?  If we are going to be changed, to learn, that’s a good reason to go.  If we’re going because we think we have something to offer, we’re flat out missing the mark.  I’ll tell you what, these guys have more to offer.  Honestly, there’s more for us to learn in Haiti than anything we would ever have to offer these guys.  The things that they’re seeing in their culture, it is just a mirror of what we can’t see in our culture.”

American culture problems, church issues, and personal issues are mirrored in Haiti, but we cannot see them because we are in the middle of them.  “Yet, these guys can look and they can see the fruit of our dysfunction in their churches.  They can see it really clearly in our approach, our attitudes.  That is evident.  But the beautiful thing about the relationship is that they also can’t see things in their culture.  And so, we can see things and ask questions.  ‘That doesn’t make any sense.  Why do you do that?’  We could come in with the presumption – this is how we fix that.  Stop, ask the question, and let them think about it.  ‘Why do we do that?’”  We may not understand because we are from a different culture.

Initially, we went to provide physical relief that needed to be done.  We are in a different stage now.  “We want people to come with a heart and an attitude to be instead of to do.  It really goes to Jean’s example of the watch.  Jean has time.  We don’t have time in our culture.  We keep time, but we don’t have time.  So, because of that, it is very difficult for us to be.  We always have to do.  Again, there are some real kingdom principles in there that just start to transform.  Relationships become more important than projects.”

When you return from a week, you may not have built a house, and people will ask you what you accomplished.  “We were.  That’s what we did.  We spent time with people, and we learned about them.  In the process, we learned something about ourselves.”

“At the largest level, I would say in general, the American church is doing a really poor job of listening, because we are going into the context with an agenda.  What we do is we see needs, and we fix needs.  These guys don’t need fixed.”

Bruce McMartin stressed the importance of doing research on the country where you wish to minister.  Before we would consider buying a house in a new community we research the schools, the hospitals, and what the community is like.  To go overseas, we throw a dart.  We will go to an area, think they need a school and start one when a good one is already there.  We find a friendly Haitian pastor and build him a church and a school, and everything is in his name. The encouraging part is that we will not be doing this working with ReachGlobal.  Research and long-term ministry are integral to this outreach. Haiti has been in this mess for several hundred years, and the problems will not go away overnight.  There is a worldview class at the seminary now.  Students were learning Bible and theology, but they were still working from a voodooistic worldview. They are working now to help students understand a Biblical worldview.

Bruce is part of Vision of Antioch.  The name was taken from the church in Acts.  Their desire is to see the Haitian church get the vision of evangelism and discipleship that the church in Antioch had and send missionaries like the church in Antioch did. Bruce explained that the Haitian people were brought as slaves from West Africa.  It is like the story of Joseph.  God meant it for good so they could come here and hear the Gospel and take it back to their brothers in West Africa in Muslim countries.  At a missions conference at the seminary, photos were hung up from National Geographic showing people in different countries.  The reaction from some was, “Are these real people?”  They were totally amazed at the people in the world who needed the Gospel and their eyes were opened to the fact that Haiti is not the last frontier for the Gospel.  We as believers have a responsibility to share the Gospel with the world, and this is a new concept for many Haitians.  A Haitian who went on a medical missions trip to Senegal was amazed to realize how rich the Haitian church is spiritually.  He stated that Sunday school teachers in Haiti have more understanding of the Bible than some pastors in Senegal, because they don’t have any training there.  God touched Roger’s heart at a mission’s conference in Haiti with the verse in Revelations 7:9-10 where it talks about “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” and they are praising God.  He wondered, “Is there going to be anyone from the nations praising God because of me, what I did?”  He ended up going as a missionary to Senegal. “He is in his fifth year as a missionary in Senegal, and God is doing amazing things there.”  This is a Muslim country, but most are Animists.  As black, French speaking people who can understand those caught in spirit worship, they are ideally suited to share the Gospel with Senegal.

Bruce explained that it all has a ripple effect.  Roger goes to Senegal.  He encounters a man named Serge from West Africa who is there as a student.  Serge accepts Christ and his life is changed.  “The next day he is on the streets-nothing- no food, no home, no money, no job, no anything.  ... Serge grows in his relationship, and he is concerned for his family who are Animists, spirit worshippers. … The Haitians take an offering and send it to Senegal so he can buy a ticket and go home and share Christ with his family.”  He is able to share Christ with his family and he is sent on to another village to work on planting a church there.

Wawa added that, “Haitians have the mindset that we are poor. … We can’t take care of other people.”  “We are working hard to help people understand that while we are working at home, we need to be concerned also about those elsewhere.”

Dr. Dorlus added, “We are very rich- spiritually”.   Dave Hyatt said Antioch was a very large city with a very small church, but they were willing to send Paul and Barnabus, two pillars of the church, out into the world.  Dave added, “We grow when we are sending.”

Pator George Davis explained that our involvement with Haiti started with an invitation from Mark Lewis to be aware of what ReachGlobal was doing.  “In the process, as we began that conversation, we just sensed an opportunity for partnership.  We sensed a great camaraderie in terms of philosophy. … We are talking about working in Haiti in a way that we are learning and seeing people develop, and that’s really what we are trying to do in the life of this church, and more broadly in this region.  So, one of the exciting things for me, … is the opportunity to say, ‘I really do believe that God has much for us to learn in Haiti that is relevant to our own situation.’  I think about the American church, how easy it is for us to simply provide spiritual gifts and services to people without really committing to the path of discipling.  So, people come to a church with the expectation that, ‘You are supposed to take care of me, you are supposed to do this for me’.  We even add consumer language to our church experience so we can talk about church shopping and that sort of thing. …  So, in many ways, the challenges you are facing in the Haitian community are much like we are facing, if we would only acknowledge it.  In this partnership, we are on a learning journey together, with much to teach each other. … God really invites us into something much bigger than ourselves.”

Bruce McMartin added an important point. “We are involved in something only God can do, and God is at work.  Who wouldn’t want to get involved?  When it happens, all the glory goes to Him, because we realize we didn’t do it.  That’s what He wants.”

Dave Hyatt remarked, “One of things I loved was that we prayed and walked and talked with people.  We went with translators.  We prayed for and with folks. …  We had a great dialogue with the young adults in their church, hearing from them.  We attended some of their services.  We took that learner stance. … We did not come to be served, but to serve.  We go with a mission to proclaim the Gospel, but … we go with an openness, and say, ‘God, how would you have me display the love of Christ?’”

Wawa was asked what to say to someone coming into the culture who doesn’t know language, etc..   Wawa’s response was: remain open, do not be quick to speak, don’t come in to teach a new song in English but rather learn a Creole song they know and sing with them, don’t come with an agenda and a checklist, let God lead you, keep your promises, and talk to someone to verify stories you receive concerning a personal need.  Dr. Dorlus added to ask before taking pictures.  Some areas are off limits for photos.  Buy a good lens so you are not conspicuous taking pictures.  Have a picture taken that includes you with them, and send them a copy.  That can be very important to them.  Also, ask those you are coming to work with, “’How can I help you when I get there?’ instead of needing a babysitter.”

Mark Lewis explained that we come as part of an international team representing all the churches involved.  Don’t come in with your own agenda wanting to be served.  As Americans, we have our own expectations of comfort.  “You are investing in this continuum of ministry.”  Prepare ahead of time.  Read about culture context recognizing you are part of the disciplemaking continuum.  “You are going, not necessarily for what you are going to give to Haiti, but maybe you are going for what you are going to invest locally.  What am I going to learn in the process of going that is going to change me so that my walk with Jesus is deeper so that I can transform the people I interact with 52 weeks out of the year rather than going to transform somebody that I’m only going to meet for an hour.”

Bruce McMartin encouraged us to sit and listen to people.  Learn about their struggles.  Understand others instead of judging them.  Remember too when in Haiti, the Haitian proverb, “To ask is not a sin.”  “They will ask, so we created a second proverb. To say ‘no’ is not a sin too.” 

Someone asked, “If it costs $1,600 to come to you, would you rather I give you $1,600 and stay here or would you rather have me come to be with you?’  Dr. Dorlus replied that it depended on the situation.  There are needs that do not require human touch or technical assistance, but even then, sending money one time without further contact does not build a relationship.  You don’t know what’s going on.  Not everyone can go, but all can contribute in some way, but it may help the church to actually go and see what‘s going on.  Dr. Dorlus told the story of an American friend who went to school with him in America and would complain about poverty in the United States.  “He took me to a place in the U.S. where he said there was a lot of poverty.  I looked around and saw that everyone had cable television, at least one car, electricity, and water, so I was not moved.  He was very unhappy with me.  He thought he had never met such a calloused man in his life. … He came to Haiti, and right at the airport, he understood.  The trip changed his life.  He complained less about issues in the United States.  By giving the money and not being involved, it removes that kind of life changing experience for you.” 

Dave Hyatt agreed that although giving money does change your heart for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”, but the experience going is powerful.  Mark added, “It really comes down to recognizing there is leadership and there is vision.  There will be opportunities … to give, to go, to pray, to be transformed, but ultimately, our mission is the same.  It is sanctification, becoming more like Jesus.  If that involves writing a check, there is going to be a time where a check needs to be written.  If that involves going and getting your hands dirty and experiencing something that you can’t experience writing a check, you need to go.  Ultimately, it is about us being a Gospel witness to the people that are around us- holistically.  That means the people around us in Haiti, the people around us in Indonesia, the people around us in Staten Island, and the people around us in Hummelstown. …What is it that God is calling us to do to take the next step in that process of transformation?  What’s the stereotype that I need to tear down?  What’s the prejudice or belief that I have in my worldview that’s not correct? 

“God has all the money He needs for whatever, but He wants our hearts to be transformed.  Sometimes it is through giving.  Sometimes it’s through going.  Sometimes it’s through praying.  Sometimes it’s through going through something else.  Sometimes it’s through going through a significant trial.  We get way more out of relationship, so ultimately, that’s where the focus is.”

Wawa said, “The biggest problem is not about money.  It is other things. … You come, you look, and you see things that we cannot see for ourselves.  We have a conversation together.  We pray together onsite.”  More can be fixed with less money than has already been lost there.

Dr. Dorlus had a question for us.  “Why do you think most churches who were involved in Haiti after the earthquake are not there anymore?”  He explained, “They were focused on relief and did not take things to the next level.  And second, they came to fix things and not develop relationships.”

Mark emphasized being sensitive and not doing things that Haitians can do.  We want the relationship, but providing resources to the Haitians is also important. “That is where the partnership becomes valuable.  Those decisions are being made when projects are being presented through a grid of vision, mission, values, and they are being vetted culturally and missiologically.”

Dave Hyatt brought home a very important closing thought from Revelation 3:17-18 where God is speaking to the church in Laodicea.   “You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”  He said that we are rich with Confederate money. “It isn’t worth anything, but we have lots of it.  We have stuff, but in God’s economy, what God counts is to truly love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. I don’t know how we’re doing on that measure. The call to mission in Haiti is to make an account transfer.“