Baptist School & Orphanage Open in Haiti


A building housing a school for 200 preschool, kindergarten and primary students and an orphanage for 50 children was offi cially opened and dedicated in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 7.


Facilities are being put in place for conductive education


and development for 10-20 disabled children. In addition, there will be vocational training for 100 young people in information technology, culinary arts and cooking, sewing and tailoring, and in English language. There is also a chapel and conference center. The complex, named “Source of Light,” cost approximately


US$1.5 million to construct. The majority of the funds were provided by the Baptist World Alliance through its relief and development


A Testimony


Emmanuel Pierre, general secretary of the Haiti Baptist Convention, was kidnapped by armed men in the wee hours of September 29, 2011, and released in the afternoon on that same day. The following is a testimony of his life and ordeal.


My name is Emmanuel Pierre. I was


born in Trou du Nord in Northeast Haiti on December 26, 1952. I grew up in a Christian family and I am the second child in a family of seven. My father died at the time that I fi nished


elementary school and was ready to enter high school. I was then 14 years old. Without a father, I was forced to stay home during a school year because my mother could not afford the cost of sending seven kids to school.


24 BAPTIST WORLD MAGAZINE


But one year later, I was very fortunate to be granted a scholarship by the Baptist Mission scholarship program at the high school run by the Baptist denomination, led at that time by the Baptist missionary, C. S. Kelly. At that Christian school, I had a good formation and was positively


spiritual


impacted by the lives of the Christian teachers. There I made the commitment to follow Christ as my Savior. Later, I choose to go to seminary for theological studies.


Upon completion of my theological studies, I was called to serve two Baptist churches


simultaneously, the Baptist church of Robillard and the Baptist church of Petite-Anse. Both churches are affi liated with


the Haiti Baptist Convention. I


ministered to them eleven years. Then I received a call to serve as general secretary of the convention. During those pastorates, God powerfully used my ministry to direct people’s lives toward a hopeful future. Besides my theological training, I also have the privilege of having a diploma in law studies from the Law School of Cap- Haitian. In addition, I also took classes in Administration and Management at the University Roi Henri Christophe of Cap- Haitian. At that time, I got married to Josette Previl. From our union were born


arm, Baptist World Aid (BWAid). Other contributions came from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board (VBMB). Hungarian Baptist Aid (HBAid) supervised the construction in association with the Haiti Baptist Convention (HBC), which owns the complex. “This was the fulfi llment of a dream brought about by


many years of prayer and planning,” said BWAid Director, Paul Montacute, who offi cially handed the keys of the complex to Eugene Gideon, president of the HBC. “It took the earthquake to bring all the ideas together,” he said. Source of Light meets an urgent need for schools in Haiti’s


capital as approximately 90 percent of the schools in and around Port-au-Prince were either severely damaged or destroyed by the


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