Darrow Miller and Friends

Responding to the Earthquake in Haiti

Like you, we are deeply saddened by the pain, heartbreak, and suffering that the people of Haiti are experiencing as a result of this week’s earthquake. DNA partner organizations are responding with disaster assistance. As you prayerfully consider how you and your family may wish to respond, here are a few suggestions.

Harvest, DNA’s founding partner, has staff in Haiti—Pastor Guerino St. Simon and his wife Elsie. Guerino and Elsie were in Paris at the time of the earthquake and are trying to return home. Please pray for them and their teenage children, who are in Haiti and are uninjured, but sleeping on the streets because of damage to their home.

Ricci Paulino, the leader of Harvest in the Dominican Republic, and John Wood will be driving on Sunday from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to deliver food and water and to make an assessment of how best to help going forward. John is a close friend who formerly worked with Harvest and the DNA, and is now the Outreach Pastor at Grace Community Church in Tempe. He is flying to the Dominican Republic today. Please pray for John and Ricci as they journey into Haiti on Sunday. They will focus on delivering aid through the Body of Christ, specifically through the network of church leaders that Pastor Guerino and Ricci have relationships with. Harvest is accepting donations now to respond to the specific needs that Ricci and John identify.

You can send your donation to the Disciple Nations Alliance (please indicate it is for the Haiti Relief Effort) and we will pass 100% of it through to Harvest, or you can donate directly to Harvest. Their website is www.harvestfoundation.org

Other DNA Partner Organizations that are organizing responses are Food for the Hungry and Vision of a Community Fellowship (VOCF). You may also want to consider giving through these worthy organizations.

On October 17, 1989, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the Bay Area of Northern California. 63 people were killed. The earthquake that struck Haiti was also magnitude 7.0, but current estimates are that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died. As David Brooks of the New York Times wrote in his op-ed today, the earthquake in Haiti is “not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story.” Our heart grieves for Haiti and our compassionate response is needed, but this disaster should also cause us to reflect on the root causes of poverty, and what we as Christians are called to do in response.

Our passion at the DNA is to go down to the worldview roots and offer a comprehensive long-term biblical response.

– Scott Allen

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About 
Scott Allen serves as president of the DNA secretariat office. After serving with Food for the Hungry for 19 years in both the United States and Japan, working in the areas of human resources, staff training and program management, he teamed up with Darrow Miller and Bob Moffitt to launch the DNA in 2008. Scott is the author of Beyond the Sacred-Secular Divide: A Call to Wholistic Life and Ministry and co-author of several books including, As the Family Goes, So Goes the Nation: Principles and Practices for Building Healthy Families. His most recent book is Why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice. Scott lives with his wife, Kim, in Bend, OR. They have five children.

1 Comment

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    March 10, 2010 - 4:34 am

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