Steve Kriss, skriss@mosaicmennonites.org
Franconia Conference has established a fund to assist the Grace Assembly Network congregations in the rebuilding and reconstruction sure to follow the Haiti earthquake. While communication with key Grace Assembly Network leader, Pastor Lesly Bertrand, has been limited, phone calls and a visit form Mennonite Central Committee staff assure us of his and his family’s well-being. They are sleeping out doors at a church compound just outside of the city and have a generator that provides water from a well on the church grounds. Pastors from the Hopewell Network of Churches are setting out for Port-au-Prince today to learn more.
Initially, the Conference is sending a satellite phone, to be delivered this week to Pastor Bertrand to help establish more regular contact. Mennonite Central Committee has also opened conversation with Grace Assembly about the possibilities of working together to bring healing and hope to Haiti. The phone is intended to empower Pastor Lesly in his work and ministry by opening doors for conversation that will allow movement of goods and lifting of spirits as the recovery continues in Port-au-Prince.
In the meantime, the work team from Souderton Mennonite Church has returned to Pennsylvania safely on January 18, after an only a few days extension of what was intended to be a week-long project of service near Haiti’s southern coast.
Franconia Conference is actively soliciting contributions toward the ministry of Grace Assembly Network in this critical time for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.
To read the initial release from Mennonite Central Committee visit
mcc.org/stories/news/mcc-respond-haiti-earthquake-donations-welcome