The Art of Networking

The African-American Baptist Mission Collaboration, which includes America’s five largest African-American Baptist organizations, plans to provide ongoing aid to earthquake victims as it seeks to help rebuild Haiti. This joint effort is the first time these church groups, representing 40,000 church congregations, have worked together on such a large scale. The coalition’s long-term goal will be to “work with Haitian partners to rebuild strong homes, churches, schools and clinics.”

Already, the coalition has deployed medical professionals to provide critical medical services and care and instituted feeding programs in Port-au-Prince and Saint-Marc, providing hundreds of meals a day. Other aid relief, such as water provisions, energy supplies, cash grants and groceries, has been distributed to needy families and individuals.

Stephen John Thurston, president of the National Baptist Convention of America and senior pastor of Chicago’s New Covenant Missionary Baptist, explains the coalition’s quick response: “Having existing working relationships with established churches in the country enabled us to move swiftly to provide food, water, temporary shelter and pastoral care.”

About $50 million in raised funds (mostly from local churches) will be used to support this aid and provide assistance in planning and constructing five health-care clinics, 50 schools, 500 reconstructed churches to serve as community center points, and 5,000 homes to house victims left homeless.

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Filed under: Haiti, churches, collaboration, humanitarian outreach on March 13th, 2010