Ken MacGillivray

Have you experienced times when the Holy Spirit directed you to help certain people? Looking back on your life, do you see how the Lord guided you to a specific job or neighborhood or church so you could be a blessing to others? God has prepared in advance how He intends for us to take part in His mission! (Ephesians 2:10)

Philip experienced the Holy Spirit’s specific guidance. We know that Philip, a recognized servant (deacon) in the Jerusalem church, had a good reputation and was filled with wisdom and the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:1-6). The Lord also gave him the desire and gifts to share the good news of Jesus with lost people beyond Jerusalem. Disregarding racial and social barriers, Philip traveled to Samaria to proclaim the gospel with amazing results. People turned to Christ, many were healed, others freed of demon oppression! (Acts 8:4-25)

Then what? The Lord directed Philip south. “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and went” (Acts 8:26-27). After his fruitful ministry north of Jerusalem, God told Philip to take the road south. Philip obeyed, led an Ethiopian man to Christ (a court official to the queen, no less) and, through that encounter, planted an influential gospel witness in Africa. Ethiopia became an important center of Christianity, complete with an Ethiopic translation of the Bible.

Last year, the Lord directed US to take the road south, that is, to train pastors in southern Haiti.

Our team prayed, talked about, and worked on practical logistics of this step for over a year. We knew it would be difficult and expensive – a big step of faith! The capital city, Port-au-Prince, forms a narrow waistband between northern Haiti and the southern peninsula. Gang control of Port-au-Prince and areas around it have stopped travel and commerce between the north and south, isolating over 2 million people who live in south Haiti.

Until now.

In May, we led PPI Course 1 in two key cities in south Haiti. Our courses were full, church leaders were excited to learn, and the Lord blessed the training beyond our expectations! We intend to continue training in south Haiti, offering all six PPI courses, and strengthening the church there. We’re convinced now more than ever that the Lord has directed us to take the road south.

But we need your help!

Travel to south Haiti adds another $4000-$5000 in flight/shipping expense to the usual cost of each training trip (around $12,000). To get to south Haiti, we have to fly our team and training materials from Cap-Haitien, a city on the north coast of Haiti, to a city in south Haiti. Since it’s too dangerous right now to travel overland through or around Port-au-Prince, we charter a small plane (a Cessna 207) to and from south Haiti. DONATE HERE

The first leg of the trip involves two back-to-back flights to carry 600-900 lbs of training materials and our ministry team. After investing all the Bibles and materials in pastors in our courses, our team can return to north Haiti on one HFAM flight. I recently booked our HFAM flights to south Haiti for our next training in south Haiti in February 2027. The three flights cost us $4424.00.

Would you consider a special, over-and-above gift to help us train church leaders in south Haiti?

Your donations will be matched dollar for dollar up to $25,000 by PPI friends. Our Take the Road South goal is $50,000, and the giving challenge ends on December 31. Will you pray about and invest in PPI’s frontier step to encourage, train and resource church leaders in south Haiti?

DONATE NOW

Thanks so much for helping us take the road south!

The Global Christian Book Fund (gcbf.org) recently featured PPI training in its summer newsletter. GCBF has its roots in Christianbook Distributors and its nonprofit organization, Christianbook International Outreach (CIO). Since 2022, CIO (now GCBF) has provided a generous grant to PPI to help us purchase Bibles and other ministry resources. Their newsletter (reprinted below in its entirety) gives another – and encouraging! – perspective on our work in Haiti. To God alone be glory!

More Than a Bible: Training and Equipping Haiti’s Pastors by Daniel Henderson (GCBF)

Haiti is the poorest and one of the most underserved nations in the Western Hemisphere, and its pastors among the most overlooked. Thousands of church leaders across the country shepherd their congregations with little formal training and even fewer resources. Yet their hunger for God’s Word and for genuine equipping is remarkable. That’s where  Partnership of Pastors International (PPI) comes in – and where Global Christian Book Fund is proud to walk alongside them.

Training That Goes Deeper

Established in 2019, PPI has built something remarkable in Haiti: a training program that inspires but also requires something of its participants. Across six courses, church leaders receive 16 -18 hours of foundational ministry training. Pastors complete individual and group assignments and engage deeply with Scripture. These aren’t passive conferences. Pastors attend every session. They do the work.

The results speak for themselves. Church leaders leave PPI training more encouraged in their identity in Christ, more committed to walking in obedience to His Word, more confident in understanding and applying Scripture, and more skilled in leading their churches. As one Haitian pastor put it, “Everywhere in Haiti, pastors are running after PPI training!”

The Challenge of Getting Bibles There

Getting training materials into Haiti is no small feat. PPI has literally loaded Cessna aircraft – two flights worth – with 28 boxes of Thompson Chain Reference Bibles and course materials just to reach church leaders in the south of the country. Each Bible weighs nearly 3.3 lbs, and with 8 Bibles per box, those 28 boxes carried 224 Bibles – over 740 lbs of God’s Word alone. Logistics that might be routine elsewhere become genuine acts of determination in Haiti.

Global Christian Book Fund helps make that possible. Through our ongoing partnership with PPI, we support the supply of Bibles and resources that fuel this training, because we believe that getting the right book into the right hands changes everything. Ken MacGillivray, PPI’s director, said, 

”Without GCBF’s partnership, the number of pastors we equip, the number of cities we impact, and the number of Bibles we provide would be significantly curtailed. We SO appreciate GCBF’s encouragement and generosity in this Kingdom venture!”

The Thompson Bible: More Than a Gift

There is a moment at the end of PPI’s Course 1, “The Message and the Messenger,” that captures why this work matters. Every pastor who successfully completes the course earns the Thompson Chain Reference Bible he or she used throughout the training.

For most of these leaders, this is the finest study Bible they have ever held, and the joy on their faces shows it. It is not handed out freely. It is earned through hours of faithful study and commitment. That makes it all the more meaningful. Church leaders in Les Cayes and Jérémie lit up with joy when they completed the course and received their Bibles. This is what faithful investment in pastors in developing nations looks like.

Why It Matters

When a pastor in Haiti is trained and equipped, his entire congregation benefits. The good news is proclaimed courageously and accurately. Families are shepherded more faithfully. Scripture is taught more clearly. Churches are built on firmer ground. Communities are impacted more holistically. Global Christian Book Fund exists to make moments like these possible – putting books and Bibles into the hands of those who will use them to build the Church.

Would you partner with us to keep this work going? Your gift today helps ensure that the next generation of Haitian pastors receives the training and the tools they need to lead well.

August PPI Courses

I’m so thankful for God’s timing! As you know, Rena’s dad passed away a few days before I was scheduled to leave for Haiti. After a lot of prayer and conversation with Rena and our team, I canceled my part in our August training – but the training went on! The Lord’s “cosmic coordination” of all events of our life and times always amazes me.

For starters, I’m glad I was here in the United States when Dad N went home to Heaven. I want to be with Rena and our family when big life events like this happen. Also, given the difficulty of traveling in and out of Haiti right now, I would have had difficulty getting to Georgia in time for Dad N’s memorial service. Next, we planned last year to offer PPI Courses 1 and 2 in north Haiti in August 2026. Our Haitian team typically leads all of Course 1 and many sessions of Course 2 these days. They were ready and willing to step in to administrate logistics and lead these courses. That would have been much harder for them to do if we had planned to offer, say, Courses 5 and 6. The Lord knew.

And our August courses went well – thanks to the Lord and our ministry team! A total of 91 pastors completed Course 1 in Morne Rouge, and 115 church leaders finished Course 2 in Cap-Haitien. Thanks so much for praying for our family and our Haitian team as they led these courses the past two weeks!

Youth Job Training

While our team facilitated PPI courses in northern Haiti, over 1000 young men and women participated in Youth Job Training in central Haiti. This is the largeest number of young people enrolled in the program’s four-year history. They will continue in one of 12 vocational tracks – examples include plumbing, electronics, sewing, cosmetology and music – through August 30. Pastor Laner and the League of Pastors of Hinche continue to develop this opportunity well. Excellent, gospel-centered community development programs like this are so needed in nations like Haiti.

Many of you gave through PPI to help the League make this program possible. Thank you! If your church or group would like to sponsor and get more involved with Youth Job Training in an ongoing way, let me know. I would love to tell you more about it and connect you with Pastor Laner and the League.

We Plan and God Directs

I plan to return to Haiti in October to help our team lead Courses 1, 2 and 4 in the Centre Department, Lord willing. We plan our way and the Lord directs our steps (Proverbs 16:9)! We have a lot to get done before then – revising/printing our Course 4 workbook, securing Thompson Bibles and training materials, and communicating our special South Haiti challenge this fall (stay tuned). Not to mention helping with and officiating our daughter’s wedding and preaching at our church!

We’re planning our way ahead, but we want to live well for the Lord each day. We desire every day to offer our Father in Heaven a sacrifice of worship through our thoughts, words and actions. We trust the Lord to coordinate our steps from there according to His good and perfect will.