We as a team spent a week in Haiti from July 14 to 21. The main goal of our mission trip was to train Haitian pastors. Many of these pastors have limited theological training and fewer are trained in practical reformed theology.
Last year we started teaching them materials from 9Marks. Last year we taught them the first 6 of the 9Marks. This year we finished the last 3 of the 9Marks, church membership, church discipline and church office.
On the final Sunday I had the privilege of preaching and handing out Kindle HDs to the church leaders. These Kindles contain the videos of the training sessions we did during the week. This is one of StudyToBeApproved goals to train the trainers. They can use these videos and train others. Below a picture of me and the leaders who received Kindles.
It was an absolute privilege to be able to come over to Haiti to train these pastors in specific areas that could help to make a positive difference to their church experience. Before coming over, we already knew that they lacked in resources that we take for granted, so we thought that it would be hard for us to achieve the goals that we aimed for. But we were wrong. Their willingness to learn and improve their churches made it a pleasure to teach them.
For us, we had to raise some vital funds to allow us to make the trip over to Haiti in the first place. So, we decided to host a lot of fundraising events, like the ones you can find at places similar to GoFundMe, to see if people would help to contribute to the change that we can make to countries like this. And low and behold, it worked. Without those vital and generous donations, this trip wouldn’t have been possible. I just hope that we have the opportunity to come again, so we can see how these pastors have adapted to what we’ve taught them.