HAITI AND PAT ROBERTSON

I have been preoccupied these last few days with thoughts of Haiti and the terrible devastation that has taken place there.

I first went to Haiti in 1968. My boss at that time, David Wilkerson, had a great love for the people of that nation. He had mentioned his affection for the Haitian people a few times in his meetings and in one of his books and subsequently began to get requests from various ministries asking for his support for their works in Haiti. David asked me to go and personally look at what these ministries were doing.

Initially, two things overwhelmed me in Port-au-Prince. The first was the overwhelming poverty and the primitive living conditions. The poorest nation in the western hemisphere, Haiti had a great lack of sanitation and many of the people were surviving on less than one dollar a day. For someone raised in a middle-class home in Canada, I was numb and overwhelmed that this country was in our backyard, so to speak.

The second thing that overwhelmed me and also made me angry was a small segment of the American ministries that were claiming to have thriving ministries, orphanages, feeding programs, churches and medical outreaches in Haiti. Several of these had made financial requests to David Wilkerson. On the second or third day of my stay, I went to visit one of these “ministries” and found only an empty building with no children or adults in residence. One of the neighbors told us that when the “American pastors” (they called all of us pastors) came, they rounded up children from the neighborhood, gave them a little money, and took pictures of them in front of the building. These “missionaries” flew into Haiti for a few days each year, took hundreds of pictures, and then went back home and used the pictures in their newsletters and magazines, raising thousands of dollars, very little of which went to Haiti. These people are not missionaries. They are parasites, the carrion of the church world who feed themselves by preying on the poor and needy. Until this time I had no idea that such people existed; I had seen their magazines and read their newsletters and I thought they were legit. May the Lord have mercy on them when they get to the White Throne Judgment, if they get there at all.

After visiting several “ministries” like this, I was ready to tell David that we could surely find another country for our missions giving. But then I met two people who helped me put things back in perspective. One was a humble woman from a church called Soul Saving Station in Harlem. This sweet-spirited woman showed me a side of missions that is not flashy and is not often well funded…they just get the work done. She was laboring in one of the poorest sections of Port-au-Prince ministering to children and taking in those who had no parents. She had little support but she had a clear understanding of her call from God. She was a true servant of the Lord and I was blessed and encouraged to meet her.

The other person I met was an Assemblies of God missionary. I visited with him and his family and we talked for hours about the need, what they were doing, and what we could do to help. Again I was touched by the commitment and the willingness to serve. They were true, loving, humble servants of the Lord and I was honored to meet them. Several years later two of my friends and I raised the money for this missionary to buy a building in Petionville (just a short distance from Port-au-Prince and it appears to be the epicenter of the quake) and establish a thriving church there.

As I viewed the recent devastation, I wondered how long it would be before the appeals for funds would begin. Just about 24 hours after the earthquake, the appeals started and that’s not bad. Carol and I have chosen to make our donations to help in Haiti through David Wilkerson’s ministry, World Challenge. They have a great track record of proven ministry in Haiti with feeding programs, medical outreaches, orphanages and schools. If you are looking for a place to put your gift for Haiti, let me encourage you to do it through World Challenge. You can trust them implicitly and your gift will go where it is supposed to. Their track record is unblemished. Here is their Web site: www.worldchallenge.com. Go the section on Missions and read about what they are doing in Haiti and make a donation if you can.

One more thing and then I will get off this soapbox. Pat Robertson has taken a lot of heat because of his statements about Haiti having made a pact with the devil. Pat may not have chosen the right words and he may have chosen the wrong time, but he was not wrong in his history. In 1791 when the slave revolt began that eventually led to Haiti’s independence, the one event that sparked the revolt was a voodoo ceremony where people opened themselves to be possessed by demonic spirits. After this demonic outpouring, the influence of the revolt spread throughout the island and the slave revolt in Haiti became the only slave revolt in history that was truly successful in throwing off the tyranny of an occupying nation. Unfortunately, the Haitian slaves threw off the outward tyranny of France and embraced the inward tyranny of demonic power that is clearly evident all over Haiti.

Jesus said there would be birth pains that would point to the increasing nearness of His return. How much clearer does He have to be? Time to wake up and be ready!