02 Sep Nine Persons Baptized at Eagle Quest

Christine Scroggs (right), Eagle Quest Church (Columbia City, Ind.)

On August 30, Eagle Quest hosted its annual service at the lake. Senior pastor Tim Scroggs opened the service, and the message was delivered by our worship leader, Andrew Franks. It was a great day, celebrating outside in God’s creation. We continued our celebration by baptizing nine new believers. It was an awesome time of worship, celebration, and love!

02 Sep 30 Persons Baptized at Mill Chapel

Marshall Woods (right), senior pastor, Mill Chapel UB church (Reedsville, W. Va.)

We have had many persons make first-time commitments to Jesus, and some rededications as well. As a result, we had a great baptismal service at the Cheat River. There were a total of approximately 30 baptisms.

We offer a class called Next Steps for new believers and persons just wanting a refresher course. God is doing great things at Mill Chapel.

About 250 people attended the church’s Back to School Bash. We rented outside play equipment, including a bounce house, obstacle course, and mechanical bull.

We also honored two ladies who have served Mill Chapel for many years: Thelma Huggins for teaching her Sunday school class, Nancy Yoke for playing piano.

25 Aug Avlon UB Erects New Church Sign

Avlon UB church (Bremen, Ohio installed a new sign in front of the church. It incorporates the new UB logo.

22 Aug Baptisms in Orrstown, Pa.

Ken Williamson, pastor of Orrstown UB church (Orrstown, Pa.), reported that they baptized five people this summer.

22 Aug Praying for Persecuted Christians

Darwin Dunten, senior pastor, Findlay First UB church (Findlay, Ohio)

Yesterday, our church opened the altar following the services to pray for our brothers and sisters in Iraq and around the world who are being persecuted. The altar was filled with 48 adults. May I challenge all of you to do the same and make it a day of prayer for our world wide church family.

15 Aug Salem UB, Gener Lascase, and Our Haitian Church in Pennsylvania

As jobs dwindle in Florida, more Haitians are making their way north up the East Coast.

Pastor Gener Lascase is one who started in Florida, but had to search elsewhere for employment. In 2008, he found himself in Chambersburg for the first time.

Lascase said that for years, Florida remained a base for workers to find jobs while still remaining close to Haiti. They would farm corn, sugar and more, but in recent years those jobs have dried up.

After the earthquake in 2010, many Haitians, including Lascase, decided to move from their country. In 2010, he was one of the first Haitians to come to Franklin County. Now, the population in Chambersburg is about 450 souls, and growing every season.

Lascase felt a spiritual and religious calling to settle in Pennsylvania.

Lascase had been in contact with Pastor Jason Bakker (right), the associate pastor at Salem United Brethren Church. At the same time Lascase made the decision to move to the area, Bakker and the church had an opening in one of their buildings. Bakker said he felt it was a sign that Lascase could use the space as a Sunday school for Haitians, which had been lacking in the community.

Lascase said he had around seven people in his first class. The next week, he had two more. Now, four years later, they have outgrown the upstairs section of the Salem United Church, and moved to a space at the Second Lutheran Church, 240 E. Washington St.

Lascase said he now has up to 75 people attending Sunday school classes, and can expect around 65 to 75 people in church for services every Sunday.

The services are performed mostly in Creole, as “every Haitian speaks Creole” as well as a mix of other languages. However, English is spoken among the congregation as well.

As more Haitians are expected in the area, Lascase said he will continue to reach out to them and spread his faith.

“He’s a man who is (and) has the utmost integrity,” Bakker said about Lascase. “He has very strong conservative convictions about what the Bible teaches and how it applies today.”

Affirming Community

Jean Claude Benoit, 50, is one of the church members Lascase entrusts to assist in prayer leadership. He arrived in Chambersburg after the earthquake.

Benoit still works in the family-owned orchards next to the Salem United Brethren Church. Lascase said many people, once they settle in Chambersburg, change from being farm workers to warehouse workers. Benoit is not one of those people.

“I like it! I like not having to wake up early,” Benoit said. While Lascase said many workers coming from Haiti are not highly skilled, Benoit said he used to work in technology and machinery in Haiti.

However he found the jobs were better in the United States.

“(Chambersburg) is a nice place, it’s a good place for people looking for jobs,” Benoit said.

Benoit and Lascase have helped lead the community through prayers, despite the ever-present language barrier that keeps the Haitian community separate from the greater Chambersburg community. Benoit said that for people like himself, who were able to go to school while growing up, language was a focus of their education.

“We love languages. Spanish, French, English,” he said. “The more you know.”

He also learned Latin growing up, but for him, like the rest of his countrymen, Creole is his first language.

“They didn’t have a common language,” Benoit said of the people who helped build Creole. “They were from different tribes. There are misspellings, misuse of the conventions of other languages.”

Slowly, Beniot said, they have reformed the language and are beginning to build more structure to the language in recent years.

“Communicating is difficult,” Beniot said. “For the ones who have skills, they are in a good place. When they come here, they can be hired. With the language barrier, it creates a problem at work.”

Benoit said that he works with Lascase and others to help Haitians interpret when they need it, and teach them to understand so that those people can pass it on.

While they continue to deal with the language problem, there haven’t been community leaders besides Lascase to build them up and bring them together. “I think it’s necessary to affirm yourself as a Haitian community,” Benoit said.

For now, Benoit will continue to assist with the church, and lead services when Lascase cannot. In all, he said he hopes they can educate the community into having real leaders on all fronts, whether church or business.

Helping Hands

Although many Haitians have lived and worked in Florida for years before coming to Chambersburg, they possess very little when they get here. Lascase had to find a place for himself, his wife and five children to live.

Bakker and his church assisted Lascase in moving to Chambersburg, and have continued to do so with other new families.

“When they get here, they try to find a house,” Lascase said. He then helps them make contact with possible jobs, helps them with applications to work and then assists them with getting their kids into schools and eventually buying cars.

The Salem United Brethren Church members assist them by providing some of the same services to people newer to the community.

Bakker said that they’ll offer people use of the church’s food pantry, and help them find furniture and move into wherever they are staying.

However, Lascase remains the leader of their assistance to the community, Bakker said.

“As Lascase has been acquainted, he’s been able to help out with the families,” Bakker said. “He also knows what companies are currently hiring.”

Lascase said that every day he helps the newer arrivals get settled, outside of his normal tasks as a church pastor.

“Every day, if I finish work at 4, I’m still working at 10,” Lascase said.

“Haitians, the first thing they’re doing is working to pay their bills,” Lascase said. “You work and put money (toward paying) your bills.”

Past that, Lascase will then help educate the community members on family dynamics, changing what many of them are used to.

“Men don’t know how to help the wife — they think she’s got to work, clean, cook, while they watch TV,” Lascase said. “That’s not right. We teach them to clean, cook.”

To him, the family aspect is vital for the community members’ success with each other and their church relationship.

“I say, if the family is not right, the church is not right,” Lascase said.

Sharing His Beliefs

If there’s one problem in building the Haitian community locally, Lascase said, it’s that as a religion-based leader, he doesn’t have as many chances to reach out to Haitians who are not religious.

“It’s hard to meet all of them,” Lascase said, “Some of them just don’t go into church.”

Of the 450 or more Haitians in the area, Lascase said he sees around 120 people at his largest services. Week to week, he will see around 65-75 people, and he’ll see the larger group when he has special guest speakers from Hagerstown or other areas.

For the ones who don’t attend church, Lascase said people often don’t practice any religion. In Haiti, there is a large Christian following, Lascase said, which makes outreach easier to people who do practice the religion. Lascase said he still tries to find ways to reach out to the rest of the community.

This Fourth of July, Lascase and his family held a party and invited as many people from the Haitian community as they could. Lascase said his party was somewhat successful, and he was able to meet more of the community, and he looks forward to trying again.

Lascase said more people are coming from Florida every harvest season, including others who knew him as a religious leader.

“God needed me to do something in Chambersburg,” Lascase said. “God wants me to start a ministry in Chambersburg. God knows many Haitians are going to be in this area.”

12 Aug The UB Logo in Action

Devonshire Church (Harrisburg, Pa.) incorporated the new UB logo into its outdoor sign. Looks real nice.

11 Aug Annual Outdoor Service at Morocco UB

On Sunday, August 10, Morocco UB church (Temperance, Mich.) held its annual outdoor service. It was a beautiful day. Pastor Todd Greenman brought the message, and at the end of the service three people requested to be baptized. The service attendance was 81, and 85 people came for the potluck afterwards. The church’s  two Master Grillers grilled cheese and hamburgers, hot dogs and brats.

Morocco’s VBS started August 11 and runs through Friday, August 15.

11 Aug New Parking Lot for Mt. Zion

Russ Wagner, senior pastor, Mt. Zion UB church (Decatur, Ind.)

Several time in the past few months, our current parking lot was filled to capacity. Many friends and family members who attended here in the 1950s and 1960s will remember that there used to be a parking lot on the south side of the church. Over the years, it had grown over with grass and eventually became yard. Today, we took the sod off the top, brought in new gravel, and re-opened the old parking lot making a new parking lot.

05 Aug Robert Espinoza, Our Hispanic Leader in El Paso

Phil Whipple, Bishop

After our weekend visit to the UB church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bishop Denis Casco, my wife Sandy, and I returned to El Paso on Tuesday night, July 1. The previous week, we attended services at two of the four UB churches in El Paso. Now we went to a third church, but only for a meal—no service that night.

This church, called Templo Cristiano Vida Grata, is located in Montana Vista, a suburb of El Paso. The building is unique. It started as a garage, and has been added onto a couple times. It can seat 80-some people, which is about what they run in attendance. The church’s pastor, Rafael Coss, and several of his children were there; the youngest is probably still in high school.

Robert Espinoza and some of his adult children came that night. Robert has been a United Brethren pastor for least 15 years now, and would be considered the leader of the UB churches in El Paso. He and his wife and children all speak English very well. Robert is a humble, sweet-spirited guy. It’s easy to feel a connection with his spirit, and I told him so.

After the meal, we sat around and talked about a variety of things. Robert spoke a little about his deep appreciation for Denis Casco, and his appreciation for us being there. Then Denis and I both spoke.

At a restaurant, I asked Robert to tell me his story. He was initially reluctant, saying that his life before Christ was not a pretty picture. But as we warmed in conversation, he shared his spiritual journey.

Robert was born in Mexico, but his family moved to El Paso when he was a boy. That’s where he grew up. Back in the 1960s, he lived sort of the hippy lifestyle as part of the San Francisco drug scene. One particular time he was close to death. His brother was instrumental in getting him out of that lifestyle.

Robert underwent a powerful conversation. He became involved in a church and even did some preaching in San Francisco. But then he felt the urge to return to El Paso.

Robert has, I think, six children. One son, Robert Jr., also went down a very bad path, one strewn with a lot of easy money. He ended up spending four years in prison for money laundering, and his wife left him.

Robert Jr. told me he is thankful for prison, because it forced him to confront his sin and turn his life around. He has been out of prison for about three years now, and God has really turned his life around. He remains single, and has a relationship with his children.

Robert Jr. now leads one of the two services at El Sembrador, the church his father pastors. They discovered that kids were leaving the church when they got old enough, and that bothered them. When they inquired about it, they learned that the younger people were struggling to understand Spanish. They had come up through American schools, and English was their preferred language. So now the early service is in English, with Robert Jr. preaching. It is attended mostly by younger people.

This, I understand, is a challenge faced by Hispanic churches across the country. As the heart language changes from Spanish to English, they must either adapt or limit their fishing pond to persons who maintain Spanish as their primary language.