Update on our desire to help the churches in Haiti.
First, THANK YOU for your generosity on Sunday January 17,, 2010 for this need. I am excited to report that about $7,000 was donated and 100% of that will be directed through Harvest Bible Fellowship Canada to churches in Haiti. This is another example of the amazing heart and sold-out commitment God has given our people. We just made what was really a brief announcement and encouraged people to give as together with the other Harvest churches we wanted to help the churches in Haiti. And in response you all gave so generously.
The Harvest churches in Ontario are each collecting for this cause and about $100,000 has been collected already from the 7 Ontario Harvest churches in just a couple of days! Praise God for His goodness in this!
Please continue to PRAY for James MacDonald who is the senior and planting pastor of the first Harvest church in Chicago and of the Harvest Fellowship church planting ministry and please PRAY for Mark Driscoll who is the senior and planting pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle and the Acts 29 ministry of church planting.
James and Mark visited Port-Au-Prince the week of January 18th and by God's grace were able to see first hand the devastation and the need and to begin to determine the where, how and when we can help the churches in Haiti. They also took with them a team of doctors and surgeons and two thousand pounds of medical supplies.
You can go to the new website for this effort to help the churches in Haiti by clicking
HERE. You can also get frequent updates by following James and Mark on Twitter - you will find the link on the above site. If you want to contribute further to this cause i would NOT encourage you to use the on-line giving option on the churcheshelpingchurches.com site as it is USA based and you won't get a charitable receipt. But if you make your donation to Harvest London and include your name and address and clearly mark your donation as 'Haiti' then we will forward it on and issue you a receipt for tax purposes.
Please continue to pray for the team and for all of us to do what God would call us to do. At this point and in the near future there is no chance of us sending teams but there will be much to be done in the coming months and years so we may be able to participate in this way as many of you have asked about this.
You can find a few video updates on the www.churcheshelpingchurches.com site. So far it appears all the Harvest churches (US & Canada) have donated about $630,000 for helping the churches of Haiti and more are still to collect this Sunday!
It is a JOY to serve you and to see God at work in our church and let's not stop praying for our brothers and sisters in Haiti seeking God's care for them and seeking His wisdom on how we can best help them in the days to come.
Together in His service,
Norm