RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — Virginia Baptist mission leaders are developing projects in earthquake-devastated Haiti which they hope will lead to long-term relationships on the island and to self-sustaining operations.
"We want to work with the community so we can have a long-term, sustainable relationship,” Dean Miller, Virginia missions coordinator for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, said following an April 21-24 meeting in Port-au-Prince with Haitian Baptists and other international Baptist organizations.
Since the Jan. 12 earthquake which killed as many as 200,000 Haitians, Virginia Baptists have contributed over $400,000 for relief efforts. Miller said about $30,000 of that amount has been spent on food and another $10,000 on medical supplies.
Miller, who discussed possible projects at the April 21-24 meeting, said the remainder will be used strategically to have the widest and longest-lasting impact. Also attending were representatives of the Haiti Baptist Convention and Baptist Haiti Mission, two of the three Baptist conventions in the country; the Baptist World Alliance; the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; and Hungarian Baptist Aid, a Budapest-based aid agency with close ties to the Baptist World Alliance.
Miller said Virginia Baptists will probably focus their efforts in Delmas, a suburb east of Port-au-Prince. Projects will include rebuilding a Baptist church and school there that were destroyed in the quake, and helping Haitian Baptists to open an orphanage in the suburb — a desperate need in the wake of the deaths of many parents.
In addition, said Miller, leaders are interested in developing a job training center, microfinancing opportunities and other ways that will connect to the Delmas community.
The proposed projects will be facilitated by the presence of several Cooperative Baptist Fellowship mission workers based in Haiti. These include Nancy and Steve James, who were appointed both by the CBF and American Baptist Churches USA and have served in Haiti for years. They are joined in medical ministry by Tori Wentz, one of the CBF’s medical field personnel based in Virginia.
Rotating as the Fellowship’s on-site relief coordinator in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, are Scott Hunter, former CBF field personnel who is on temporary assignment, and Tim Brendle, who began serving April 9. A former missionary to Haiti, Brendle lives in Petersburg, Va., and is a retired pastor of Ridge Baptist Church in Richmond.
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Robert Dilday is managing editor of the Religious Herald.