---

Last month - in connection with our church's involvement in the Global Leadership Summit - we once again visited Haiti's capital city. It is always difficult to visit Port-au-Prince. With each trip it becomes more difficult to prepare for the crippling devastation that is present just 750 miles from Miami. Seeing people who live in unimaginable poverty is painful. After a few trips, when nothing has changed, it begins to sink in. Tomorrow will be just like today. Haitian people live without hope. They live in a world of broken promises, void of dreams for tomorrow.

Community Covenant Church in Rehoboth is helping to create a climate in which Haitian leaders can address and solve the problems in their country. These intractable issues have created the systemic poverty that has made Haiti the poorest country in our hemisphere. Our work is unusual because we are not directly involved with feeding the poor, building orphanages, or improving education. All of these activities are critical to helping improve Haiti, but that is not our work.

We are focused on identifying and equipping the leaders of Haiti because everything rises and falls on leadership. The Bible says, "Without wise leadership, a nation is in trouble." (Proverbs 11:14a).

Without effective leaders, no program will ever be administered wisely. Without wise leadership, no improvements to daily Haitian life will ever be imagined and implemented. Without godly leadership, there is no base on which to make moral judgments. Haiti's poverty is the result of a leadership crisis.

How did we come to value leadership so highly? Each summer, Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago gathers some of the world's greatest leaders and broadcasts a live, two-day Leadership Summit in hundreds of churches throughout North America. This conference is designed to help churches recognize and realize more effective leadership. Willow has entrusted our church to produce the Leadership Summit in our community for the last seven years. As we have applied the God-inspired principles, we have learned, our church's mission and members have been revitalized and transformed. This conference is recorded, translated, and distributed to more than 70 cities around the world as the Global Leadership Summit (GLS). This year, for the second time, we were able to represent the GLS in Haiti. In Haiti, the conference attracts church, business, and government leaders to learn godly leadership principles and then invites them to discuss how to make changes in their country. Some 250 leaders attended last month's GLS in Haiti.

Out-of-place conference

The conference seems out of place in Haiti. In the midst of endemic poverty, the men attending the conference dress in dark blue suits and the women wear beautiful dresses. These are leaders in Haiti. I was surprised when I first saw the formal European dress of Haitian leaders.

Then I realized that when dignity is in short supply, those who cherish it will go to extraordinary lengths to preserve it. These leaders in Haiti want to make a difference. These are people who deeply believe, with God's help, they can and must make a difference.

There are many other "leaders" in Haiti who have different expectations. They are the leaders who have learned how to make a living by exploiting poverty, moving drugs, and using corruption to increase their wealth. These are the people who maintain the systems that keep the poverty in place. I'm not even sure they know what they are doing. They seek survival and living by corruption is as normal as breathing in Haiti.

On the last day of our trip, we were privileged to meet with Haiti's Prime Minister Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis to discuss our work. She came to office after last year's food riots resulted in the formation of a new government. She hopes for a better Haiti and seeks to develop programs and leaders in her country that will help eradicate poverty, mismanagement, corruption, and division. We prayed with her, asking God to give her wisdom and strength to solve these seemingly insurmountable problems. She asked us to continue to pray for her and for Haiti. Her leadership challenge is beyond our comprehension. Pray, we must.

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' " (Matthew 25:37-40)

Dennis Baril is the senior pastor of Community Covenant Church in Rehoboth, a position he has held since 1989. Community Covenant Church is a non-denominational Christian Church, where preaching is biblical, practical and applicable to everyday life. Baril was born in Pawtucket, and has lived in Southern New England for most of his life. Before his pastoral appointment, he was a national account manager for AT&T. He and wife, Donna, have two children and five grandchildren, and enjoy sailing and skiing.