The Long Road
At the end of this month, June 26-29th, I will be attending the annual meeting of the Congregational Christian Churches of America in Milwaukee, Wisc. This is a big event for us as we will be recognized as the mission outreach for their churches to work with in Haiti. Attending such an event requires more than booking a hotel room, doing a Map Quest and packing a suitcase. It seems like I have been in contact and sending info to the C.C.C. headquarters regularly the past several weeks. They needed a bulletin insert with pictures about G.A.P.to hand out to all attendees More recently they requested a list of prayer needs to be submitted.
When I put together the bulletin insert I realized that I also needed to reevaluate who we are and what we do. When we agreed to move to Canaan in 2005 and started operating a guest house the distinction between G.A.P. and Canaan became somewhat confusing to many of our teams. This process of evaluation was a good thing out of it has come three new brochures that I will be taking to Milwaukee with me. Our old brochure was designed in 2002 and so much has changed since then. One of our new brochures tells the G.A.P. story and briefly describes each of our 5 ministries. The other two describe specific ministry outreaches.
I thought it might be a good thing to share a little about the G.A.P. brochure. First our logo actually represents some specific things about the Go and Produce Ministry. G.A.P. Ministry comes out of the Bible verse John 15:16 where Jesus tells His disciples that "He chose them and gave them this work to do: Go and Produce fruit that will last". The tree in our logo is representing something that can bear fruit. The five branches of the go and produce tree (a hand) represent the five ministries of our work in Haiti.
Our five ministries:
** G.A.P. Ministry-- a mission agency that organizes, arranges and leads short term missions (STMs)opportunities for individuals, churches and organizations to Haiti. The fruits of these opportunities result in construction projects, medical outreaches, education, evangelism and many other things for those who we partner with in Haiti.
** Feet Across the Mountains--- creates community partnerships to improve the quality of life of the Mountain People while preserving their unique culture and lifesyles. This ministry has it's own brochure describing its goals and objects.
**GLAD Ministry--- means Giving Love And Dignity. This ministry provides a way for churches and individuals to give boxes of specified items to needy families in Haiti. It also has it's own brochure listing the accepted items and how to participate.
** Canaan Community Clinic--- G.A.P. is raising the funds and overseeing construction on a new community clinic in Montrouis, Haiti
** Bible Distribution--- G.A.P. is the contact representative and distributor for World Missionary Press of free Creole, French and English Bibles and tracts in Haiti.
Sometimes being forced to step back and take a look at yourself can be a good thing. In this instance it has made me realize God has "indeed blessed us and enlarged our territory" the prayer of Jabez I prayed so often as we started 10 years ago. It also encourages me to stay focused on Jesus because without Him we wouldn't have ever made it to this point on our own. In God's love, steve
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