The Rev'd. Dr. George Freeman, General Secretary of the World Methodist Council, has issued a "Special Edition" of his regular "First Friday Letters." These letters are sent to the members of the World Methodist Council Executive Committee on the first Friday of each month (or there abouts!). The special edition letter addresses the recent earthquake in Haiti. It includes a message from the Rev'd. Dr. John Barrett, Chairperson of the World Methodist Council.
This special edition, along with the previous letters can be downloaded from the WMC site by clicking here.
Thanks to Drs. Freeman and Barrett for addressing the WMC denominations at this time so critical to Haiti. Thanks, also, to Dr. Stan Ingersol from the Church of the Nazarene Archives for his report about the Nazarenes in Haiti, as mentioned in the letter.
According to the 2007-20011 World Methodist Council Handbook of Information (though the statistics are admittedly a bit dated), the largest expression of Methodism in Haiti is found in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (reported as 76,336 members) and the Church of the Nazarene (there reported as 70,716 members, but now having 118,000 members). Other, smaller expressions of Methodism in Haiti include: The Free Methodist Church, The Wesleyan Church, The Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas, and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
As the WMC letter indicates, we who are a part of the world-wide Methodist family are called to pray for the people of Haiti and "to contribute liberally to agencies within [our] Church which are involved in emergency relief for Haiti." - For Nazarenes, the place to give is at http://www.ncm.org/HaitiEarthquake .
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