Louisiana Baptists going forward in Haiti with new strategy

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

CANAAN, Haiti – Even as Southern Baptist disaster relief efforts wind down in Haiti, ravaged Jan. 12, 2010, by a 7.0 earthquake, the Louisiana Baptist Convention focuses its ongoing impact on the million-and-a-half people now living in what two years ago was a green field.

Initial plans include partnering with a church-multiplier national pastor, constructing a church and a medical clinic, and starting an orphanage, all in a part of the Haiti countryside that the people there named Canaan.

“We are intentionally making sure [the new strategy] is not a diversion from what we’ve done in the past with our facilitation of networks,” said Wayne Sheppard, LBC’s partnerships coordinator and executive assistant to the executive director. “But because of what the Florida Baptist Convention has already been doing in Haiti – since 1995 – we’re making sure our strategy works along with theirs.