CHAMPAIGN, IL — When support from mainland U.S. dropped due to the COVID 19 pandemic, orphanages in Haiti faced a food shortage. A church in Puerto Rico applied to empty tomb®, inc.’s Mission Match® to fill the gap.

Even though Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Maria (2017), Pastor Rolando Cruz of the Iglesia Cristiana Vida Nueva in Ponce, PR, wrote to Mission Match: “The situation in Haiti is difficult since the actual pandemic. Churches in the states stopped sending their monthly contributions … We need to help them because now they are rationing food to stretch the food supply.”

His church had been helping one orphanage in Haiti since 2011. What happened next surprised Pastor Rolando:

“At first we were hoping to raise one thousand [dollars to be matched]. But the response was so huge and that was a faith booster. We did not expect people to give so much with a pandemic going on. We experienced Ephesians 3:20 again and again,” he wrote, referring to the Bible verse that says God can do more than we ask or imagine.

The church applied for a $3,000 Mission Match Matching Contribution, and raised more than that amount.

With $3,000 raised through the congregation’s efforts combined with the $3,000 Matching Contribution, eight orphanages in the OEIDIH (International Evangelical Organization for Integral Development of Haiti) network received food and food preparation supplies to last each of them for two months.

One orphanage representative said he had been trying to figure out how to feed the children since the food ran out that day. And then the supplies arrived.

Pastor Rolando said that people in his church responded to the idea of the Mission Match Matching Contribution being available.

Funds are currently available for up to 10 more congregations to apply for a Mission Match Matching Contribution. Congregations are invited to apply for a Matching Contribution in an amount from $500 to $3,000. The focus of Mission Match is to encourage historically Christian congregations to reach out, in Jesus’ name, to help decrease the rate of under-age-5 mortality in 40 countries. on the Application available at missionmatch.org, Congregations are asked to describe how their project in one of the 40 countries addresses one of the 22 causes of death among these children.

Mission Match is a project of empty tomb, inc. More information is available at missionmatch.org. Videos and photos of the Iglesia Cristiana Vida Nueva project with OEIDIH in Haiti are available via the What’s Happening page at missionmatch.org.

CONTACT: Sylvia Ronsvalle, 217-356-9519, missionmatch@emptytomb.net

Read more news on Disaster Relief and the COVID 19 Pandemic on Missions Box.

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