New Hope Community Church is currently organizing relief efforts for our brothers and sisters in Haiti. We will keep you posted as best we can, as communication is still difficult. Below is the most recent update of the situation.

Here's how you can donate:

Make your checks out to New Hope Community Church and put "Haiti Relief Fund" in the memo area. Either mail them to the church (6400 N.W. 31st. Ave, Fort Lauderdale, FL. 33309 954-971-3050) or drop them by the church office, or drop them in the offering plate on Sunday morning.

Latest News from Haiti-- 1/24/10

Brothers & Sisters:

I finally talked to Pastor Jephthe in Haiti yesterday, and wanted to update you to the situation there. First of all, thank you all for your faithful donations. Both Jephthe and I are overwhelmed with the love and generosity that you have expressed.

As many of you know from TV broadcasts, the situation is intensifying. As predicted, the exodus from Port Au Prince (Paup) is in full swing. It is currently estimated that up to 200,000 people are moving from Paup to smaller towns and villages all around Haiti where they can find food and shelter with family and friends.

Jephthe tells me that every household in Haiti will swell with people to accommodate the influx. He and Mitou (his wife) already have 30 people living in their house and are sure the number will grow. Thank the Lord we have invested in their ministry over the years to build a guest house at Jephthe's, and his brother Caleb has a camp with primitive accommodations for several hundred.

Jephthe, Caleb, Enoch and anyone who has a truck continue to make trips to Paup to take supplies and pick up friends and family they can find. He tells me they have been taking supplies into the remote and "dangerous" neighborhoods where much of the organized relief effort is reluctant to go. He has been spending most of the money we have sent him on food, water and shelter. He has also been passing out bus fare (the busses are now running), for many students trapped in Paup who want to get home to their families.

They have set up a "trauma center" in Pignon to try and minister to those who are coming out of Paup who have been "under the concrete". He tells me that some are so severely traumatized that they still haven't eaten and he is worried they may still be in life-threatening danger. Even though they have been pulled from the wreckage, the horror of the event still grips them.

Most of the refugees arriving in Pignon have only the clothes on their backs. No money, no food, no water, "no anything". They have left everything behind and are very needy. The community is responding by sharing all they have, but they don't have much to start with. Once again, our donations are helping to provide them with food, water, & the basic necessities of life.

Several things that Pastor Jephthe asked specific prayers for:

That those in the trauma center, especially those who are not eating would improve. No one in the village is trained to deal with such trauma. They are doing the best they can, trying to feed them and minister to them-- but Jephthe feels inadequate and requests your prayer. He is afraid that some will die soon if they don't accept some nourishment.
That many who have stayed by their collapsed houses because their loved ones are still under the rubble will leave Paup and come with him back to Pignon where they can be ministered to. Many have been living in the streets for almost two weeks, unwilling to leave the place where their loved ones are entombed. Another problem is that some have been estranged from their family in Pignon for some reason or another and are reluctant to return.
That the Lord will give him the words to minister to his congregation. As many others who have witnessed this devastation first hand--he is speechless. Words cannot express the extent of this tragedy. He says that he is dealing with people who have lost up to 10 members of their family. How do you comfort someone in that situation? He doesn't know what or how to preach. He is struggling with how to explain to those in his care what has happened to them Scripturally. I spent quite a bit of time on Friday ministering to him as best I could, but the strength of those who have born the brunt of this disaster is waning.
That God will bless--both now and in the future-- our efforts to bring as many orphans to Pignon as we can. It is estimated that huge numbers of children have been orphaned by this calamity--the total number will probably never be known. The Haitian communities are all ready scurrying to absorb as many as possible. They are justifiably upset by the current trend for well-meaning Americans to remove these orphans (or perhaps just suspected orphans) from Haiti and bring them to the United States. Many of these children might have extended family and friends of their parents who would gladly take them in, yet they fear that many will be whisked off to the United States before it can be determined whether they have Haitian family or not--something the Haitian Ambassador to the UN is begging America NOT to do. Our combined ministries have been moving towards establishing orphanages in Haiti for the last 6 months. It looks like this effort will now be accelerated. We know that orphans who God would place in our care (and the care of all the churches in Pignon) would be raised in a Christian environment, and brought up with the Gospel. This has the potential of being a major ministry in the future.

There are many more requests that I'm sure we could list, but those were the most specific. Pastor Sidoine was able to get a flight to Cap Haitian, and brother Ephraim (who sang for a while in our contemporary praise team) was able to fly into the Dominican Republic with several nurses. They are now united with their family and helping in the relief effort. We have established a solid way for transferring funds, which I will continue to do next week. Communication is improving, so information should start to flow more freely.

I will try and keep you posted to any new developments. Once again, thank you for your faithful prayers and donations.

Blessings.

-pastor kirby williams

New Hope Community Church

Anaggello Global Missions