Getting Back to My Roots
Dear friends of the Drakes and their ministry,
I’ll be heading back to gate 79 at Tampa International Airport this morning. I’m heading out on a two week tour of some of my significant “homes” in my life. A good friend offered to pay part of the cost of a ticket to France so that I could say goodbye to Adam and Faith before they leave France for Africa. Joy was there in July and can’t afford the time off for another trip. I will get to Paris tomorrow morning. The church that we founded will be holding a farewell service and dinner in honor of Adam and Faith and the girls on Sunday. They have been able to have a very positive impact on the church of Moissy Cramayel. They will be missed. I will be speaking at the church on Sunday and will be able to renew fellowship with many of our old friends and ministry partners. I will be helping Adam and Faith pack up their belongings and will actually take them to the airport next Friday. They need to rent a van to get to the airport if that helps you understand how much stuff there will be. I don’t know what they will be doing with their winter clothing since they probably won’t be needing it in Togo. I’m afraid it’s supposed to be going back to Tampa with me. I’m not sure I can fit four winter coats in my carry-on. I will also be returning home next Friday so I will drop them at the airport, take the rental van back, and then get to my flight which leaves two hours later.
I get back home next Friday night and will be leaving right out next weekend for my home turf of Winston-Salem, NC. This is where I grew up and where most of my family lives. I will be participating in the annual missions conference at Piedmont Baptist College from October 3-7. I will be going the following weekend to Richmond, VA, and be speaking on Sunday, October 9th, at the church we pastored for 7 years, Goodwill Baptist Church. These three locations have been part of my life for over 40 years. I am not sure I will do a lot of crying in Richmond or Winston-Salem even though I have a lot of very close friends and family there. I am preparing for some very strong emotions in France.. A year ago, I put Adam and Faith and those beautiful little girls on a plane here in Tampa as they headed out to language school in France. That was tough. This may be tougher. Pray for them as they go. Their container with all their belongs has left the US. They have been able to arrange for housing and a vehicle in Togo. They will spend approximately three years in their first term in Africa. Pray for their adjustment, their health, and their safety. We can’t go with them and we can’t go before them but we can trust Almighty God to care for them much better than we can.
I’ll keep you posted along the way in my adventure. Thanks for your prayers for me and for Joy and Matt who remain behind. God is blessing our family and proving each day just how faithful He is.
Yours for the Harvest,
Evan Drake
Bible Basics International
Last Day in Haiti
Dear friends,
I am about to finish up another amazing week in Haiti. Each day has had some unique experiences. I have been teaching a seminar on evangelism to pastors and church leaders from about 50 different churches in the Croix des Bouquets suburbs of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We have averaged about 100-120 people each day. On Monday, I gave them a workshop theme which was to write their personal testimony and present it within their workshop group. By the time the hour workshop was over, three young participants (age 16-18) had realized they didn’t have a testimony and were led to put their faith in Christ right there in the group.
On Wednesday, Art Spalding and I went to the village of Drouillard to visit the church at Barriere Rouge. BBI has helped this church with some repairs caused by the earthquake. I went over to check on the work. I brought with me another gift that would help the church get closer to finishing. It just so happened that they were having their youth meeting when we got there. We sang and prayed with the group of 30 or so people sitting out in the open air. At the end of the meeting, the lady who had opened up her home to host the meeting received Christ as her Savior. She had been hostile to having her children go to church but God had been softening her heart in recent days. She was ready to receive the gospel.
Did I mention earlier that Art’s truck has been in the shop for about six weeks with some major mechanical problems? This means that we don’t have any (civilized) way to get around. He recently purchased two 250cc motorcycles to allow him to travel the trails and “roads” of the zone out here to the east of PAP. I grew up as a sheltered child. I drove a motorcycle once when I was 12. I have never driven a motorcycle since, until this week. Art gave me the five minute lesson and said, “Let’s go!” So far, I have only laid it down one time cutting across a cornfield, when I hit a patch of very soft, plowed soil. Only my pride was hurt. I tell you this because yesterday, we left the conference to go to a funeral in a neighboring village. When Art couldn’t locate a Double Harvest vehicle for us to take, he said, “I guess we’ll have to take the motorcycles.” His wife got on behind him, and Zan, the young lady who is living with them since the earthquake climbed on behind me. We went about 30 minutes over hill and over dale to get to the church where the funeral was being held. After the funeral, we followed the hearse to the gravesite. I felt a little bit like the Hell’s Angels cortege at the funeral. I am really glad no one had a video camera for this rather challenging experience. We made it home in one piece. I didn’t hit a pig or a chicken, although I almost took out a couple of pedestrians and a bus. I can’t wait to see the inside of a car and real pavement. I’m not ready to change over to a motorcycle.
The conference wraps up this afternoon. I shared the teaching with Mickerson Python, a pastor out of Port-au-Prince. He had to leave yesterday so I was asked to take the entire teaching load today. That meant about 6-7 hours of teaching and answering questions. It’s not really that much more tiring for me to work in French, even though the French side of my brain gets tired a little faster than the English side. The pastors are starting to think I’m more Haitian than I deserve because some of them ask their questions in Creole which is much easier for them. I can understand a lot even though I can only say a few sentences in Creole. Heaven will sure be great when we don’t have any language barriers. The heat has been challenging. It has been about 100 degrees each day and very hot at night. There are fans in the meeting room, but it still gets very hot for the teacher and the students.
We handed out certificates this afternoon to all the participants who attended all five days of teaching. I spent a while after the meeting with one of the Christian workers who had let sin creep into his life. He is battling guilt and doubts. We prayed together and I tried to give him some counsel and encouragement. The trouble is that his church has acknowledged he did wrong but hasn’t really offered him much help to get past this. If you think of it, pray for M.
I am leaving tomorrow morning at shortly after 5 am to go to the airport. I hope we don’t have to ride the motorcycles. I will land in Tampa at 3:30 pm. Our second son, Jon, his wife Leslie, and their son, Joey will be there when I get there. We’ll be celebrating Labor Day weekend together with them, which should really be fun. I want to say again how grateful I am for your prayers and encouragement. Haiti is a very special place with enormous challenges. I thank the Lord for letting me have this important training ministry to pastors.
Yours for the Harvest,
Evan Drake
“Whatever”
Dear friends of our ministry,
Flexible! I was once asked what the most important quality was for being a missionary. I think this is the quality I would suggest first. You just kind of say, “Whatever” and go with the flow. I got to Haiti Saturday at noon. Art Spalding met me and we ran a few errands before heading to the suburbs where Double Harvest Mission is located. I had been asked to perform a wedding for one of the pastors here in Croix des Bouquets so I was fully prepared to head to a wedding ceremony from the airport. It turns out the wedding has been postponed until December (when I will be back again). The Haitian pastor tried to get a hold of me on Thursday but, like usual, it was a bad connection. So, no wedding. I even brought a nice tie with me that I won’t get to use. Art asked if I wanted to go with his team to do an evangelistic campaign in Cité Soleil which is probably the most dangerous and unwelcoming slum in all of Port-au-Prince. There was a time that ordinary people wouldn’t even go in there without a police escort. The church here has been invited to show the JESUS film in different sections of the area on Saturday nights. Last week, they had 350 people on the street watching the film. As we headed downtown, the sky got darker and lightning was flashing and then the rain started falling. By the time we got close it was obvious that we weren’t going to be able to set up the open air film. We turned around and went home. I was disappointed for several reasons. One is that I always wanted to say that I had been to Cité Soleil and came out alive.
Late that evening, I was “reminded” for the first time that I was supposed to preach in the Baptist church of Coupon. I got there at 8:30 (the service started shortly after 8:00) and was given the pulpit at 10:15. I had been told that my message would be translated from French into Creole but nobody stepped up. I called one of the pastors up and asked if he was going to translate. He said that I spoke so well that nobody needed a translation and that even if they couldn’t understand my French, they would be able to listen in spirit. Okay. At least it cut the message time in half. I think my message wasn’t much longer than the pastoral prayer (that means the prayer was long, not that my message was short).
After lunch, we went to several of the villages here on the Plaine du cul de sac to give out some humanitarian supplies and to visit a few people. I was able to go see the church plant that is going on in Le Rocher (used to be called Mawozo “hicktown”), one of the poorest places I have been. God is doing a work there. Art has gotten a church going that now has about 100 people in attendance and they have opened a school where there has never been a school and they have over 300 students. The children are clothed, given a hot meal and an education, something they would never have received otherwise. The school and church meeting in a pole supported building which is covered in tarps. They really need a permanent building.
Last night we tried to go to another film evangelism open air meeting that was being held nearby but we couldn’t locate where they were having it. It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t have to ride on the incredibly bumpy roads (I call the truck the “chiropractor”). Somewhere during the evening I heard that the pastors’ conference that was starting Monday morning was an all day thing. Initially I was invited to do a morning conference that would end with lunch and evening preaching services in the local church. I came prepared for two hours of teaching each morning and an evening service. Well, they canceled the evening services and added an extra four hours a day to the conference. I missed the memo on both of those changes. That’s why the word “flexible” came to mind. If I can’t say in 20 hours what I was supposed to say in 10 hours then I must have a problem.
The pastors’ conference started this morning. Most of the same pastors that I teach each January were there. We had about 90 participants on the first day. I taught the first two hours and the last two hours of the day. A Haitian pastor, Pastor Python took the middle four hours. It was about 95 degrees and very humid so it took some adjusting for me to handle the heat. I am drained tonight. It might be from teaching for four hours in French. It could be from listening to four hours of teaching from Pastor Python in Creole. I am pretty sure I will sleep well tonight.
I would ask you to pray about something specific. BBI has been making plans to build a series of houses here in Haiti for people who lost everything in last year’s earthquake. We have opted for a system that allows us to send a container of six sturdy, prefab house kits down that can be installed on a slab in about one day per house without needing professional builders. I have discovered since getting here that all shipments are blocked at the port and have been for several months. The port is holding everyone hostage by asking for exorbitant fees to release containers of humanitarian supplies. Only a few big organizations are getting anything through. As much as we are committed to our house plan, we may have to rethink the project and return to a house plan that uses materials that can be purchased in Haiti. Would you pray that God would show us what we need to do.
I really appreciate your concern, prayers, and encouragement. I’ll keep you posted as the week goes along. I am supposed to get home on Saturday unless some hurricane gets in the way or something.
Yours for the Harvest,
Evan Drake
Bible Basics International
Gate 79
Dear prayer partners,
I am at the Tampa airport before sunup waiting to take off to Miami and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The hurricane decided to bother a lot of other people’s plans but it seems to have left me alone for the time being. I will be in Haiti before lunch if all goes according to plan. I am scheduled to do a training seminar on evangelism with a group of churches that I have worked with before. We will be having four hours of training sessions each morning and close with lunch. I am excited to be doing the teaching. I will also be checking out some possibilities for building houses for Haiti, a new BBI project that is beginning to take shape.
I appreciate your prayers for safety and for a fruitful ministry. Please pray for my family who allows me to go on these adventures while keeping things going at home. Pray for the office of BBI that is a bustle of activity these days. God is at work and we are trying to ride His wave. I’ll keep you posted along the way.
God bless you,
Evan Drake
STAR Team 2011 – July 26TH
Dear friends,
Our BBI leadership team, Herman Meister, Sam Montoya and myself traveled here to central Honduras on Sunday in order to visit with our BBI missions personnel working in the town of Siguatepeque. We are staying with Mario and Betty Guevara and attended Mario’s church on Sunday night. It was a very good service except for the hard rain falling on the very loud tin roof. On Monday morning we had an early visit with Melvin and Alejandra Romero and their four beautiful children, church planters here in town. Alejandra prepared a wonderful Honduran breakfast. We were really thrilled to see how God has been using them in these church planting ministries. On Monday afternoon we went out visiting with Mario and Betty. They took us to see some people from their church who work in the making of pottery. It was fascinating to watch the skill of the potter on a wheel that she turned with her foot. We all made reference to Jeremiah’s teaching about God as the potter.
This morning, we visited with Travis and Emily Mitten and their four precious girls. They are the newest additions to the Siguatepeque team. God has opened up an exciting ministry of training church leaders. The Mittens have adjusted to their new home and ministry with visible ease and are really making a difference in three different towns. They are training well over 20 church leaders each week and the demand is growing.
After a great lunch with the Mittens, we made the spur of the moment decision to drive an hour’s distance to an area where we may be able to do a STAR team evangelistic campaign next year. We don’t usually get this kind of jump start, but we met with the lead pastor, selected a hotel, and saw some of the communities and churches that we should be working with. So, it looks like STAR Team 2011 will take place in Santa Barbara, Honduras, not far from one of prettiest mountain lakes you’d expect to see in Central America. There are 13 churches who seem genuinely excited about us coming. This will be one of our first rural STAR Teams as we will be going into several villages that will require a four wheel drive vehicle to get there. We will probably have a medical STAR Team in May and an evangelism STAR team in July.
Tonight, we took the whole team out to a local restaurant. It gave us a real sense of family with our missionaries. What a blessing it is to be part of such a great team. If you think about it, pray for the BBI Honduras family, here in Siguatepeque and in Roatán.
We hit the road tomorrow morning at 7 am to go back down the mountain (Siguatepeque is at about 4000 ft altitude) to San Pedro Sula (about a two hour drive). We fly out at 11:30 and have a layover in Houston before getting home tomorrow night at 10:30. It will be good to get home but we are full of the blessings of the Lord. Thanks for your part in this ministry. Your prayers have sustained us. Rejoice with us in the fruit that God has given. He alone gets all the praise.
Your servant,
Evan Drake
STAR Team Thursday, July 23rd.
Dear friends,
Just let me give a brief close to the week of evangelism here. We held the closing rally tonight. The crowd wasn’t huge but there were 200-300 people present. Over and over again this week, the gospel has been presented in schools, in homes, on the streets and in churches. The final number is not definite but over 600 people received Christ and over 300 rededicated their lives to the Lord. We were able to train dozens of church members in how to witness and expect to see the churches applying the things they have heard and seen. As our team members prepare to go back home, they are tired but very encouraged by what the Lord has done.
As I told you before, I will be taking the boat back to the mainland on Sunday morning and we will be driving 5-6 hours to Siguatepeque in central Honduras. We will visit our BBI missionaries there and be heading home on Wednesday. The rest of the team will be flying home on Sunday.
Many lives have been changed by the amazing power of the gospel. We are humbled to have been God’s instruments. To God be the glory, great things He has done!
Your servant,
Evan Drake
STAR Team Thursday, July 21st.
Dear friends,
It seems like I am sitting down for the first time in three days. We have been on the move here in Roatán and God has been blessing wonderfully. We have such a dedicated team of workers. They have gone wherever we asked them and tried their best to carry out ministry in an effective way. The participating churches have had some trouble keeping their part of the campaign organized but we have managed to get the job done, no matter what the problem was.
Let me give you an example. We planned to do a VBS in two of the communities. The pastors said it would work and began planning. When we got here, they informed us that it might not work because all of the children are in school this week. Just when we thought it would all fall apart, we were told that the principal of the school had agreed to let our workers come in and do the VBS program in the public school! So, each day we have been sharing with many children that probably wouldn’t have come to the VBS at the church.
On Tuesday, I went visiting with Pastor Vladimir at the church of First Bight. This is a very poor community which is right next to one of the fanciest tourist resorts on the island. The church has recently been renovated and the pastor’s apartment fixed so that it doesn’t flood when it rains. The community is on a hillside, so we spent the day doing what I affectionately called “mountain goat” evangelism. My translator for the day was a 65 year old fisherman named “Junior.” He was hurting so bad when we finished that he asked to be sent somewhere else the next day. We went down a couple of trails into the bush/jungle. After a mile or so, we came upon a house. A couple lived there with their ten children. They all listened to the gospel and the father rededicated his life to the Lord. They promised to put everybody in the family dump truck on Saturday and come to our closing rally. We then walked back up the trail and down a parallel trail to another house in the woods where there were close to 20 people living in outright poverty. I shared the gospel and had the sense that the devil himself had a strong hold on that place. The oppression was visible on the faces of the people.
Yesterday, I walked the streets of West End, a beautiful town with a lovely beach in the middle of a half moon bay. Elmer, the pastor’s son went with Rob Vollmer and me. Elmer had been addicted to drugs and alcohol and was miraculously saved two years ago. Rob, a former drug addict really hit it off with Elmer. Elmer took us to talk to his friends. We stopped at a picnic table at the beach where 9 of his friends were sitting, waiting to go out fishing (several were holding large fishing knives in their hands). Rob shared his testimony and I presented the gospel. These hard man, all who are involved in drugs, listened intently and seemed genuinely touched by the message. We had prayer with them and can’t really be sure if they received Christ. Elmer will follow up on them. We wandered the streets all day, finding friends and acquaintances that had never trusted Christ. Several made a decision to receive Christ before day’s end. I preached in the evening service in the church. At the close of the service, a young lady named Amanda asked to speak with me. She had been saved the day before. That morning, Rob and I had led her boyfriend to Christ. She told me that she believed God was telling her to be baptized. She said that she didn’t know what she needed to do since she and her boyfriend were living together and they had a child. Should she get married, separate, wait to be baptized or just go forward? We talked for long time about the need to be baptized and the need to get their life in order. It was exciting to see a person asking exactly the right questions after the Holy Spirit has come into her life for only 24 hours.
I want to thank you for praying for us. We have been spared any real problems or dangers. There have only been a couple of stomach issues for people and no one has gotten sick or hurt. It has been very hot and we are all tired at the end of a very long day. We should get some R & R tomorrow or Saturday. I hope to get a little snorkeling in since the reef is beautiful here in Roatán.
Your servant,
Evan Drake
STAR 2011 Roatán – Arrival
Dear friends,
It has only been 3 weeks since I got back from an amazing trip to India. Early this morning I left from Tampa to join up with a group of 18 people for a BBI STAR Team evangelism trip to the bay island of Roatán, Honduras. Roatán is the home of Radio HRGS, a great BBI ministry. We have developed a 20 year partnership with the Baptist churches on the island and they are hosting our team for a week of evangelism. The travel day went very smoothly. One of our team members coming from Dallas did not find his luggage when he got here. That was the only hitch in the system. We met with the church leaders this afternoon and they are trying to get ready for the flurry of activity that will begin all over the island tomorrow morning. We will be holding two VBS clubs in two different churches. One of our team members will be going into the public schools to share his testimony of how God delivered him from drug addiction. The rest of us will be doing house to house visits where we will share our testimonies and a gospel presentation. Each evening there will be services in the seven participating churches. The week will close in Saturday evening with an island wide rally in a local school gymnasium. We never know what to expect in a week like this. God has sent a veteran team this year and it may indicate that we will face some challenges that require maturity and flexibility. We are expecting great things. Pray that we will be an encouragement to the churches here.
Roatán is not a bad place to do mission work. The scenery is beautiful with blue water and blue sky. In spite of the outer tranquility, these are people who need Jesus. Pray that we will speak to people who understand their need of salvation.
At the close of the week, I will travel with Herman Meister and Sam Montoya of BBI to the central Honduras town of Siguatepeque where we will spend 3 days with three of our BBI missionary families. I will be getting back home on July 27th. In case you forgot, Joy will be traveling on Thursday to visit Adam and Faith and the girls in Paris. She is really going to pick up Matt who has been in France for 6 weeks and has to come back to get ready for school. Joy realized that she will be saying goodbye to our kids and grandkids for 3 years since they will be heading out to Africa in a few months. She’s packing her Kleenex.
I’ll keep you posted as the week goes along. See if you can pray for us each day that God will open doors for us and protect us on the windy roads of Roatán. Thank you for your faithfulness,
Evan Drake for all the STAR team
Home Again
I really just wanted to say that I got home after an amazing week. I was so glad to see Joy and Matt last night at about 8 pm. The week was so full that it took a lot out of me. I taught for close to 30 hours in five days and spent a good bit of time talking to pastors on every break. It was a very special time and I am still overwhelmed emotionally by what the pastors shared with me about their ministries in this very difficult time and place. I would be happy to share more at another time if you are interested.
On Saturday morning, I visited another church that is in bad need of repair. The end result of the week’s survey is: 3 families that need a house at $3,000-$4,000 a piece and 2-3 churches that desperately need to be rebuilt. There are many other needs but these seem to have come to the front of the list. We have already sent the money to repair one other church. This will begin within the next two weeks. BBI has raised the money for at least two houses but we will need to get more funds in to be able to commit to more. We may also be looking for work teams to help out in these areas.
Many of you prayed for my safety and my health. I encountered quite a bit of fear about cholera among the people. I saw some people with typhoid. There is a lot of stress about the political situation and growing fear that after the holiday, the post-election violence will start back up.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot to show for the nearly 12 months since the earthquake. I am sure a lot has been done. But, it still only seems like a drop in the bucket.
My final word from this trip is, “don’t forget to pray for Haiti.” I love these people and believe strongly that God has allowed me to have a ministry there for a reason. They need our help, our support and our prayers. Thank you for praying for me while I was there and praying me home. I never know what God has been able to do but I am sure that it is far beyond my abilities and my faith could ever imagine.
Half Way Home
I arrived safely in Haiti on Sunday and, for once, all my luggage arrived with me. I got to the Double Harvest mission property before dark which was nice. I was able to get settled in before the power went off for the night. I began teaching on Monday morning for the five day pastors’ conference. Although I was supposed to be splitting the day’s teaching with another man, he has not been able to be here other than half a day on Monday and another half day today. This means that I am on for around 30 hours of teaching and facilitating this week. It takes a little extra brain drain to do it all in French so I am ending each day pretty wrung out. It is very exciting to see that 180 pastors have been coming each day. This is way above any other year that we have done the conference. I really enjoy the interaction with the Haitian pastors. I have been able to make some very good friends after 8 years of coming to Haiti and doing this conference. This has been an extremely difficult year for them. They have lost a lot and yet they have kept going. Things have not really improved since the earthquake which took place almost one year ago. They have stepped up the demolition efforts and there are more temporary shelters being built than ever before, but things are not really much different than they were a month or two after the earthquake. On top of that, they are paralyzed by fear of the cholera epidemic that has been affecting people all over, including the area where I am. Every time someone has a stomach problem, they worry that it is cholera. The political situation is calm for now but it is more of a holiday truce. Most people believe the violence and riots will start back up on January 6th, when daily life should be getting back to whatever normal is in Haiti.
I had an exciting opportunity this morning following our morning coffee break. Since I wasn’t scheduled to teach again until after lunch, I asked Art Spalding to take me on a quick tour of the villages around here. Pastor Jean Jonel St. Cyr, a local Haitian pastor and one of the men I respect the most, went with us. We inspected Pastor St. Cyr’s church, which I have preached in a couple of times. They had me over for New Year’s Day dinner (pumpkin soup) last year and I prayed for his wife to have a son, which is their deepest desire as a couple. He shared with me that she miscarried in October. We inspected their church building which received some damage during the quake. I came with some money that our BBI Canada board had made available to me. We have agreed to pay for the repairs to his church out of that money. We would like to come up with some more money to be able to put in a small storage room/office and a toilet for the church since they don’t have a bathroom.
We then drove another mile to visit a Baptist church in Barriere Rouge that was totally destroyed in the earthquake. They have benches set up under tarps in what used to be the church. The pastor told me that they had between 130 and 200 people attending their outdoor services. We are working on an estimate of what it will take to rebuild this church. We passed two other churches that were completely destroyed by the earthquake. Following that, we rode over terrible roads to Lisiere to visit a house that Source of Light Mission had built for a Christian family. Double Harvest has been building dozens of houses also, which have been a wonderful thing for the local villages. BBI is going to commit to build a couple of houses for two young couples who are currently living in the tents that we sent down in July. The standard single family home plan that is being used costs about $3500 to build. We have the funds to be able to do that and may try to put together a team to come down and help out. It would be great to come up with enough funds to be able to build several more houses and the two churches that I visited that have been destroyed. We made this little journey in a Kawasaki mule, a glorified golf cart with an attitude. It didn’t seem to enjoy the Haitian roads any more than my backside did.
So, in spite of being shaken and stirred, I am very excited about my day. I have been praying that God would show us what to do with the money that came in for rebuilding in Haiti. I think we have the projects that we need to start building.
It has been tough to get on the internet. I am sending this bulletin in hopes that it can get out tonight. I don’t know if I will have the time, the electricity, or the internet connection to send another one before I head for home on Saturday morning. I am scheduled to land in Tampa at 7 pm Saturday night. Thank you for your prayers. God has been so good and He is always faithful.