A major earthquake hit the tiny island nation of Haiti shortly before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 12. The epicenter was near the capital city of Port-au-Prince. News reports show massive destruction and major loss of life.

Although CMF does not have any missionaries working in Haiti, two of our partner organizations, FAME and IDES, have extensive ties in this poorest nation in the western hemisphere. FAME (Fellowship of Associates of Medical Evangelism) reports on its website that it has “received updates from most of our partners and they are safe, but report much destruction of their facilities.” FAME will be involved in both relief efforts in Haiti and long-term reconstruction.

The IDES (International Disaster Emergency Services) website shares that “Lifeline Christian Mission, Christianville, and Christian Mission South Haiti have all suffered some structural damage. By God’s grace, no one was seriously injured on their premises. However, we have heard reports of injuries and lives lost within the Christian Church/Church of Christ community in and around Port-au-Prince. One of our partner missions in Gonaives is preparing to send Haitian volunteers into the affected area to render assistance.” IDES anticipates that it will be working with multiple partners in Haiti.

Your donations for relief work through both of these agencies will be greatly appreciated. To donate, go to www.fameworld.org or www.ides.org.

The LifeSpring Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, has adopted the Kosovo slum community in the Mathare Valley in Nairobi, Kenya. Part of the partnership involves assisting the church and school located in the community with leadership training and a variety of projects, including Community Health Evangelism, HIV/AIDS and microfinance lending. Members of LifeSpring have taken several short-term trips to Kenya, and Dick Alexander, Senior Minister at LifeSpring, recently shared his thoughts about their most recent one. Here are some excerpts from his blog:

“I’m writing this on the way home from this month’s LifeSpring mission trip to the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. It’s hard to describe the Mathare slum. Eight hundred thousand people live in shacks made of corrugated steel with dirt floors. Lacking city services, there are no sewers, so the dirt paths between the shanties double as sewers. If I had enough space here I could describe the scene. I could never describe the smell. (more…)

Three American churches sent short-term work groups to assist with the building project at the Northside Christian Church (Iglesia Cristiana del Norte) in Mexico City between September 26 and Oct. 31. As a result, there has been major advancement on the project as the Mexican-led church prepares to celebrate its 14^th anniversary.

The first work group came from the Tomoka Christian Church of Ormond Beach, Florida. Before they arrived, only a few partial walls and the main auditorium floor had been completed. The team went to work on the bathrooms, with the goal of pouring the floor. Due to the sheer amount of preparatory work that was needed, however, the floor-pouring had to be delayed. The team did get almost all of the prep work done for the bathroom floor, poured several columns and put in a retaining wall in the parking area. They also took down a tree that was in the way of the building’s new second floor.

The second work team came from Whitewater Christian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. They arrived just in time to finish the preparation for the bathroom floor and pour it. The team members also served in the homework and English clubs at the Eagles Church and laid sod at team members’ Casey and Terri Hancock’s home.

The third team, from Willamette Christian Church of West Linn, Oregon, cut and built supports for the wooden forms that would be used to pour the second floor. Some of these supports were 10 feet high. This complicated and time-consuming process also involved tying rebar to reinforce certain areas of the floor. The team also cut down 11 trees, cut and put up many plywood forms and painted the large metal columns.

A Mexican crew completed the actual pouring after the teams had to leave. It will be dry in about two weeks, and then the supports can be taken down. In the meantime, the crew is beginning lay the brick for the second-floor walls.

None of this would have been possible without the work of the tireless volunteers, according to CMF missionary Steve Carpenter. “None of our teams complained about anything,” he wrote. “And in fact, they kept asking me for more work to do when the job they were doing was done. But that’s the spirit of a team that’s here to serve.”

Northside Christian Church met in a home for many years before buying property for a building a couple years ago. They have been building it in phases with the help of short-term teams ever since. To see photos of the work progress please go to http://picasaweb.google.com/sknbcarp

FAME, a medical mission based in Indianapolis and a CMF partner in several global projects, has organized a multi-site event to raise public awareness of the seven most preventable illnesses that affect children around the world. “Run for Their Lives,” a 7K run/walk and a 1K family event, will be held on Oct. 24 in Liberty Township, Ohio, and on Oct. 31 in Carmel, Indiana.

Preventable diseases such as pneumonia, dysentery, malaria, measles, HIV, pertusis and tetanus kill 29,000 children under the age of 5 every day, according to a UNICEF report. Globally, 10.6 million children are still dying from preventable causes every year. FAME is engaged in the battle to decrease the incidence of the seven most preventable illnesses through community health initiatives in developing countries and by mobilizing short-term teams of American workers to provide health care and teaching.

For more information about FAME and the “Run for Their Lives,” go to FAME’s website. To register for the run, click here.

Ryan Chapman, a staff member at International Disaster Emergency Services (IDES) in Kempton, Ind., will conclude a seven-day fast on Sunday, Aug. 9, to raise awareness for world hunger and the current drought in Kenya. In his blog about the project, Ryan writes: “Over one billion people are now hungry, according to the United Nations, which is about one out of six people. For less than the price of a value meal ($5) you can feed an entire family in Kenya for a month through IDES.” You can find out more about Ryan’s project here.

IDES recently donated $20,000 to CMF’s East African Famine Relief Fund for drought relief projects in Kenya and Tanzania. For more about that project, see the July 1, 2009, post to this column below, “IDES assists Tanzania Relief Work.”

IDES has partnered with CMF several times recently to meet emergencies in Africa, including funds for a water project in Turkana and Maasai famine relief.

Scott Price, leader of CMF’s Arusha, Tanzania, team, shared an update recently on the continuing drought situation in Tanzania and the generous donation from International Disaster Emergency Services (IDES) that will help the team assist the local people.

All of northern Tanzania is experiencing the effects of the drought, Scott says. Neighbors near the CMF mission center just outside of Arusha have planted three or four times this year with no crops to harvest due to the lack of rain. “Things are looking bleak,” Scott writes.

The government is helping by giving each family 22 pounds (10 kg.) of maize, but that is just a drop in the bucket. The CMF team members – Scott and Annelle Price, Ron and Jane Ann Richmond, and Gary and Judy Woods — are trying to help their neighbors near the mission station by offering daily rations of 1/4 kg. maize, 1/4 kg. beans, and a small amount of cooking oil to 71 families for three months. The team has used the funds received through CMF’s East African Famine Relief Fund to feed the 705 children who attend six schools in Matale, a site in northern Tanzania where the team has planted several churches. These funds are coming to an end, reports Scott, and the team has been asked to not only help these kids for an additional three months but also others who no doubt will die because of the lack of food.

IDES is stepping up to help the team respond to these critical needs with a generous donation of $20,000. This is not the first time IDES has assisted with emergencies in Africa; in the recent past they have donated funds for a water project in Turkana, Maasai famine relief and several other projects. Their help is greatly appreciated especially by those whose lives are helped, perhaps even saved, by the resources given.

Some families have the joy of adopting a child. Traders Point Christian Church in Indianapolis, however, has taken that idea a few steps further by adopting an entire village in the poorest section of the Nairobi, Kenya, slums. They have partnered with CMF missionaries Mary and Wallace Kamau and the Missions of Hope to use the principles of Community Health Evangelism (CHE) to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the poor. Read about their plans to focus on development and breaking the cycle of poverty in this article from Tidings, the Traders Point newsletter.

Our mission partner FAME (Fellowship of Associates of Medical Evangelism) held its annual banquet and auction on April 17 in Carmel, Indiana. More than 400 people attended the event, which provides an opportunity for those who have been part of what God is doing around the world through medical evangelism to learn about the eternal impact FAME’s donors are making and get a glimpse of where the organization is headed next. The auction raised nearly $20,000 that will be used to launch FAME’s work in partnership with CMF missionaries Mary and Wallace Kamau and the Missions of Hope work among the urban poor of Nairobi, Kenya. Check out photos from the evening by clicking this link to FAME’s Banquet & Auction 2009.

Eddie Lowen, senior pastor of West Side Christian Church in Springfield, Illinois, traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, in 2007 with CMF Executive Director Doug Priest. His experiences there meeting the missionaries and children at Missions of Hope changed his life and his church. Click here to read about his experiences and how you can take part in God’s “divine drama” in this article from the April 12, 2009, edition of The Christian Standard.

Nineteen students and staff from Lincoln Christian College, Lincoln, IL, arrived in Nottingham, England, this week for a week-long mission experience with David and Teresa Fittro and CMF team. The group will work primarily in a local school, engaging with the students. This is an annual event and, according to David Fittro, always spiritually challenging. “We have always seen individuals who excel and others who struggle,” said David. “They will daily face students who want to argue and debate about things that are very precious to the LCC team. The team is walking onto the battlefield in our local school.”

After their long days in the classrooms discussing faith with “students who largely have none,” the LCC team will work with the missionaries in prayer walks, youth outreach through clubs and activities, and in encouraging the local churches.

“When teams have been here in the past, we have always seen a new milestone in our work,” said David. “Please pray that God uses this team to make Christ known to the youth, parents and teachers in our community.”