Haiti Update... How TSC Can Help...

(click on the underlined links for more information)

Haiti Update
Video message from IMB missionary in Haiti

Watch a video message from Mark Rutledge, IMB missionary to the Haitians, who traveled with a media team into Haiti following last week’s quake.

News
IMB missionaries, Dominican Baptists provide aid, counseling to quake survivors

As Southern Baptist disaster relief officials were heading to Haiti Jan. 19 to assess needs, IMB missionaries in neighboring Dominican Republic were providing immediate relief supplies, medical aid and spiritual counseling to survivors of the earthquake that rocked Haiti the week before. “We have asked almost all of our IMB missionaries in the Dominican Republic to set the majority of their other work aside and focus on the Haiti response,” said Adam Hammond, the IMB’s strategy leader for Central America and the Caribbean.

Haitian congregation perseveres after loss of four church leaders

A few dozen families from Shiloh Baptist Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, are living under a tarp attached to what’s left of their church building. They lost their pastor and three other leaders in the Jan. 12 earthquake. Out of 2,000 members, they can account for only about 100 so far. “We don’t know where our future leaders will come from,” said one member. But those gathered under the tarp are holding services every day.

Read more on the death of a leading Haitian Baptist pastor in Port-au-Prince.

How TSC Can Help

Give
Give to Haiti relief

Financial contributions for the Haiti relief efforts should be sent through the IMB’s Haiti Response Fund or through gobgr.org.

Contributions will go 100 percent toward relief efforts. Baptist Global Response (BGR) is a Southern Baptist relief and development organization working with other Southern Baptist entities to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Those interested in helping also should contact their state convention disaster relief office for more opportunities.

Go
Vast need for short-term volunteers helping Haiti

Southern Baptists interested in volunteering in the Haiti relief effort — in medical care or other ways — are urged to send an e-mail to haitiresponse@imb.org. Indicate your name and contact information, what skills you have and when you are available. Southern Baptists interested in donating supplies or offering other assistance also can send an e-mail to this address.

Pray
CompassionNet: Watch for daily prayer updates.
Twitter: To watch for latest updates from Haiti follow @IMBconnecting.Use #haitiprayer for your updates and prayers.
Blog: Join those adding their prayers to the IMB Prayer Director blog.

Missing the Rains in Africa...

The other day, I was talking with Angela Spencer, our preschool minister, who just experienced her first-ever mission trip. She traveled to Ethiopia and Uganda along with four others from Thompson Station Church, including Alicia and Sumer who also serve on our preschool staff. As we were talking, her phone rang, and her ringtone was of course the song I alluded to above!

I could try and describe for you or summarize what all our team experienced, but thought it might simply be better to link you to their blogs. Check out below what Angela, Alicia, and Sumer are saying about their trip to Africa and the huge task of caring for 147 million orphans wordwide... btw, I love these ladies, and thank God for them and their ministry to our kids here at TSC!

-Pastor Reagan

Angela- http://www.bignannyshouse.blogspot.com/

Alicia- http://thejordansdna.blogspot.com/2010/01/broken-heart-once-again.html

Sumer- http://www.sumerwithonem.blogspot.com/

Helping Haiti...

the people of Haiti were hit with a magnitude 7.0 earthquake this week. Our TSC relief efforts will be to give to Baptist Global Response. The money given there will be used to aid Haiti through Florida Baptists who are receiving the assignment to go. Once it is clear what Haiti will need, Southern Baptists will be as always one of the first groups in. If you would like to help, go to either gobgr.org (Baptist Global Response) or to www.imb.org/main (International Mission Board).

The article below from the IMB website explains who is going, and the latest on how the funded relief efforts will occur:

Southern Baptists are mobilizing to assess disaster relief needs after the largest earthquake in more than 200 years rocked Haiti the evening of Jan. 12. The initial Southern Baptist disaster relief effort will be led by Florida Baptists, who have had ministry relationships in Haiti for more than 20 years and currently have six staff members who live and work in the country, said Jim Brown, U.S. director for Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist relief and development organization. The International Mission Board does not have long-term personnel stationed in the country.

Initial funding for the relief effort will be provided by the IMB’s disaster relief fund. You can contribute to the relief effort at gobgr.org. The North American Mission Board’s disaster relief office is organizing an emergency consultation with state disaster relief directors to coordinate response to the catastrophe, Brown said.

Disaster relief teams in Mississippi and Kentucky are on standby for immediate response. An assessment team is being organized by Baptist Global Response, IMB, NAMB and state convention disaster relief directors to enter the country as soon as possible, Brown said. They will work with Haitian Baptists to identify immediate needs that must be addressed and will draft mid- and long-term plans for an ongoing relief effort.