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Mike Watson: I’ve been the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church of Dumas for the last six years. Our city is pretty diverse as far as our economic base. We have cheese plants, a big beef packing plant, feed yards, and dairies. Through the years we’ve seen several ethnic groups come to Dumas looking for jobs. One year it might be Sudanese, and the next year Vietnamese, and then we might see Guatemalans or Hondurans. Everybody has to have a job and there’s lots of jobs here in Dumas.
More recently, I’ve seen Haitians in our community—we’ve had several attend our church. They were walking over to Calvary because it was close. Well, I have two close friends at First Baptist Church in Pampa, Byron Williamson [senior pastor] and Zack Greer [associate pastor, missions/administration], and their church had ministered in Haiti. It was through them that I met Brother Clief.
Clief Joseph: I was never thinking about moving to the United States. I was just trying to get a visa to come visit my friends here. But the problems in Haiti had become very bad. They were kidnapping people, even killing them. I felt it was God’s timing for my wife, Madialite, and me to leave Haiti and stay in the United States until maybe things would get better so we could go back. But God has opened a new ministry here, and I feel like it’s His calling to keep doing what I was doing in Haiti.
I was a pastor in Haiti for 12 years before coming to Texas. My father was a pastor, and he led me to the Lord. I connected with First Baptist Pampa because they ministered in Haiti, and that enabled me to help with that. I heard about Pastor Mike and learned this would be a good place to come and minister to Haitian people.
Many of the Haitians in Dumas started in Florida, but there are more jobs here, so they moved to Texas. Haitian people like to go to church. Many people from Haiti are Baptists. Baptist missionaries came to Haiti often and planted churches there. So when [Haitians] come to Dumas and try to find somewhere to meet, they see Calvary Baptist Church and go inside. Calvary said they had about 12 Haitian people coming on Sundays and they wanted a Haitian pastor to have a service so they can worship in their language. I believed it was maybe God’s plan for me to come and do ministry in this place.
“Doing ministry in Haiti is difficult, really difficult. But God also showed me many good things and opened a door for me to minister here, even as my church in Haiti continues.”
Watson: Calvary has a large facility. We have a youth room on the second story of our add-on from the 1960s. The church was running about 250 back then, so now we’ve made that whole second floor—it will seat about 70 people—available to [Haitian attendees]. It has a full kitchen, bathrooms, and a wing off each side with rooms for Sunday school classes. I mean, everything they need is there, so it’s really good.
Joseph: Our first official meeting was March 2, but we met unofficially the previous two Sundays [Feb. 16 and 23]. We had 22 people at our first meeting and 24 at our second meeting. We had 46 on March 2. [I preached] out of Ephesians 4 for my first sermon on our opening Sunday—a message on being unified in Christ in the church.
Watson: This has been just like an infusion of fresh blood. Our people are excited. These Haitian people are wonderful, and their worship is wonderful, and it’s just been good. They’re still coming to our adult Sunday school classes … so that has really been good.
On the last Sunday in February, we had a singing Sunday night, so they joined us and there were probably 25 of them and about that many of us. We just had a really good night.
“All you have to do is be willing to open your doors and open your heart, and God will do the work. We try this and we try that and do all kinds of things, but it’s not about man’s efforts as much as it is what God’s going to do.”
Joseph: God is teaching me many things right now. Doing ministry in Haiti is difficult, really difficult. But God also showed me many good things and opened a door for me to minister here, even as my church in Haiti continues. Every day, God is teaching me to be patient, and He will do the rest.
Watson: Well, I think just for me, [I’ve learned to] never be discouraged, because God’s going to do something. All you have to do is be willing to open your doors and open your heart, and God will do the work. We try this and we try that and do all kinds of things, but it’s not about man’s efforts as much as it is what God’s going to do.
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