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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti?Over the last few months, volunteer work in Haiti has revolved around demolition. With so many buildings damaged beyond the point of repair, teams had to go in and tear down crumbling structures and clear foundations before anything could be rebuilt.
Steve Dorman, pastor of First Baptist Church of Brownsville, led one of these demolition teams. Dorman and his team went to Port-au-Prince to work on demolition and reconstruction of a church.
“One of the walls had fallen apart and the roof had caved in,” Dorman said. “The other walls were concrete blocks, but they were very unstable. You could push on them and they would fall over.”
The team knocked down the walls and cleared off the slab. They then built a retaining wall and a wooden frame structure as well as a roof. The result was on open-air pavilion where the church could meet and have room to grow.
“We originally had planned to rebuild it with concrete blocks,” he said, “but the pastor was really hoping to expand the church in the near future so he asked us if we would build a wood frame wall so that he could take it loose easier and make a bigger structure.”
While Dorman and his team worked on the church building, a Mississippi couple was building the church in a different way. Steve and Kay Griffin, working through the North American Mission Board, acted as the team’s facilitators on the ground in Haiti. They helped to get all of the tools and supplies the team needed for their project.
As the team worked, the Griffins spoke to the children of a school that was attached to the church. In Haiti, parents have to pay to send their children to school, so many churches offer schooling and meals for children who cannot afford an education otherwise. The Griffins gave the kids the plan of salvation and 19 of them prayed to accept Christ.
“It was an answer to our prayers,” Dorman said. “We didn’t just want to do physical things to help them. We wanted to help them spiritually in a way that would last for eternity.”
“They were a super team,” Steve Griffin said about Dorman’s demolition team. “They had a major building and clearing project, and they did a great job.”
Though proud of what he and his team accomplished, Dorman acknowledges that there is still a lot of work to be done in Haiti. Rubble still lines the streets and people still live in fear and insecurity, unwilling or unable to go back into their homes.
“There are so many different needs,” Dorman said. “The country needed all of these relief organizations before the earthquake because of the poverty and the instability and the lack of infrastructure and the human need. But after the earthquake there will be needs for years to come.”
For more information on volunteering, contact Jim Richardson by e-mail at jrichardson@sbtexas.com or by phone at 940-704-9346. You may donate to disaster relief efforts online by credit card or writing a check to “Disaster Relief.” All funds go directly toward current or future disaster relief efforts. Checks should be mailed to the SBTC office at PO Box 1988, Grapevine 76099-1988.
