Blog

Friends and Supporters of CMDA,  

Almost two weeks ago, my wife Megan and I returned from a fruitful trip to Haiti with Global Health Outreach (the missions branch of CMDA). We want to thank you for your prayers, financial support, and partnership in allowing us to minister to our GHO teammates and to the Haitian people. I am happy to report that our medical, dental, and eye teams were able to see over 1,300 people collectively, and that over 100 people made decisions to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. We know that your prayers and support were such an import conduit of God’s love to the Haitian people, so we want to report to you just a few ways that we observed the Lord at work. ! !

I am absolutely amazed that the Lord allowed us to share the Gospel with each of the 1,300 Haitian patients that we cared for in the clinics. On one hand, this will not be surprising to most of you who know that GHO focuses not just on physical health, but on the spiritual health of the person. Yet, a hard reality on this trip is that logistics, time restraints, and other factors can make it difficult to talk with patients one-to-one about Jesus. On the Sunday before our clinics began, I trained our team in how to share Christ with a patient. This included training for using the Evangecube, one tool that can be used for explaining the Gospel and encouraging a personal response to it. On Monday, I was so encouraged to see our GHO teammates using their Evangecubes to share Christ with the patients they were seeing. This continued all week in the clinics and resulted in many conversations, prayers, and encouragements with the Haitian people. In fact, I calculated that one member of our GHO team shared the Gospel message over 200 times. Although the numbers are staggering, praise God that many Haitians names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life during this trip!

Furthermore, we were able to connect these new believers to the local church that we partnered with, so we are confident that they will receive the discipleship and encouragement needed to grow in Christ. God will complete this work that He started!! ! Besides the doors that God opened for us to minister to the Haitians and our GHO teammates from all over the USA, God also allowed Megan and I to minister to our central Indiana teammates. Two students from Marian University, we will call them W and A (with Megan in this picture), participated in the trip. W and I had many productive conversations about how healthcare provides an effective platform for the gospel of Jesus in unreached countries all over the world. W mentioned that he is praying about being a medical missionary some day. Praise God! We are also thankful that Megan and A connected very well, and A opened up about some difficult issues in her life and Megan was able to pray with her on multiple
occasions. Finally, another member of our central Indiana team, we will call her C, reported to us that she was sharing her faith in Christ for the first time on this trip!! !

For me personally, I experienced a shift in my role on this trip as compared to our trip last year to El Salvador. Last year I concentrated on evangelism to the people of El Salvador. However, my role on this year’s trip was more of a shepherding and equipping role to our GHO team. I enjoyed the blessing of leading devotions each day, training our team in evangelism, and facilitating prayer and worship each evening. I enjoyed taking a backseat role in the “front lines” ministry of evangelism to the Haitians, so that my GHO teammates could enjoy the blessing of sharing Christ with someone who had not yet made a decision to follow Christ. It was truly a privilege to help in equipping the saints for the work of ministry, similar to the model we see in the book of Ephesians. ! !

This experience on this GHO trip of setting others up for success in ministry makes me grateful once again for all of you. Without your prayers and financial partnership, Megan and I could not have participated in this trip, let alone experience the joys of cross-cultural ministry. Thank you so much for your investment in our lives, this GHO Haiti team, and the Haitian people. We are trusting God that there will be fruit from this trip that will be credited to your account when you meet our wonderful Savior in glory.! ! Thanks again and we look forward to connecting again soon!! ! Gratefully,! ! ! ! ! Jason Doddridge