March 3, 2010

JACKSONVILLE (FBC)—When Olivia Sim, age “four and three-quarters,” heard about “houses falling down in Haiti,” she told her mother she wanted to do something to help, suggesting they send money from the family’s coin jar where they collect surplus change.

 

As her mother pondered how to handle Olivia’s wishes, Susan Sim learned their church, MissionWay Community Church in Ponte Vedra, was collecting contributions in $20 increments to purchase bags of rice for a Haitian family.

 

Twenty dollars is the price John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, negotiated for 100-pound bags of rice from Stuttgart Ark., to send to distribute to the hungry in quake-ravaged Haiti. For $20, Sullivan said, “you can feed a family of four in Haiti for a long time—perhaps even a month.” Most people in Haiti, he noted, eat on the average a fourth of a cup of uncooked rice each day.

 

Olivia, her mother and little brother, Cameron, cashed in their coins and discovered they had $30—enough to purchase 150 pounds of rice for Haiti.

 

“It is amazing—and heartbreaking,” said Sim, that a U.S. family’s spare change can feed a family in Haiti for over a month.

 

MissionWay—with 180 in weekly attendance—collected $3,100 for Haiti relief, enough to purchase 155 bags—15,500 pounds or almost 8 tons—of rice for families in that devastated nation. And as a prayer reminder, the congregation distributed little bags of rice to each family to place on their table.

 

The donations have come in amounts big and small; from the widow’s mite and the family’s trust fund; from as far away as Alaska and a U.S. military base in Spain. They represent Florida and Southern Baptist congregations, Sunday school classes and mission groups.

 

Since the earthquake devastated the impoverished nation, the Florida Baptist Convention, with its long-standing commitment to Haitian Baptists, has received disaster relief donations earmarked for Haiti totaling $2 million.

 

The funds came with the solemn promise that “100 percent will be channeled to provide food, medical assistance and shelter for Haiti. No disaster relief money will be used for administrative purposes,” said Sullivan.

 

That promise spurred Gary Elmore, pastor of Frontier Southern Baptist Church in Kodiak, Alaska, to give through the Florida Baptist Convention, he said.

 

“When I understood that 100 percent of my contribution would go to the Haitian people, with the administrative costs being borne by the Cooperative Program, it was a ‘no-brainer,’" said Elmore.

 

He published the Convention’s website in an email to his members and in the bulletin, encouraging their donations. He gave personally, he said, because “One of our major emphases is leading the flock to be Acts 1:8 Christians. If I preach it, I gotta practice it!”

 

Among the earliest givers through the Convention’s website was Clough Pike Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio where Tim Barnette serves as pastor.

 

“Our church was moved to give from watching the news reports of the tremendous need. I had several folks from our congregation ask if we would be doing anything, and I had already been thinking about how we would give.” So the church began taking donations while Barnette researched where to send the funds, he said.

 

“We gave through the Florida Baptist Convention because we were impressed with its system and network already in place and on the ground in Haiti,” said the pastor. “I knew the IMB had never really had a presence in Haiti, and the Florida Convention had the resources that we couldn't find in anyone else that we trusted. We wanted to use Southern Baptists because we knew the true hope of the gospel would be shared along with meeting the immediate need.”

 

Barnette recalled that before going to Ohio, he had served as an associate pastor in West Virginia, one of Florida Baptists’ partnership states. “We trusted you to do the job right. And we also knew that we could give immediately after receiving the offering through the Florida Baptist Convention website. Immediacy was very important.”