With 152,000 Buckets of Hope en route, 85,000 professions of faiths and 64 new churches, John Sullivan has declared it’s “hallelujah time in Haiti!”
“Only the Father knows the great impact for the gospel that is emerging out of this earthquake,” said Sullivan, executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention. “He is allowing us to share in moving a nation from tragedy to triumph.”
In the months since the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Haiti, Florida Baptists have worked alongside their Haitian brothers and sisters and Southern Baptists from across the country to distribute food, staff medical clinics, provide counseling and fill countless physical and spiritual needs.
“Our feeding and food distribution continues at full speed,” Sullivan said. “On an almost daily basis we are sending food supplies of rice, beans and pasta, having processed over 200,000 pounds of rice, 85,000 pounds of beans and 7,500 pounds of pasta.”
They have been able to accomplish this, Sullivan said, through the generosity of Florida Baptists, sister state conventions and Baptists across the nation. By May, some $4 million in contributions had been received.
At the request of the Haitian pastors who yearned to reap a spiritual harvest while the hearts of their countrymen are open to the gospel, Florida Baptists have underwritten the cost of regional and local crusades throughout the country, resulting in more than 85,000 professions of faith and 64 new church starts.
Jeff Howell, pastor of Church on the Rock, Plant City, was an eyewitness of God’s triumph in Haiti as he led a team from the Florida congregation to minister in the midst of the tragedy.
“The needs are all over that land, but God is bringing revival and people are getting saved. It is nothing short of phenomenal,” Howell reported.
The Plant City team, which was in Haiti March 27–Apri1 2, worked alongside a church in Mirebalais, about two hours northwest of Port-au-Prince. They led Bible study conferences for leaders, deacon training, Vacation Bible Schools and crusades, seeing dozens of Haitians indicate they were making professions of faith.
The team also provided food for children and families in the Mirebalais church.
And they helped defeat Satan, Howell said.
Many of those who were led to Christ were from voodoo backgrounds, he explained, and the team helped several new believers abandon relics, vials and potions used in voodoo practices.
“God is working in Haiti, and He allowed us a place of service,” Howell said. (BP)
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