2010: Haiti Earthquake Relief

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Johnny Hudgens is one of thousands of Southern Baptists who have become involved in the “Buckets of Hope” project that has resulted in more than 132,000 buckets of food to feed earthquake victims in Haiti. Hudgens works the night shift as a grill cook at the local Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. But he does not […]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--Laura Silsby, the last of 10 Baptist missions volunteers detained in Haiti on suspicion of kidnapping, now faces a new charge.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--A Haiti judge freed one of two remaining Baptist volunteers Monday but kept the group's leader in jail pending further investigation.

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--Organizers of the "Buckets of Hope" initiative for Haiti relief estimate that 150,000 food buckets will be shipped to Port-au-Prince to help combat hunger in the earthquake-devastated country.       Several Baptist state conventions have announced a goal for the number of buckets their state's church members will contribute including Kentucky with 10,000 buckets; Tennessee with 7,000 buckets; the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia with 6,000 buckets; Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina with 5,000 buckets each; Arkansas with 4,000; and New Mexico with 2,100.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (BP)--The Haiti judge overseeing the case of two jailed Baptist volunteers said Thursday the women won't be released this week and that he wants to obtain more testimony from others.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--A reported 40,127 Haitians have made professions of faith in Jesus Christ since a major earthquake hit the impoverished nation in January, according to pastors and directors of missions within the Confraternite Missionaire Baptiste d'Haiti (CMBH).       "Haiti is ripe for a spiritual movement from God," said Craig Culbreth, director of the Florida Baptist Convention's partnership missions department, which coordinates the work of the CMBH, upon his Feb. 22 return from Port-au-Prince.       During a Feb. 16-17 citywide holiday observance in Cap Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, Culbreth saw "thousands upon thousands filling the streets where people are seeking God and asking Him to spare them from what happened in Port-au-Prince. For me, it was a New Testament expression of what it looks like when the Spirit of God shows up. I have never seen anything like it."       The CMBH is the Florida Baptist Convention-funded partnership of nearly 900 Haitian Baptist churches throughout Haiti. Through the partnership the Florida convention employs seven indigenous missionaries in six regions.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)–Yet another aftershock rattled Haiti in the early morning hours of Feb. 22, six weeks after the initial 7.0 earthquake devastated the Caribbean country. “The Lord provided us all with an early morning wakeup call — a bed-shaking, chandelier-swinging, earth-rumbling aftershock that sent volunteers out of the Florida guesthouse,” Kentucky Baptist disaster relief […]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)–“What do I do?” the Haitian man asked helplessly. Having lost his wife and two children and his home in Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake, he was living out of a suitcase. Butch Vernon struggled to answer the man’s question. “I’m not asked that question a lot back in the States, you know?” the […]

PORT-AU-PRINCE (BP)--The two Baptist volunteers still in jail in Haiti will be freed and possibly could be released this week, the judge overseeing the case says.       "We haven't found anything that could suggest wrongdoing on the part of the Americans," Judge Bernard Saint-Vil told Reuters Tuesday.       "I think they could be released this week," he added.       Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter, members of Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, have been in jail since Jan. 29, when they and eight of their team members were arrested on charges of child kidnapping and criminal association when they tried to take 33 children out of the earthquake-ravaged country and to a makeshift orphanage in the Dominican Republic. They allegedly did not have the proper paperwork.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--A national media report claiming American missions volunteers in a Haitian jail feared for their lives and had been lied to by their team leader was "a complete fabrication," one of those volunteers told Oprah Winfrey Feb. 19.       NBC reported Feb. 6 that one of the jailed volunteers slipped a note through the bars of their cell that said in part: "We fear for our lives in Haiti. There is corruption and extortion. Laura wants to control. We believe lying. We're afraid."       The note purportedly added: "Please, you must listen. We have no way to call. Court will not let us have a say with anything about truth for us. We only came as volunteers. We had nothing to do with any documents and have been lied to."       The report was "a complete fabrication," Allen told Winfrey's television audience via satellite from his home in Texas. "I don't know anything about that at all. I know what went on with the five men because we were together. The women were separated. Us five men had no ill feelings toward anybody."