Advent Brings VBS to Haiti

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: July 7, 2008

CONTACT:    Cynthia Terpstra
                   (561) 395-3632 x15
                   clterpstra@adventelca.org

Advent Team Brings Vacation Bible School to Haiti

Program Part of Church’s Ongoing Commitment to the Children of Haiti

Boca Raton, Florida — Ten members from Advent Lutheran Church of Boca Raton spent the week of June 22-29 in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti on a mission trip for the Lazarus Project. The team was led by Pastor Andy Hagen, on his fourth trip to Haiti, his wife, three teenagers each accompanied by a parent and one couple.

The primary focus of the trip was to offer a week-long Bible-school program that included singing, crafts, activities and drama. Partially funded by the $1,000 raised by children from Advent’s own Bible school several weeks earlier, the program offered Christian faith education and enrichment to students who are out of school without much to do in the hot, Haitian summer. Jorel Carte, a member of the Village of Hope School where the program took place, led music in English, Creole and French accompanied by his accordion. Additionally, a lunch was offered every day to the 80 children whose families are struggling with the high price of food in Haiti at this time.

“This was an incredible team and an awesome week,” said Pastor Hagen. “We received more than we gave, learned more than we taught, and whatever blessings we shared were returned a hundredfold by our brothers and sisters in Haiti.”

Hosted by Pastor Larry Bollinger and his wife Margaret, the team also visited several other ministries of the Lazarus Project. At one orphanage the team treated nine children for pinkeye and they met the nearly 100 children being cared for at Little Children of Jesus, a home for the handicapped. They also squeezed in a little time to assist on a project to hand pour a cement roof on a small house at the school and see the Food for the Poor center than feeds thousands of the neediest in Port-au-Prince. All members of the team made donations of food and clothing while in Haiti and will be sponsoring children from the school when they return home.

The Lazarus Project is the grassroots effort of a growing number of individuals and congregations, mostly Lutheran, to be in ministry in Haiti. In the context of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), it is a response to a modern Lazarus in the suffering poor of Haiti, lying on our doorstep begging to be fed with our crumbs. For more information about the Lazarus Project visit http://www.lazarusprojecthaiti.org/

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