MFI's "Missionary Spotlight":

showing the people who are sharing the Gospel in the West Indies

August Spotlight - Pastor Joseph Saintil, New Jerusalem Baptist Mission

Pastor Joseph Saintil grew up in the small village of Pilot ("Peelow"), in northern Haiti.  Although he has an older sister, he is the oldest of the six boys in the family.  Five of the six brothers are now pastors.  When he was seven years old, he attended a neighborhood Catholic school.  On the Sunday he was to make his "First Communion", his father woke him up early and took him to the local Baptist Church instead.   Five years later, at age 15, he accepted Christ and was baptized.  At 17, he began to teach Sunday School and participate in the youth choir.  Through the ministry of Alice and Kathy at EBAC, he attended Bible School, completing his studies in 1984.  In August 1983, he began his first church.  From 1989-1993, he attended Bible college at UCNH in Limbe.  During this time, a church friend made him aware of a piece of property nestled between the ocean and the river that flows through Cap Haitien.  After much prayer, he decided to purchase the land to build a church.  With simple wooden posts and a roof covered with coconut sleeves, his first church service there had a total of seven attendees.  As his church began to grow, MFI began a partnership of sending in work teams to assist in building improvements and expansion.  In 1992, a work team organized by Stan Curtis laid a cement floor where previously there had only been dirt.  In following years, a metal roof was added, wooden pews were constructed (prepared in Indiana and then finished in Haiti), and a balcony was installed.  Most recently, one of Stan's teams assisted in the three-story addition to the rear of the church.  Fearless church members prepared scaffolding and scaled walls while the work team constructed the roof trusses.  Then together, the trusses were raised and put in place.  Later, after the team returned to the States, church members put a metal roof in place. 

Pastor Saintil's ministry has many facets.  His desire to reach out to his community led him to start a Christian elementary school within the church.  His school serves approximately 300 local children.

From his church's small beginnings, his congregation now averages 2,000 attendees every Sunday.  The Sunday School program is run by a total of 64 teachers, leading 32 different classes.  The weekly schedule includes Monday and Friday prayer meetings, Tuesday and Thursday Bible studies, Wednesday evangelism training, and Saturday morning Sunday School preparation.

Pastor Saintil's vision for the future includes raising the roof-line of the church to three stories from front to back, adding two side balconies, raising the pulpit and platform to the second floor level, adding offices, rest rooms, and choir practice rooms underneath the platform, and adding a choir loft above.  His goal is to complete the construction in time for his ministry's 25th anniversary in 2008.