Backpacks
You are all amazing! With the tiniest of mention two weeks ago in a Sunday message you all filled 140 backpacks with goods for the needy people in our community. Forty of the backpacks are going to the Rehoboth Food Pantry and the remaining 100 are going to a Homeless Shelter in Providence. Your help and support will make a difference for many people as the winter approaches. Thank you.
Change for Big Change
On Labor Day the Women’s Ministry announced an idea of collecting our change so it could be used to support the Haiti – Global Leadership Summit (GLS). The plan was to provide scholarships to women and some key leaders at Nehemiah Vision Ministries. We are pleased to report that this idea resulted in 13 people attending last week’s Haiti – GLS. Below is a report on the GLS. Once again we want to thank you for your help. Together we are making a difference in Haiti.
Haiti – Global Leadership Summit (GLS)
Last week the 4th Haiti GLS was conducted at the Karibe Convention Center in Petionville, which is just outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As you may know, this year we turned the event over to the Haitian Team to plan, promote, and produce (we did provide added financial support and some hands on background help along the way). With just over 275 people in attendance Pastor Edner Jeanty and his team did an outstanding job. We should note that not only did they produce the Haiti – GLS, they also did the French translation of the sessions which are now being used in other French speaking countries around the world for local GLS events. Following is two day-by-day reports as filed by Pastor Jeanty.
Day One
Greetings from Port-au-Prince. We are getting ready for the second day of the Haiti GLS. The first day went well. We have over 265 participants. We had a large delegation from the south, but also from the north. Compassion had a large representation. Several churches/denominations had teams of 7 or more.
The sessions went well and the people have difficulty to say which one they liked the best. Hybels' point on moving people from here to there resonated with many leaders even though they see the challenge. They appreciated the new perspectives on motivation by Pink and some wonder how this can be applied in church. Stanley's presentation on tension added a new vocabulary to the conversation. And most really like Meeks's message, however few raised their hands to commit that their church would grow by a thousand by next year.
The translation went well. The only issue was that the subtitles for the Meeks introduction were not included. But the voiceover was well done. The sound quality was good. The French was synchronized with the English. They people laughed at the humor. We transmitted the English channel over headsets and our English-speaking guests really enjoyed this. Thank you for all the efforts to send the DVDs. We receive both sets (through Philadelphia and from Brazil) on Monday.
The volunteers have been with us for several years now and they know the system for registration and serving the guests. It seems that things were much easier. Considering the cholera outbreaks, we provided sanitizers on all the registration tables and during the lunch line everyone was offered to have their hands cleaned. Our Conference Notebook looks great. We already sold 30 books at the Resource Center, including over 12 "Whisper". We have a request from a university leader for all the GLS materials that are available in French. The participants are asking for the TE DVD.
We will have pictures and videos to send you soon. Thank you for your prayers and your support. We are looking forward to this second day.
Grace and peace to you.
Day Two
Greetings again,
The Haiti GLS is over. Toward the end of the last session, the participants got up and held hands as instructed by T.D. Jakes. They responded and agreed with him in the final prayer. As the people were getting out it started to drizzle and then we had a nice rain. A crew worker at the Karibe Convention Center said that this is a sign of blessing from God to have rain as you finish such a conference.
The Land Between was a good session to start the day. Many people went and got the book afterward. The Jim Collins session was found to be instructive but we had a sound issue on one side that bothered the people on the left. This was fixed over the break and we were ready to continue. However, because of technical issues with the Terri Kelly DVD we decided to play Hamilton's session instead, and the people responded well to his message. When he invited the audience at the end to pray with him, everyone had their hands face up to rededicate their lives to God. Many expressed to some volunteers that they learned much from this session. In retrospect, I find that it was a better session to have after Collins (When the Mighty Fall); it provided a message of the demands of integrity, along with hope and grace "when leaders fall" morally. We went into lunch with this moving presentation that touched the heart.
After lunch we were able to play the the Kelly session, which was a big relief. Our technical people had to sync the French audio file (that fortunately I had on my laptop) with the video that played from the DVD. It went well and people did not notice that the video and the audio were being played from two different sources. We had at least 5 English speakers who followed the sessions in English over the headsets. One of them is the Haiti field director of a mission who happened to learn about the Summit from a participant that stayed at the guesthouse where he was; he has been coming to Haiti for 10 years and he said that it's the first time that he became aware that such an opportunity existed in the country. He is determined to send his 9-12 church partners to the Summit next year. He requested a dozen Conference Notebooks and pre-ordered the TE DVD.
We did not have a local speaker as planned. On Sunday I learned that the person designated had to be out of the country for an important meeting. Before the last session I thanked our great team of volunteers and our corporate sponsors, especially Compassion and Food for the Hungry. Earlier I had already thanked the participants for their generous offering. I also announced that our next GLS will be on November 10-11, 2011, God willing. Then we went into the T.D. Jakes session. Even though the translator is an experienced professional interpreter (he is the voice of Wess Stafford for his radio spots), I was not too happy with some sections of the French message, but the end was good. The people stood up and held hand as he had instructed. As I wrote at the beginning, they responded and agreed with the prayer. A local pastor pronounced the benediction and the people left with an expression of great satisfaction. As the people were leaving I spoke with the wife of a bank CEO. The husband could not come but she decided to register and thoroughly enjoyed the presentations and the professional quality of the dubbing. She is interested in contacting our production service for some projects.
We had 275 participants, which is 25 above our stated goal. Potential delegates from World Vision could not come because they are welcoming a new Director at this same time. At least two other organizations regretted they could not come this year. Our participants came from various parts of the country and from different occupations and backgrounds : pastors, university leaders, educators, youth leaders, NGO staff, church teams, denominational leaders,etc. One participant said that the topics were appropriate both for the church and for the country in general. We are honored to be in a position to provide inspiration and training to leaders from various walks of life and present it as a witness of the evangelical church. Thank you to Garry, Karen, Linda and Larry (Willow) and to Pastor Dennis (CCC) for your support in making this another great Haiti GLS.
I plan to put together a short video about this conference that I will share with you. The results of the evaluation will also be tabulated soon.
Blessings,
J. Edner JEANTY, Jr.
Final Thought
The team here is very proud of the advances made this year by the Haitian leaders of the GLS. It is amazing to see the dedication and accomplishments in the face of such difficulties that exist in Haiti. This week we are watching hurricane Tomas which is predicted to hit Haiti as a Category 1 hurricane this weekend. Our imaginations are overwhelmed as we consider what this hurricane will do to Haiti (especially the tent cities). These leaders who attended the Haiti – GLS may be called upon in ways that are unimaginable to the most seasoned leader. Please keep them in prayer.
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