A Message From STEP Seminary President Jean Dorlus in Haiti
From Jean Dorlus, President of STEP Seminary in Haiti:
“Dear Friends,
You probably have heard of the powerful earthquake that hit Haiti yesterday evening. My family (Barbara, Kendall and Kourtney) is safe.
The damage done is beyond description, it is just horrific. No one can be sure yet to the exact number of victims but the estimate from some of the international organizations working in the country is in the hundreds of thousands of people dead.
As for the seminary campus, many students, staff, faculty, and I were in the main academic building when major parts of it collapsed. Miraculously a lot of us were able to get out, those who were trapped in the building were rescued except for two that are not accounted for. The damage done to the building is beyond repair. We have a lot of dead and injured people very close by in the neighborhood around the campus area. As I went home last night to check on my family, the lost was so great in the areas that I stopped counting bodies.
We are as well as most haitians are sleeping outside because of the severe aftershocks that continue and the cracks done to some of the homes. PLease pray for us, as we find out what to do and how to go forward.
The Internet connection is not working properly and the phone lines are down, but as I find more information I will communicate them to you all.
Jean Dorlus
President of STEP Seminary”
Faith Bible Church in Edmond, OKLA is requesting relief funding for the seminary, its faculty and students.
Here is the message:
“I am requesting gifts to this fund to provide humanitarian aid for our faculty and staff and their families at STEP Seminary. I have not received any updates to earlier emails, but there has been substantial damage on the campus, with the collapse of several buildings, injuries and possible deaths. These gifts will be used to provide for the basic needs of our people to include medical care, food, water, housing, clothing and transportation if required. These funds will be managed and disbursed by the management team of the seminary, under the leadership of Dr. Jean Dorlus. You may make gifts through Faith Bible Church by marking in the memo section of your check – STEP Relief. If you have any questions, you may contact me at [405] 562-4332. Thank you and please keep Haiti in your prayers.
-Dave Gallman”
Faith Bible Church
600 North Coltrane Road
Edmond, OK 73034-6675
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Kristi on 13 Jan 2010 at 8:32 pm #
Thanks for posting this, Michael. It’s good to have a source of info from those in the midst of this nightmare so we have a better picture of how to pray and what help can be given.
How do you think the Church should be handling the statements of Pat Robertson today regarding Haiti? My heart aches for the damage those words will do and for how they will cut the hearts of those in Haiti who might get wind of them.
C Michael Patton on 13 Jan 2010 at 9:49 pm #
Kristi,
It is very sad indeed. He is a “prophet” who has not been called.
Kristi on 13 Jan 2010 at 10:09 pm #
But why are the other public leaders of our faith not calling him out on it? Why do we silently assent?
Michael on 13 Jan 2010 at 10:24 pm #
Isn’t the test for a prophet that if they fail once they aren’t one and very bad things should happen to them? How many epic fails had Pat Robertson had now? He must’ve skipped over that part of the Bible.
Who is my neighbor? « The Hiddenness of Blog on 14 Jan 2010 at 2:40 am #
[...] Compassion International team (who are yet to be able to contact any of their staff in Haiti). For STEP Seminary of Haiti, whose main academic building has been devastated (link contains relief information for the [...]
Kristi on 14 Jan 2010 at 5:54 am #
I completely agree. But if the issue goes beyond whether what he says happens and becomes whether what he says is Biblical…
When Dan Brown comes out with a fiction novel, not being presented as “truth” from the Word of God or from a prominent, current church leader, the scholarly voices from various corners of Christendom come out and are quick to refute it.
But when Pat Robertson says, right out there for all to hear and see, within hours of a tragedy like this, that Haiti was subjected to God’s judgment, because hundreds of years ago they made a deal with the devil… why isn’t there the same sort of outcry?
Jesus was bold and clear in his messages to the spiritual leaders of his day. The Apostles wrote the bulk of their chastisement and instruction to the Church. Why aren’t we focusing on cleaning our own house?
markC on 14 Jan 2010 at 7:49 am #
Who’s to say that this wasn’t a judgement from God? It is interesting to see that two nations share the island of Hispaniola (Haiti, and the Dominican Republic) but Haiti is the one that gets flattened. I’ve read a National Geographic Article online this morning titled, “Haiti: Possessed by Voodoo”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0707_040707_tvtaboovoodoo.html
What caught me was this quote: “”One common saying is that Haitians are 70 percent Catholic, 30 percent Protestant, and 100 percent voodoo,” said Lynne Warberg, a photographer who has documented Haitian voodoo for over a decade.”
I’m not stating for certainity that the earthquake was a judgement from God, but I’m not going to deny that that may be a possibility.
C Michael Patton on 14 Jan 2010 at 9:45 am #
Apparently he did not say that anyway: http://www.cbn.com/about/pressrelease_patrobertson_haiti.aspx
cherylu on 14 Jan 2010 at 10:02 am #
CMP and all,
Here is the video clip of Pat Robertson’s comments, he doesn’t say, “It was God’s wrath.” He does however say that the pact with the devil story is true and that the people have been under a curse every since then.
Here is the video link: http://www.breitbart.tv/they-have-been-cursed-pat-robertson-says-haiti-swore-a-pact-to-the-devil/
cherylu on 14 Jan 2010 at 10:09 am #
I need to add that the video clip is a little bit difficult to get to play. But it does work if you keep at it.
Pat Robertson’s words were to the effect that they have been “cursed with one thing after another” since then including desperate poverty.
C Michael Patton on 14 Jan 2010 at 10:53 am #
Mark,
The point is that unless you are a prophet, don’t even make such an insinuation. Otherwise, be ready to do that we everything and everyone, including parents who lose their children, children who lose their parents, snowstorms that kill people, tornadoes, and everything else that causes destruction.
We simply don’t have a prophet of God who can interpret such events. Therefore, the only thing we should be offering is compassion, not suppositions, or even insinuations of damnation.
Hans Zaepfel on 14 Jan 2010 at 11:02 am #
The pact-with-Satan story smells like an “urban legend” to me. I have heard about it for a few years now.
If you go to
http://www.blackandchristian.com/articles/2005.shtml
and scroll down you can find links to a 3-part article a Christian Haitian minister wrote on the supposed pact. He can find no evidence of this pact with Satan, in fact he finds evidence that the leaders of the revolt actually asked God for help.
Anybody have any other documentation one way or the other?
Hans
Kristi on 14 Jan 2010 at 11:51 am #
Arguing “cause and effect” when it comes to the hidden sovereignty of God is, as noted before with regards to Robertson’s statements, is in its most benign state, foolish and in it’s most dangerous, a corruption of the Church and it’s ability to represent Christ well to the world.
The meaning of Robertson’s words were clear to those who heard them. As they were clear at 9/11, Katrina and and other horrific tragedies.
Doesn’t John 9:1-5 demonstrate that Jesus tried to teach us that the pain and sorrow happen so that God can intervene and work miracles? I’m having a hard time finding a pattern of Jesus picking out suffering people from the crowd to use as object lessons for the consequences of sin. He ministered in mercy and love.
Job suffered tremendously, yet not as judgment for sin. Repeatedly we are told to expect suffering in this world – yet where are we called to make such abstract, unprovable statements that cause nothing but more suffering to those that are hurting and further confusion regarding the issue of God and suffering here on earth?
And while we’re toying recklessly around with the behaviors of a people group and the far-reaching consequences… how ’bout we go back a few hundred more years… Is our prosperity now a sign that God put his stamp of approval on our brutality with countless lives here? Did he cheer for us when we slaughtered people because they refused to convert to our religion?
markC on 14 Jan 2010 at 11:55 am #
CMP
“The point is that unless you are a prophet, don’t even make such an insinuation.” “We simply don’t have a prophet of God who can interpret such events. Therefore, the only thing we should be offering is compassion, not suppositions, or even insinuations of damnation.”
The impression I’m getting from you Michael, is that no matter what happens in this world, we will never know if it’s God’s judgement. Is God allowed to judge nations anymore? Or was that something that was only done in the Old Testament and we know that it was the judgement of God because we have a book that tells us so.
I’m half way between serious and sarcastic here.
I believe that God intervenes in the affairs of man, to demonstrate His justice and judgement and open up avenues of mercy and compassion. God causes all things to happen for a purpose, and the people of God should be able to discern what that purpose is.
Greg M on 18 Jan 2010 at 9:36 am #
Does anyone have any updates about the seminary in Haiti?
As for Pat Robertson, letting idiots like him speak for us makes us all look like idiots. You want to see Satan’s hand? That’s where it is.
Dan Baber on 19 Jan 2010 at 1:08 am #
see Donny Miller’s comments on the topic of Pat Robertson’s ill chosen words: http://donmilleris.com/2010/01/13/1513/
Dan on 01 Mar 2010 at 8:26 pm #
A series of updates on the situation at the seminary are available at http://www.crossworld.org.