Locals rush to the aid of Haitian people

Caleb Breakey
Tribune reporter

Mike Leland, right, receives a load of contributions for a container that is being fllled in Lynden for Haiti earthquake victims. Leland’s New Generation Ministries was already focused on helping vulnerable children in Haiti. — Lynden Tribune | COURTESY PHOTO

WHATCOM — All eyes are on Haiti. Water and food are scare. The food available has skyrocketed in price. The streets of Port-Au-Prince are dangerous to walk because of gangs and desperate people.
  For many in Whatcom County, it is not just their eyes set on the penniless and needy country, however. It’s every beat of their hearts.
  Mike Leland, founder and president of New Generations Ministries, a ministry providing for the needs of vulnerable children in Haiti, got to work quickly after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck Jan. 12.
  Leland purchased two 40-foot steel shipping containers with a plan to fill them with first-aid and relief supplies.
  “These children would very likely be starving to death without such help,” Leland wrote in a letter to local business owners.
  The containers will be filled as gifts come in. One hundred percent of the donations will go directly to care for the hurting people in Haiti. Drop-off locations are at the Fairway Center in Lynden (close to TrueValue Hardware) and at North County Christ the King Kids Place on the east side of the shopping center.
  Items of particular need include: bottled water, non-perishable food, rice, beans, peanut butter, powdered baby formula, powdered Pedia-lite, diapers, plastic plates and bowls, silverware, flashlights, tarps and tents, and first-aid supplies.
  Tax-deductible cash donations can also be made to New Generation Ministries to help purchase these items and offset the cost of shipping the containers to Haiti. New Generations Ministry — on the Web at www.newgenerationhaiti.org — is a 501c non-profit organization.
  Leland also noted that he has connections to wholesale buyers.
  “So if we take cash donations, we can buy a lot more than the average person who goes to buy those supplies,” Leland said. “This is a situation of ‘Are we willing to see what we have to offer to help them?’ It’s a time to search the blessings that we have and pass them on to others.”
  North County Christ the King Church and Starfish Ministries are helping in the effort.
  NCCTK pastor Steve Scroggins said the church hasn’t heard from all of the pastors and other workers the church has affiliation with in Port-Au-Prince. Much prayer has been lifted up about those nine pastors and their families.
  “It’s a real tragedy,” Scroggins said. “We are expecting that there is going to be some loss of life yet among those effective in our ministries. We’re grieving and praying. God might have protected them all, but God is God, and we’ve trusted in what he’s allowed.”
  Scroggins said the church — which has had many ministry trips to Haiti in the past — sent a team there on Sunday, when the first commercial flights were opened. Members of that team knew they had a place to sleep, but no details as to how they will delve into assisting the people of Haiti.
  “The world has ignored Haiti, and now they’re not. This is Matthew 25 stuff — ‘a cup of water given in my name.’ That’s what the Bible talks about, and we’re going to pour it on,” Scroggins said. “This is front-line action where we get to see God work directly. This isn’t theoretical preaching from a pulpit … you get to see God’s first-hand experience. We always want to experience God and see God, and times like this is when we get to. That’s why anyone who gives anything, you will get to experience God in a very special way.”
  Bernie Bovenkamp, Lynden founder of Starfish Ministries, said last Friday that he hadn’t had any direct conversation with his ministries’ director in Haiti, but he had received reports in roundabout ways. The main Starfish effort in an orphanage and schools is in northern Haiti, away from the earthquake’s epicenter.
  “Our people there for the most part are safe, just suffering minor injuries,” he said. “The biggest thing is people who have lost their housing and other concerns like food and water supplies.”
  Bovenkamp had hoped that a satellite phone would get to Port-au-Prince pastor Diogene Pierre over last weekend and, finally, the two made contact.
  Pastor Diogene and 40 members of his evangelistic ministry team were meeting at a church in Port-au-Prince, planning their next crusade when the earthquake hit, Bovenkamp reported in an email. They immediately began to pray, and when the earth quit shaking they went outside and on the street began singing and worshipping.
  As many people from the nearby area came around, Diogene began to share the gospel, and 16 people responded to the gospel invitation.
  “Diogene told me, ‘If only one is eternally saved, it is worth everything,’ Bovenkamp said. “Diogene added, ‘God saved our lives because He desires for us to share the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to the desperate people in Port-au-Prince.’”
  Stories of the lives touched or taken have slowly streamed back to NCCTK. One email received told the story of Daniel Thalisimo, who last week Monday had set a marriage date for December with his fianceé.
  On Tuesday, she was at school when the earthquake hit. Of the 108 who were in the school, 16 were rescued. Thalisimo’s fianceé was not among them.
  The story explained that Thalisimo spent 48 hours, along with his mother-in-law-to-be, at the site of the collapsed school building doing everything he could to find his fiancé. When exhaustion overtook them and daylight was gone, they slept on the street. Then they awoke and began searching again.
  Thalisimo found his fianceé's purse and her ID, confirming she was there. In all, three believers from the Port-au-Prince Church are either confirmed dead or unaccounted for.
  “Certainly we’re receiving any help financially that is available, but really we want to see people praying,” Bovenkamp said.
  Port-au-Prince is in ruins. Streets are blocked everywhere and most places can’t be reached by car. There are still many bodies, and the smell of death is terrible and getting worse. “There are no words to explain what we see,” Diogene told Bovenkamp.
  Updates are posted on starfishministries.org two to three times per day.
  The latest reports out of Haiti have put the likely death toll at over 200,000 and the number of homeless at 1.5 million. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
  NOTES: NCCTK had a team scheduled to travel to the New Generation orphanage in Haiti last Saturday to put a pump in so that people wouldn’t have to carry water so far. That trip was delayed, but the church plans to follow through with the project when a fitting time arises.
  • New Generation Ministries has come alongside the Good Shepherd Orphanage to provide full-time care for 38 children in Marose, Haiti, since 2007. During the past year the ministry has started a school and has provided free education and warm meals to over 300 children each day who live near the orphanage.
  New Generation Ministries also supports a program that feeds about 250 of the poorest children in Haiti on a regular basis.
  • Last Thursday, Diogene visited Bethel, which is outside of the area hit hardest by the earthquake, but close enough to have felt the shaking. He talked to two witch doctors in the village, and both said they would be coming to church.
  “‘We need to become Christians,’” they told Diogene, said Bovenkamp. “‘They are seeing that their voodoo is powerless to save them. Haiti is ripe for harvest today … We will not let this opportunity pass. We will share the love of Jesus with everyone.”
  • Sole Obsession Footwear will be collecting new and used shoes for Haiti from now until the end of February. Also, shoes purchased for Haiti come with a $10 discount on your own purchase.
  E-mail Caleb Breakey at sports@lyndentribune.com.