LAKELAND — With 13 mission churches throughout the Florida Conference and a fourth elder to be ordained at the Dare to Share Jesus 1999 Annual Conference Event June 1-5, the conference’s Haitian ministry is growing, said the Rev. Montreuil Milord, pastor of the Haitian Mission in Hallendale. Because of its current success, Milord said the ministry is planning for its future, and a $10,000 grant from the denomination’s General Board of Discipleship (GBOD) is helping make those plans a reality.

The grant was one of 22 awarded by GBOD last March from a total of $169,150, according to a United Methodist News Service article. The Rev. Sang E. Chun, GBOD’s director of Racial and Ethnic Ministries, said the grants are awarded twice each year and intended to help ethnic churches or ministry groups establish pilot ministries related to discipleship, including Christian education, evangelism, worship, leadership development and spiritual formation.

“They are for any program in those areas where they [ethnic ministries] have leadership and potential, but don’t have funds to start a ministry,” Chun said. “The purpose is to strengthen local ethnic church ministries.”

An ethnic church, he says, is any congregation that has a majority of its members from one ethnic minority group.

Milord, who was elected last February to a three-year term as chairman of the conference’s Haitian Ministry committee, said one of the ministry’s greatest needs is understanding the United Methodist Book of Discipline, especially sections dealing with the structure and administration of the church. The committee plans to use most of the grant money to produce a Creole translation of the Book of Discipline.

The committee will also use the money to meet its overall goal of reaching out to as many Haitian people throughout the Florida Conference as possible. “When we find a Haitian community, we try to get in and reach these people for Jesus Christ,” Milord said.

One outreach tool the committee uses is “boukan” or home-based faith communities. Milord says a boukan is formed when as few as two people meet in a home for prayer. When a group outgrows the house and begins looking for a place to worship they become a mission. “Our vision is to start two new boukan in the coming year,” he said.

The committee is also working to reach young Haitians. “I believe…the young people of today are the church,” he said. “We need to reach those young people so when we leave the church, there are people to take over.”

The Haitian committee will be meeting May 2 to discuss using the grant money to reach youth. Milord said he would like the committee to sponsor a crusade and invite conference leaders to address the youth and “encourage them to answer God’s call.”