- Mixed-faith marriages on the rise
- House churches growing in popularity
- Exhibit honors Cliff Barrows
- Ezell’s heart beats for church planting, adoption
- Former Muslims pay heavy price for faith
- Medical teams meet physical & spiritual needs in North Africa
- UPDATED: Kevin Ezell nominated NAMB president
- Experiencing God: 20 years, 45 languages
- McCain, Levin clash over ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
- Kevin Ezell nominated NAMB president
- Latest Stories...
RSS News Feed (What is it?)
By BARBARA DENMAN
Florida Baptist Convention
JACKSONVILLE (FBC)—A 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the impoverished nation of Haiti Jan. 12 with the epicenter located 14 miles from the center of the capital city of Port of Prince. Early reports indicate massive damage, devastation and large loss of life.
Florida Southern Baptists have placed on alert their disaster relief team and resources to travel into Haiti as soon as transportation and safety issues have been worked out, said John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention.
“Florida Baptists will do everything within our power and response to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the people in Haiti and especially in our 890 churches,” said Sullivan.
The Florida Baptist Convention has a 15-year partnership with Haitian Baptists and employs six indigenous directors of mission and a mission coordinator for the Confraternite Missionaire Baptiste d’ Haiti (CMBH).
Fifteen Florida Baptist employees work and live in the Convention’s guest house, located about 17 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter. During the past 15 years of the partnership, Florida Baptists have started 890 churches, including 95 new churches in 2009.
“We have an assessment team prepared to go in to the nation and find out the status of our missionary personnel and our compound,” added Sullivan.
In the past, the Florida Baptist Convention has provided beans and rice to the Haitians after the impoverished country has been hit by hurricanes.
“But we have never had anything of this magnitude to deal with before,” said Sullivan.
“We believe security is a major issue. We are working on getting our foodstuff in Miami, and are working with our network which we established in our previous disaster relief response,” Sullivan explained.
Sullivan indicated that a three-prong response effort is in the works. The primary concern is the feeding and humanitarian such as medical supplies; phase two, assessing the damage of our church facilities and what can be done with our basic feeding and phase three churches rebuild effort.
Craig Culbreth, director of the Convention’s Partnership Mission Department, said “Florida Baptists will be in Haiti for the long-term.”
To make a donation to the Haiti Earthquake Relief, go on-line to www.flbaptist.org, where credit cards are accepted, or send check to Florida Baptist Convention 1230 Hendricks Ave., Jacksonville, Fla. 32257. Designate on check "Haitian Earthquake relief.”
For more information, call 800-226-8584, ext. 3135; or 904-596-3135.
You must be login before you can leave a comment. Click here to Register if you are a new user.