Compassion is a ministry committed to seeing children released from poverty in Jesus' name. For decades it has done so by partnering with local churches in poverty stricken nations to minister to children,their families and communities. Best known of its programs is Child Development through Sponsorship (CDSP). Currently there are more than 1.2 million children in 26 nations in the CDSP. Of those, 100 thousand are supported by Australian sponsors. Through the CDSP, Compassion links sponsors with children through local churches in the that child's community. It is simple, brilliant and effective.
Here in Haiti Compassion supports a remarkable 71,000 children aged 3 to 20 through 251 church partnership projects. And this is no recent development. Compassion has been working in Haiti since 1968 (44 years). Over that time more than 70,000 children have graduated from the CDSP program. Along with the CDSP, Compassion has initiated 64 Child Survival Programs (CSP) across Haiti, serving more than 3,000 children aged 0 to 3 and their mothers. The CSP provides prenatal and antenatal care, vaccination programs, parenting education, hygiene education, meal supplements and a stack of other support all focused on reducing Haiti's horrendous child mortality rates. These two programs does not cover the extent of Compassion's ministry (more on that in later posts), but I hope you get a sense of this remarkable ministry in Haiti and repeated in many other impoverished places around our world. But let's get back to the journey...
On Monday, our second full day in the country, we traveled two hours out of the capital Port Au Prince to the coastal city of Leogane. The journey itself was challenging in so many way, not just because of the to be expected adventurous traffic conditions. Some observations: rubble and rubbish was everywhere, dozens of shop front funeral parlors lined the road (death seems to be lucrative business in Haiti) and broken buildings were the norm. I was struck by the fact that over our four hour round journey, not once did we pass through a 'nice part of town', like you would expect to do almost anywhere else in the world, including so called developing countries. This is as impoverished a nation as I have experienced.
Leogane was the epicenter of the January 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti. Up to 90% of all the cities buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged. All concrete structures collapsed. Of the estimated population of 130,000, it is believed that up to 30,000 were killed. I cannot grasp those figures. International help did not arrive at Leogane until a full week after the earthquake struck. I cannot grasp why it took so long.
But Leogane was not, and is not without hope. In the city are a number of churches, including the Wesleyan Church of Leogane, led by a remarkable man I know only as Pastor Matthew. Since 1977 Compassion has partnered with the church to provide a Child Development Support Program (CDSP) and in recent years, a Child Support Program (CSP). 340 children are in the CDSP and 50 children and their mothers in the CSP.
The earthquake destroyed all of the Wesleyan Church buildings, including the school that it runs that supports not only the CDSP children, but also hundreds of other 'non-sponsored' children in the community. This was a crisis of epic proportions. For a whole bunch of reasons, including the need to move so much rubble, Pastor Matthew could not rebuild the school on the existing site - another one had to be found. There was vacant land available. The only problem was that it was located on a snake infested area avoided by the locals - devoid of any human habitation. Despite his own fear of snakes, Pastor Matthew decided he would build there - that God had provided. So with the assistance of a bunch of aid organizations, most especially Compassion, Pastor Matthew and his church began to rebuild. Almost as soon as they started locals told him he was mad - that it was dangerous. He was told that a large mango tree on the site was infested with an evil spirit and that if he was going to insist on proceeding he must chop it down. But he knew that the tree was life giving not life destroying. So he didn't cut the tree down - just one symbolic branch!
The school was rebuilt, with the main administration centre built deliberately right under the 'evil' mango tree! We visited the school, which now just over two years after the earthquake has reclaimed abandoned, snake infested land and where today almost 1000 children receive a Christian education. And here is the amazing thing. Since Pastor Matthew and the Wesleyan Church of Leogane reclaimed that land for God, literally driving the snakes alway and demonstrating the powerlessness of both the devil and superstition, hundreds of families have built their new homes on the land surrounding the school that once was vacant and abandoned.
I love the testimony of Pastor Matthew and the Wesleyan Church of Leogane. Out of the rubble of a devastating earthquake the church of God stands stronger and taller because of their witness. Through their courageous choices not to give into despair, but to fix their eyes on Jesus and his call to mission, they have quite literally reclaimed ground for God. They are a city on a hill whose light cannot be extinguished. They testify to the truth of Jesus' claim that He will build his church and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
As a Wesleyan minister, Pastor Matthew stands on the shoulders of John Wesley, the great 18th century preacher who inspired countless social reforms throughout the British Empire and beyond. At its best, Methodism always seeks to preach the gospel with words and actions, addressing the physical, emotional, educational as well as the spiritual needs of each person. The Wesleyan Church of Leogane, supported by Compassion, is doing just that. One of Pastor Matthew's proudest achievements is the water filtration project that has been completed alongside the rebuilding of the school. On a wall immediately behind the taps that provide hundreds of families safe drinking water (100% guaranteed according to Pastor Matthew), is a wall mural. It simply says, 'Poured Out - Taking water from life threatening to life giving.' What is true in the physical is also true in the spiritual. The witness of the Wesleyan Church of Leogane is one of offering their spiritually parched community the Living Water that only Jesus can give. For this reason, amongst many others, Pastor Matthew is a hero to me.
A postscript: Pastor Matthew was himself a Compassion Sponsor child, entering the program as a ten year old in 1973. What a kingdom investment that anonymous sponsor made!