by the Tribune
As the Tribune was going to press, we received the news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti January 12. Almost immediately, BBFI pastors and church members began making plans to help in relief efforts.
At presstime, the Mission Office had been in contact with both Wes Lane and Tom Franklin, missionaries in the Dominican Republic. The Republic shares the eastern part of the island with Haiti on its western border. Wes had informed churches on the 12th that he intended to enter Haiti by bus to deliver what aid and information he could.
A short time later, Tom Franklin sent this report:
As many of you have probably already heard, on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake occurred in Haiti. Their capital, Port-au-Prince has been destroyed with hospitals, homes and major buildings collapsing. Many have nowhere to go and nothing to survive with. We are just a few hundred miles from the disaster here in the Dominican Republic and although our church in Tamboril is in its infancy, along with our Haitian mission in Don Pedro, we have decided to begin assembling survival buckets today by simply filling them with a list of everyday items that can be purchased here and used to fill immediate needs — food, soap, medicine, duct tape, and other emergency relief items. Obviously these buckets will do more than just take care of physical needs, we also want to let these families know they have not been forgotten and will be placing special tracts in Creole inside so they can discover the eternal hope of Jesus’ love. Any donations that are processed into our account in the mission office marked Haitian Relief will be used for this project and to meet the needs of the churches that BBFI Missionary Wesley Lane — www.bbfi-northamerica.org/Lane — has established and can contact in the Port-au-Prince area.
Yesterday we spoke to Wesley Lane extensively and the best plan at this time is for Wes and Melina to try and cross the border via bus, make contact with the national pastors and churches they have there, and locate key missionaries and relief organizations on the ground to access the situation. Once a staging area can be located and secured, Wesley will return and we will all go in with equipment and supplies that are needed and can be found here in the Dominican Republic. We need to pray that they will get through, make contact, and return safely and as quickly as possible. Many of you know that we work with Agape Missionary Flights and Missionary Flights International. It is our understanding that both will be staging relief efforts from Florida directly to Haiti making multiple flights every week. With the amount of missionaries they serve, it might take a little longer for things to get to us, but we already know that this is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint.
The Mission Office has established a fund set up for emergency relief donations. If you want to be a part of this endeavor, please send your funds clearly designated Haitian Relief to:
BBFI Mission Office
PO Box 802757
Kansas City, MO 64180-2757
According to Associate Mission Director Steve Bender, BBFI Missionaries Wes Lane and Tom Franklin will be leading this effort from the Dominican Republic.