Scripture Distribution brings hope to hard-hit Haitians

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Almost 200 Haitian people, including many children, have recently become Christians as a result of an Opportunity 21-sponsored distribution program organised by the Dominican Bible Society.

The Republic’s neighbour Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, with a population of seven million people crowded into less than 11,000 square miles of land. Consequently many people want to improve their lives by making an illegal crossing of the border into the Dominican Republic. Having done so, however, they end up working on sugar cane plantations and continue to live in dire poverty.

Relationships

The Dominican Bible Society wanted to bring hope and encouragement to these 1.2 million hard-hit Haitians by offering a variety of Scripture materials to them, and so in October 1999 it began the three-year project entitled Scriptures for Haitian Immigrants. The Society developed relationships with a wide range of churches and many of the Haitians themselves, and as a result some 500 churches from 23 denominations are taking part, including one Roman Catholic church.

More than 25,000 Haitians have been reached, and scores of children are memorising Bible passages. Some 65 adults and 118 children have accepted Christ as their Saviour.

The Rev Abner Guerrier, the Bible Society’s O-21 Promoter, rejoiced at the news. “Most of the Haitians now have at least a Bible Portion provided by the Dominican Bible Society,” he said. “Formerly they were discriminated against, despised, undervalued, orphans and deprived of the Word of God in their own language. Now, thanks to the efforts of the Dominican Bible Society, we have achieved something we were not able to do years ago. Thanks to the General Secretary and the Program Coordinator, everything is available to those who need it most.”

Appropriate

Scripture Portions and New Reader Portions appropriate to the Haitians were not available so the Dominican Bible Society prepared and produced a Creole New Reader Portion locally and distributed some 37,000 copies. It has also hired a part-time Haitian promoter.

The benefits of the project include Haitian and local churches beginning their own evangelistic programs, Haitian teachers becoming involved in the work, the Bible Societies of Haiti and the Dominican Republic working together, and Haitian preachers and evangelists visiting the Dominican Bible Society in search of help.

Training

A ‘Good News’ distribution training course in Haitian has been prepared to aid the recruitment of more volunteers to the program. Even Christians from Puerto Rico have been taking part, crossing the Mona Strait on the ferry, to bring the Word of God to the Haitian people.

So far more than 270,000 Scriptures have been distributed, including almost 6,000 Bibles.