By Mary Faulds, AFA Journal staff writer
October 2010 – It wasn’t that long ago. January 12, 2010. In the late afternoon of what could have been a typical Tuesday, Haiti began to shake. When it stopped, devastation remained in a country that knows tragedy all too well. To no one’s surprise, relief and rescue flew in from all directions. The effort was well documented by the media for several weeks, but as is typical for the cycle of news, Haiti was soon overshadowed.
When we did read about ongoing relief efforts in Haiti, it was simply an indictment against some well-intentioned, but most likely misguided, Idaho Christians wanting to help Haitian children. What happened to the move of compassion that swept the globe causing millions to aid in the effort just by texting? Were the people of Haiti forgotten in the wreckage that is now their homeland?
Thankfully, the answer is no. Churches across the U.S. are still sending work teams to help rebuild homes and lives. Missions and relief organizations have been on site for tireless hours bringing much needed medical help, food, water and hope. AFA Journal talked with Sondra Tipton, president of Friend Ships Unlimited, and David Heady, long-time missionary to Haiti through Global Outreach, about the ongoing efforts to lift Haiti up from her knees.
AFA Journal: David, having served in Haiti for over 25 years as a missionary, what was the spiritual atmosphere like before the earthquake in January?
David Heady: Well, certainly we had noticed in our churches there has just been a decline spiritually, up until the last year leading to the earthquake. I’m not saying people weren’t being saved, but I am saying there was a spiritual decline. There wasn’t a passion for the Lord Jesus; there wasn’t a passion for the souls of mankind. After the earthquake, everything has completely changed. There are literally thousands upon thousands of people who have come to Christ who were former voodoo worshippers. Eighty-five percent of the population there is Catholic, but it is not the Catholicism as you and I know it in the States.
AFAJ: You were in Haiti when the earthquake struck. What happened and what did you immediately do?
DH: I was part of a leadership team leading 150 pastors and leaders for the John Maxwell Equip Conference. We have a conference center on the Global Outreach Haiti campus. I was in my study. All at once this horrific sound began to come toward me and everything began to move and shake and roll. It was the longest 23 seconds of my life. I tried to get out of my chair, only to be thrown back to the floor. I tried to get up from the floor to make my way to the center of the house, where there are better supports, and I was thrown to the floor again. I got the message, “Don’t get on your feet, get on your knees, and make your way over there.”
The Global Outreach Haiti campus, about 15 miles from the capital of Port-au-Prince, did not receive that kind of devastating damage, but all around us. The closest village lost 117 homes.
AFAJ: Where is your focus in ministering to the Haitian people?
DH: Well, the way the whole process went, we were in search and rescue and in medical help. We also hosted medical teams and placed them in hospitals and clinics all over the devastated area for about two months. Now, we are still doing remote clinics, but we’re not treating major injury people. Now we have teams focused on temporary housing. Then we have our Haitian crews, in-country nationals, that we’re building permanent houses for.
AFAJ: How did Friend Ships get involved with the Haiti relief effort?
Sondra Tipton: We are an organization that owns and operates ships for the purpose of Christian disaster relief. We also do medical missions and provide humanitarian aid. So we have a close relationship with the organization Smile of a Child, headed up by Jan Crouch of TBN, and their interest is primarily in Haiti. So very frequently we take ships there and do medical missions or deliver humanitarian aid, so we had this established relationship.
When the earthquake hit, of course both Smile of a Child and Friend Ships wanted to do something, so we immediately started loading our vessel Integrity out of our home base in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The first go-round was a lot of food and water, medical supplies, tents, sleeping bags.
What we are doing now, when we went down in January with the first ship, we left a team. We set up with Global Outreach, we set up a tent and left a team of about 20 people and we’ve been helping with food distribution and medical services, and now we’re bringing down temporary housing. Our teams are meeting families that were really damaged by the earthquake.
AFAJ: What are you seeing spiritually from the Haitian people now?
DH: I can tell you this, on the second Sunday after the earthquake I was preaching a message and there were 168 people that came to Christ that morning. Just recently, the worship leader in that church told me that she welcomed the visitors and there were eight visitors that stood up. She told them, “If any of you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior, and you would like to, you don’t have to wait until after the message and the invitation. You can come forward right now.” And a 20-year-old man came forward and gave his life to Christ.
ST: We noticed more openness to the Gospel. Of course, Haiti is always extremely poor and the infrastructure and the government are almost non-existent so it is a very, very difficult life for the people because everything you depend upon for a government is just not there. There aren’t good roads, there is not good security. It is just a very difficult life in Haiti and now, even more so.
AFAJ: It sounds like the people there are really hungry for truth.
DH: I think they are, and I think it is God getting their attention because of the idolatrous worship of the nation. I think one of the things God is using, is there’s been so many Christians and churches sending teams down, not only for search and rescue, but the medical and now all the reconstruction and all. There are thousands of witnesses out in the marketplace, so to speak, every day. In villages where before there might not have been a Christian witness, there may have been a missionary there, but his witness may have been on a Sunday. Now, he’s got all these teams in here. They are going house to house, they are doing clinics, or they’re out there doing construction and they are interacting with the people, so there’s a powerful witness going forth right now.
AFAJ: So even though Haiti fell out of the media spotlight, people are still there doing work?
DH: Absolutely! And that’s what needs to be, somebody needs to be down there filming that because … well, let me give you an example in American Airlines. AA was running three flights a day out of Miami [to Haiti]. They are now running four a day out of Miami, they are overbooked every one, but every flight that I’ve been on going to Haiti has been filled up. I’m going to say 75% of the people are Americans and Canadians going down to do humanitarian work or evangelistic work.
AFAJ: What is still needed? What can people do from home or what would you encourage individuals and churches to do to help?
DH: I’d certainly encourage them to continue to be involved. This crisis is not going to go away. The catastrophic devastation is not going to be repaired in my lifetime or your lifetime. You know, we don’t have to do it in front of the TV camera. The Lord Jesus is looking down upon our efforts when we are feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and visiting the orphans in the hospitals. What I am saying is right now we have the closest thing to the New Testament church that the Lord Jesus left in the Book of Acts. It is taking place on a daily basis in Haiti.
ST: We do need people. We usually only send people who have been with us for a while to a place like Haiti because it is really difficult, and that requires a certain amount of training and maturity. We like to know somebody won’t cave under the pressure. People can go to our Web site and check out how to do that. (See below.) We need skilled people on maritime things: engineers and captains and deckhands. We also need people to cook, people to work in the warehouse, the office, etc.
AFAJ: Many people point to tragic times in their lives as a turning point, a place of reevaluation and rebirth. For many, it is then when they find the Lord. Will the Haitian people look back at the earthquake of 2010 and call it their time of change and renewal in the hope of Jesus Christ? These ministries, along with many others, are working to make it so. 
Help Haiti
Friend Ships 337-433-5022 West Coast office: 310-830-4433
Global Outreach 800-961-9244
