The Difference It Makes

I’d like to introduce you to our new ministry team member. Modie (pronounced “Mo-dee-ay”) embodies what we teach about church leadership in Haiti. I met Modie four years ago in Cap-Haïtien. He participated in PPI Course 1 along with 111 other church leaders, but I noticed him right away. For starters, Modie dresses impeccably in bright colors – yellow, red, blue suits. You can’t miss him. More importantly, he seemed to know everyone there. During our break times and at lunch, he moved among the crowd of pastors, smiling, shaking hands, patting shoulders and speaking to them. Our ministry team met him and liked him immediately.

Modie brought several other church leaders with him to the next PPI course. He began helping our team in any way he could – passing out water on hot afternoons, organizing Thompson Bibles for the day’s training. He has volunteered at nearly every PPI course in northern or northeastern Haiti since then, quietly but energetically, expecting nothing. On top of that, Modie champions our training in northern Haiti. He has invited scores of church leaders to our courses.

I talked with our team last year about asking Modie to join our ministry team “officially” for our training in March. They agreed without hesitation, and Modie helped us lead Course 3 (two times) and Course 1 in Limbé and Cap-Haïtien in early March. His servant’s heart and stellar work ethic have shone through every day – even on a day he (and our entire team) wasn’t feeling well.

One evening in our team meeting, I asked Modie to tell us more about himself and share how he met Christ. He began quietly:

I was born in Ferrier [a village in northeast Haiti]. My father didn’t take care of me so I was given to my uncle, but he treated me badly. I ran away to Cap-Haïtien when I was 12, but I didn’t know anyone there. I just tried to find something better. A pastor took me in and helped me. He sent me to school and had others teach me how to build. I started building when I was 14 years old.

Modie smiled as he told us how the pastor and his wife included him in their family, introduced him to Christ and discipled him. After finishing high school, he attended a building trades school and two years of Bible college. He is an accomplished designer-builder and has built houses, churches and businesses  across Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

He continued, “I thank God. Street kids in Haiti become criminals and die young. The Lord rescued me. He has a purpose for me and I want to follow it.” Modie’s pastor-mentor died from complications of diabetes in late February. Modie helped the family plan his funeral over the two weeks of our training, paying for much of it himself.

I was moved by Modie’s story. I couldn’t help connecting it with the content of PPI Course 3, which we led two times over the two weeks of training. Course 3 is our first course on church leadership, in which we focus on the mission and strategy of the church. We study and discuss foundational truths about the church in Scriptures such as Matthew 16:13-18 (Jesus’ first teaching on the church), Matthew 28:16-20, Ephesians 4:11-16, etc.

We spend a lot of time in Matthew 28:16-20, where the Lord made clear His mission for the church and His strategy for fulfilling it. “Make disciples of all nations,” He commands us, by going, baptizing and teaching them to obey. We answer from Scripture questions such as:

• What is a “disciple”?
• How does Jesus intend for us to “make” them?
• How can our churches be more effective in fulfilling the Lord’s mission?

We tell pastors that making disciples is Job One for the church and that church leaders must exemplify disciple-making as well as teach it. Modie’s pastor did that. He opened his heart and his home to a boy from the streets. He loved him, won him to Christ and discipled him over many years. That boy was Modie. God changed his life and now he loves Jesus and serves faithfully in His mission – a perfect picture of what we teach church leaders in Course 3. May God use this course to inspire and equip church leaders to devote themselves to making disciples in Haiti!