Reaching the
Hard-to-Reach
in Haiti
By Kate Michel,
Marketing & Communications Director,
Radio 4VEH/Resounding Hope
photo: Pastor Job Vilma,
preaching in New Life
Church inset: An older,
well-used solar radio
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West Virginia up the mountain to Haut
Garde, he said, “We came to a cockfighting ring with some people waiting to go to
work in a field. We presented the Gospel
to them, and all six of the adults accepted
Christ.
“As Pastor Job talked with
the people, I said to the
team, ‘Don’t miss this.
We’re in a cockfighting ring that is about
gambling, with a lot
of Voodoo mixed
in. There’s a bottle
hanging directly
above where the
pastor is speaking right now—a
bottle placed there
to appease and attract the lwa (Voodoo
spirits). And we are
seeing six people come
to know Christ right now.’
And the people’s biggest plea?
‘We need a church!’”
The church at Haut Garde is one of
several new church plants that have been
started recently, scattered through the
mountains.
It is also just one more example of
how technology combines with the outreach ministries of Radio 4VEH and Every
Community for Christ (OMS’ church planting ministry) to be “boots on the ground”
for the Great Commission—connecting often-illiterate, isolated, Voodoo-background
communities with God’s Word in their heart
language, with songs of praise and worship, and with the community of Christfollowers in Haiti and beyond.
About 15 years ago, an evangelism team
visited Grison Garde, Haiti, an area heavily
influenced by witch doctors. As the team
shared the hope Jesus offers, four people
gave their lives to the Lord. The team left
behind solar radios tuned to Radio
4VEH to minister to families
every day—and more people came to the Lord.
When Haitian
pastor Job Vilma
graduated from
the OMS-related
Emmaus Biblical
Seminary, the
Lord led him to
this community
of believers in
Grison Garde,
and they asked him
to be their pastor.
Equipped with new
solar radios available
through Resounding Hope,
Pastor Job has led believers from
New Life Church to their own experiences
of stepping out of darkness into the light
of Christ with people in the surrounding
mountain villages.
“Now, you must go to Haut Garde,”
Pastor Job was told, “because there’s
no church there at all.” But reaching this
community requires hiking three hours up
the mountain, crossing streams on foot,
and then hiking further up the mountain.
Armed with the Gospel and a small
supply of radios, Pastor Job and fellow
co-laborers hiked up the mountain many
times to Haut Garde and led 50 people
to the Lord. They left a solar radio with
the households and kept their promise to
return and start a church so the people
wouldn’t have to walk two hours (each
way) to attend church.
“We need a church!”
photo: Planted in early 2014, Emmaus New Life
Church of Haut Garde has about 50 regular attendees
on Sundays and also has two small groups of 20–30
people meeting in other places during the week.
After OMS Haiti field leader Brett Bundy
led a visiting Resounding Hope team from
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