Haiti

We're huge fans of the approach to relief and development taken by Covenant World Relief and Covenant World Mission. This is an update on the situation in Haiti sent by Dave Mark this morning. David and Wendy Mark are the regional coordinators for Covenant World Mission work in Latin America and the Caribbean.

      This August 21-26, I (Dave) visited Haiti with David Husby and Chrissy Parmerlee of Covenant World Relief, Covenant missionary Tammi Biggs (tammi.biggs@covchurch.org) and SouthEast Conference Superintendent, Robert Owens. This trip continued our efforts to sort out our best responses and mission direction in Haiti.

      Here are some of the critical issues.

1) Haiti has thousands of NGOs (relief agencies) and vast numbers of denominational, non-denominational and independent missions present in the country. So how do we figure out with whom we should work as primary partners and whom should we recommend to Covenant people and churches who want to serve?

2) The default model for doing ministry in Haiti has more than a century of history. In it, typically, a strong, capable leader develops a set of ministries - usually a church, a clinic, a school and/or an orphanage but does so in a highly independent way. Each of these leaders, rather like "lone rangers" tends to seek and find some supporting church or churches in the US to serve as "patrons" for their ministry. By and large, these are hard working and gifted individuals who serve others with great passion. Their system of working, however, tends to isolate them from cooperation with other Haitian ministries. Some may jealously guard their donor sources and routinely belittle the efforts of others. This makes sense to them because they do not want to lose their limited donor support to neighboring ministries. This historic system also tends to promote a kind of dependency state in which donors may overly control vision and outcomes. The leaders are then accountable to their donors more than to their own constituents - which is not a healthy way to be. While change is neither easy nor automatic, Covenant World Mission does want to work to encourage cooperation and locally shared ownership of vision, goals and ministry practices. We also want to do this in ways that do not discourage the heart passion of these independent leaders. They are simply working with an inherited and common style of ministry.

3) While we will continue to relate in positive ways with many independent folk, we have also tried to discover ministries that exemplify "best practices." For example, it could be said that "relief is easy and development is hard." To provide emergency aid in a disaster like the great earthquake required enormous effort, but it still boiled down to bringing in goods and services and distributing them in some kind of orderly fashion. It really is a lot harder to help people develop sustainable means of providing for themselves, particularly when infrastructures are damaged (like no roads between farms and markets, irrigation systems are damaged and the like.)

4) Last, though not last in priority, we want to encourage mission that is well balanced. We believe that "God wants lost people found" and "God wants hurting people helped" as Covenant President Gary Walter put it. So we are anxious to serve together with people who are committed to bringing people to new life in Christ, forming them into communities of faith and to critical response to the physical or material needs of their situations.

      So, here's where we are so far... We continue to work to network and encourage the initiatives of local US Covenant churches that serve in Haiti. Most are connected with some local Haitian ministry or independent US based ministry that vary a great deal in size and focus of ministry. We think these ministries can be strengthened by awareness and interaction with other Covenant ministries in Haiti, as well.

      We continue to engage closely with Covenant World Relief and its partners. CWR Director David Husby, as a former World Mission Regional Coordinator, has a deep understanding of how we do things and has made good use of that knowledge in building stronger cooperative efforts between CWR and CWM. Our relationship with Covenant World Relief has always been strong and fruitful, but David's specific background as a missionary leader has brought it even closer.

      Here's a quick look at some of what we visited: Pictured below is a well built by one of our primary partners, World Relief International. The hand pump that makes the well work was designed and developed by the Hindustani Covenant Church of India, another of our partners in world mission.

      This is a photo of a new clinic in Haiti's largest slum. It is run by another of our primary partners, Medical Teams International. MTI is doing well in developing sustainable health care systems in Haiti.

  

The man pictured on the left, below, is Jean Thomas, his wife, Joy, is seated at the head of the table. The others are David Husby, Robert Owens, Tammi Biggs and Chrissy Parmerlee. Jean Thomas leads an exciting and excellent ministry in Fond des Blancs, Haiti. This wide ranging and very effective ministry has been intentionally designed on the principles developed by John M. Perkins. Jean and Joy learned those principles under Perkin's tutelage at Voice of Calvary Ministries in Jackson, Mississippi. We believe that Jean and Joy Thomas' ministry can serve us as an effective model for mission in Haiti and as an excellent partner in mission. We highly recommend Jean's book (written with Lon Fendall and with a forward by John Perkins), At Home with the Poor. Barclay Press, 2003. 

  

       We were pleased to see how Habitat for Humanity works to build homes in Haiti. (The Haiti Director of Habitat for Humanity is a Covenant Church member.) Habitat provides the materials and technical direction, but Haitian people build their own homes. This retains their dignity and provides them with an appropriate pride of ownership. All of the Habitat homes that we saw were well kept up and personally decorated by their owners. 

    

      We hope this serves you as a good report on our progress toward effective mission in Haiti.

       Next stop, Colombia and Ecuador followed by Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. 

      Please pray for us as we travel and meet with missionaries and the leaders of churches and ministries. 

      As you may know, we are now 65 years old and probably should not do this forever. So, please pray that Covenant World Mission will have God's wisdom in finding people to replace us. We are anxious to see excellent leadership for the next generation, for the Glory of God and our Neighbors' Good.