| April 2008 Chairman’s Newsletter Haitian Christian Foundation |
| CBT GRADUATES AND DONORS ARE ON THE MARCH !!! by Tim Mastenbrook I am recently back from a week in Haiti. My mission team and I were blessed to stay at the guest quarters at the CBT. I spent time with many of our 35 graduates and of course our 12 current students. This article is to praise our graduates for the work they are doing in their villages and towns. I want to thank our donors for their key part in empowering these good men by making their training and mentoring possible. Our graduates, on their own, formed what we might call an alumni association. It is called ULDECH (“Eel’-deck”), which is an acronym for the Creole words naming their association. They try once a month or so to go en masse to a different congregation for a week of evangelistic meetings. The places they visit grow in number and in strength of doctrine. The impression they make in the villages will yield results long after they leave. Before the CBT, this was unheard of. One of the many results of their time at the school is their bonding and endearing unity with each other that stretches to all the other graduating classes. Visiting a graduate’s congregation is a blessing. The doctrine is strong. The people are outwardly happy with their leaders. The respect they have for their leader’s Bible education makes them all the more eager to learn from them. Several of them have orphanages. Some take every 5th Sunday offering and divide it among their widows. Several have established elderships, which shows a maturity in their preachers also previously largely lacking. It’s hard to describe, but our graduates have a special air about them. One might think their education would make them haughty and proud. Quite the opposite - most are humble, respectful, and thankful. They know sacrifice and their families know sacrifice. In addition to the hardships of the general situation in the country, the grads left their families and gardens and the few jobs some of them had for their 3 years of study at the CBT. One of the current students told me he had a job teaching when he was given the opportunity to come to the CBT. He is the oldest in his family and was therefore the provider for his aging mother and younger siblings. For him to leave his job and for his family to lose his support epitomizes SACRIFICE. Yet he wanted to do it, and did it with his family’s blessings and encouragement. I am purposely not naming names of the grads and students, because each one has a story and IS a story. And that takes me to my last point about your part in empowering them in what they are doing. Of course, we give God Almighty all the glory and credit. It is however, your donations that have been vital in bringing us to where we are today. We (YOU and I) have helped a growing army of nationals spread the good news of Jesus to their nation as never before. The impact (YOURS and theirs) is unprecedented, unimagined, and unstoppable. You may never set foot among these lost and needy and widows and orphans that you are blessing, but you are there in spirit and in results. We know it, they know it, and God knows it. Rest assured that you are making a difference in the Kingdom, and that we try our hardest to make every dime go further than it would anywhere else in the world. Stay with us won’t you – we have more marching to do… together. |
| Our Mission: To prepare select Haitian men to be servant evangelists to spread the gospel of Christ and to minister to the needs of the Haitian people in the spirit and likeness of Christ. |