PRAYER†FORCE 

January 20, 2010

Eleven/twelve days ago a 7.0 earthquake struck the tiny nation of Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.   The epicenter of the quake was near the capital of Port au Prince, a city with an infrastructure for 50,000 people populated by over 2 million.  It is purported to be the worst natural disaster in modern history.  The Red Cross has said that over two hundred thousand are dead, tens of thousands more are missing and hundreds of thousands have no place to sleep, nothing to eat and no clean water to drink.  A nation that had next to nothing now has lost even what little they had.  News agencies have declared the destruction to be ‘indescribable’ and reporters on the ground fight back tears, attempting to convey the devastation people of Haiti are experiencing.

Once again, the most generous Christian nation on the face of the earth, the United States of America, has responded.  Machinery and military manpower have been/are being deployed.   In addition, thousands of churches and hundreds of Christian mission agencies are mobilizing, offering help and hope.  

As a church, Crossroads is significantly invested in Haiti, so this crisis is very personal to us.  Our very first living link missionaries, the Roger Alexander family, are there.  Many of our people have taken mission trips to Haiti.  We have loved ones there right now.  Crossroads staffer, Dick Myers, is in Haiti working with our missionary partners on the ground.   Kaylene and I are very concerned since our son, Kyle and his family [wife, Desi and all four of their children, ages 5-11] were in the area when the quake hit. They are just across the border from Haiti in the Dominican Republic.  He texted me early this week to say ‘we are okay, but it is very scary and very bad.’  

We have been gathering information from a number of sources to be able to respond thoughtfully and generously to this need. Today, I am asking you to help us with what our Crossroads leaders are calling: Crossroads Responds - Compassion Haiti Project. Earlier this week a Haiti response task force was formed.  Our missions council, our finance council and our elders have met for prayer and to thoughtfully plan our strategy so that no resources [money or energy] are wasted.  We believe the best expression of our Christian compassion is not in the rescue effort [since that requires immediate resources of  air transport, heavy equipment, and manpower that governments are best suited to provide].  However, we are committed to helping with the relief, recovery and rebuilding effort which has now begun and will take many years.  

This past Tuesday evening, our elders committed the largest single gift we have ever given from the church for a benevolent mission effort, $50,000.  We have been so abundantly blessed as a congregation, we want to be generous.  We are considering that this is a seed gift from our church.  We are asking you, our Crossroads family, to more than match this seed gift, so that we can provide at least $100,000 which would become a resource stream, 100% invested in God-honoring ministry to the suffering Haitian people .  To give you an idea of how generous this would be, a church in a metro area with 5 times as many members, has committed a $180,000 gift.  We have an opportunity to give significantly/sacrificially to meet desperate and unprecedented needs in the name of Jesus.  

Our offerings these last two weekends of January will be opportunities to give to the Compassion Haiti Project.  Simply write your check to Crossroads Christian Church and record Haiti on the memo line.   [Of course, this matching gift should be considered over and above our regular weekly tithes and offerings.]  I look forward to being able to announce in early February that we have exceeded our giving goal as we respond to God’s leading and blessing.  Continue to watch the web site for prayer and Crossroads Responds updates.  

And thank you for helping us help the people of Haiti in the name of Jesus!

Crossroads Senior Pastor Ken Idleman

“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  [Matthew 25:40]

“You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:11).

Yours for Christ and Crossroads,

Ken Idleman