John Piper Conference

As we move ahead with our plans to bring 30 (or more) Haitian Pastors to an amazing 3 day conference featuring John Piper, we would ask for your prayers. In the following days we will post a list of men who are hoping to attend this conference. This will be a life changing event for all involved. I am convinced that our Haitian brothers have never experienced anything quite like this before. We are working out the costs of travel, housing and meals for the 3 days. It is anticipated that it may be in the range of $200 per Pastor. Remember that these are men who are faithfully serving in extreme poverty and very difficult situations. Financially these men would never even consider such an event. John Piper and the Desiring God ministry has probably had more of an influence on me and my family than any other ministry I can think of (Young Life would be the other one). This is the reason that I will not be ashamed in the coming days to be asking you to support a Pastor. Churches and individuals are already expressing interest in teaming up for this project. Details will come shortly. Please pray.

Another project of...The Project

Beautiful orphan family. 5 brothers and sisters whose mother recently died and have never known their father. They sleep on a concrete floor on sheets. They will be added to the list of families to recieve food on our feeding program. We have ordered beds and have arranged for Rosvelt to oversee the care for these children in the near term. How could anyone just walk away ? The Project is not just a Missionary/Pastor training school. The Gospel is to be our "life". Not just a classroom of theory. We must learn to "walk as Jesus walked".

Project ....projects

Omar opening "the school" for the day.

"Teacher Omar" helps a young orphan boy learn to read and write after being kicked out of the Dominican school for being to much trouble.

School room consists of a chair for teacher Omar, a pail for student Elbi to sit on and a black board.

Bill and Rosvelt explaining The Project and the upcoming John Piper conference to a group of Haitian Pastors.

Some of the Haitian Pastors who will join us for the John Piper conference in Santo Domingo in early June. Each Pastor will choose one man from their congregation to also join the conference team.

Update from Dominican Republic

Returned home yesterday after another awesome week in the D R with my Haitian brothers. God always seems to have surprises for me on each trip and this was no different. I even experienced my first earthquake. Very freaky, but it has given me a greater appreciation of what it was like for the Haitians (on a smaller scale). The goal for this trip was to strengthen our relationship with the Haitian Pastors and explain more of the vision of The Project. I met 8 new Pastors in the Puerto Plata area and one in Santo Domingo. The men are very excited about the project. We have asked them all to be praying that God would help them to select one man each from their congregation to join them at the John Piper conference in June. We will be taking at least 30 Haitian men to this conference in early June. On Sunday, my wife Debbie and I, as well as Rosvelt and Pastor Joseph, travelled to the south side of the island to attend the International Baptist Church. This is probably the largest evangelical church on the island. They are hosting the conference and had invited us to come visit and explain more about The Project. We had a great time worshiping together and were taken to lunch by Filipe, head of missions for the Church. He also invited a Haitian Pastor, Wilfred, to join us. The Church is going to ensure that our Haitian brothers will have Creole translation available for the conference and are investigating ideas on housing and feeding our Haitian brothers. God is so awesome. His plans are above ours. Where else would you rather be. We do understand that the enemy will be hard at work to disrupt these plans. We are in a battle and must be earnestly praying. Please pray with us.

Missions or Dog Food?

I recently received the following information that I can't seem to understand, nor explain. I will let the statistic speak for itself. How will we explain this when we stand before our Saviour who commanded us to, "Go and make disciples of all nations...."

from John Rowell’s “To Give or Not to Give” (Authenic, 2006:101-102) that only 6% of evangelicals tithe and that only 5.4% of tithes go to missions. Of that 5.4%, most is spent on administrative accounts and only .02% of a $270 billion income for evangelical churches actually is used on the totally unreached (that is about 54 million dollars). Break this down to a $1,000 bill and that means 2 cents went to reach the unreached! Compare that with what was spent on pets in 2005 in the U.S - 35.9 billion was spent on pets in 2005. A decade ago it was just 17 Billion (TIME, Feb 4, 2008:18). Does it bother us that 60% more money spent on pets than on missions?

It might be time for the North American church to start trying to figure out how to explain this...

Some suggestions:

"Oh, I didn't hear you...I thought you said to "Go and make big fancy churches with high-paid staffs..."

"Oh, I thought you said..." Go and build successful careers so you can spend your money on nice houses, fancy vacations and the latest electronic toys..."

"Oh, I thought you meant that just the disciples were supposed to do this...that I was free to do exactly as I wanted with my life."

I think that unless things change quickly we are going to have some major explaining to do.

What is THE PROJECT?

Consider the cost of supporting a Haitian pastor and his family who will graduate from The Project training and plant a church in a needy location. In Haiti, a pastor and his family can live comfortably on about $2500.00 per YEAR.

Ideally, we desire to see a Haitian church plant be self-supporting in four or five years. The Project pastors will be challenged to be fully self-supporting within a five-year period. Since they will be connected with a local sending church in the DR and (we pray) a sister church in North America, they should have access to the necessary training and support to "hit the ground running."

Our Haitian brothers already know the language and the culture of their mission field and already have relationships with their countrymen? These men need only a couple simple tools to be equipped as ambassadors of Christ in their homeland or beyond: basic doctrinal training and a modest level of support to get them started. This is what The Project is all about.

For the same price as what it will cost to fully support a Haitian pastor and his family for a full year, you can buy:

One big screen TV
2 health club memberships
2 years worth of cable or satellite TV
1 Tim Horton's coffee and one donut per day for two years.
One week-long vacation for two

I think you can do the math....

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also..." Matt.6:21

The Church in the Woods

In the days when The Project was being birthed, Providence brought Bill and Steve to a rocky path running up into the woods, just outside the village of Los Algodones. Thinking that this was the way to the "Church in the Woods" that they sought, the men walked a short distance and found the most unusual "church" they had ever seen.

Haitian believers sat on mats on the forest floor, while a pastor stood in the middle with an open Bible proclaiming the Word of God. The congregation numbered about 30 men, women and children. Since the service was in Creole, Bill and Steve must have appeared lost and confused. Thankfully, members of the family of God need not worry, as two young men stepped out of the group and became our interpreters for the morning service. The Church in the Woods meets every Friday rain or shine. They trek from the surrounding villages at 6:30 a.m. and spend the morning in fasting, prayer, praise and the study of God's Word. At noon, the service disbands and the members return to their daily lives. In that first meeting at the Church in the Woods, Bill's translator was Rosvelt Petit, a man who would soon come to play a key role in The Project. Rosvelt is a Haitian immigrant who is now married and the father of a baby girl. Rosvelt has become the brother "on the ground" who carries out the day-to-day responsibilities of The Project. He is a faithful brother in the Lord who inspires his North American brothers with a simple faith that simply says, "Just trust God."