Florida Baptist Convention

Florida Baptists on alert to begin feeding and bring humanitarian help to Haiti after 7.0 earthquake

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Jan. 13, 2010 (Go to Jan. 14 Update)

JACKSONVILLE (FBC)—A 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the impoverished nation of Haiti Tuesday, Jan. 12 with the epicenter located 14 miles from the center of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Early reports indicate massive damage, devastation and large loss of life.

Florida Southern Baptists have placed on alert their disaster relief team and resources to travel into Haiti as soon as transportation and safety issues have been worked out, said John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention.

“Florida Baptists will do everything within our power and response to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the people in Haiti, and especially in our 890 churches,” said Sullivan.

The Florida Baptist Convention has a 15-year partnership with Haitian Baptists and employs six indigenous directors of mission and a mission coordinator for the Confraternité Missionaire Baptiste d’Haiti (CMBH). Fifteen Florida Baptist employees work and live in the Convention’s guest house, located about 17 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter. During the past 15 years of the partnership, Florida Baptists have started 890 churches, including 95 new churches in 2009.

“We have an assessment team prepared to go in to the nation and find out the status of our missionary personnel and our compound, added Sullivan.

In the past, the Florida Baptist Convention has provided beans and rice to the Haitians after the impoverished country has been hit by hurricanes.

“But we have never had anything of this magnitude to deal with before,” said Sullivan.

“We believe security is a major issue. We are working on getting our foodstuff in Miami, and are working with our network which we established in our previous disaster relief response,” Sullivan explained.

Sullivan indicated that a three-prong response effort is in the works. The primary concern is the feeding and humanitarian such as medical supplies; phase two, assessing the damage of our church facilities and what can be done with our basic feeding; and phase three, churches rebuild effort.

Craig Culbreth, director of the Convention’s Partnership Mission Department, said “Florida Baptists will be in Haiti for the long-term.”

All designations made to disaster relief will be channeled directly to Haiti relief. There are no other disaster relief efforts going on at this time. All donations will be used for disaster relief efforts in Haiti. Administrative costs will be paid by Cooperative Program gifts and Maguire State Mission Offering fund.

To make a donation to the Haiti Earthquake Relief by credit card, click here.

Also, checks can be made payable to and mailed to Florida Baptist Convention, 1230 Hendricks Ave., Jacksonville, FL 32207. Designate on check “Haiti Earthquake Relief.”

For further information, please call 800-226-8584, ext. 3135; or 904-596-3135.