July 5th was a momentous day for the Gros-Morne (Haiti) Church of the Nazarene — with the dedication of the city’s first fully furnished state-of-the-art computer laboratory.
The Southern Florida District has partnered with the Gros-Morne Church of the Nazarene for nearly 2 years, following the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010. Southern Florida Nazarenes have contributed over $150,000 to assist the church in replacing the roof of its school — which was destroyed by the earthquake. Additionally, the roof to the 2,000 seat sanctuary was completed after being stalled by the earthquake, a hurricane, 2 city floods and market place fires. Nazarene Compassionate Ministries also provided a $60,000 grant for the project.
The dream of Gros-Morne Pastor Paul Zamor was to reach out to his v
ery poor community with a first class educational program. His dream included a computer laboratory.
Two churches in Southern Florida helped fulfill the dream by providing $10,000 to pay for the 21 lap top computers (Bradenton First and Redland). Because Gros-Morne only has municipal electricity about 3 hours each night — it was necessary to provide special generators to provide consistent electricity to operate the lab. Southern Florida engineer, Jim McLellan designed the lab tables and the electrical system to run the computers and video projector.
Over 100 students, faculty and community leaders jammed the ribbon cutting ceremony and dedication today in the new laboratory. Attending the dedication was the Gros-Morne Mayor, Police Commissioner and engineer who designed the church and school.
Using the newly installed video projector, Rev.Pascal Permis (Indiantown and Port St. Lucie Evangelical Churches in Southern Florida) served as the Master of Ceremonies. Speak
ers included Southern Florida District Superintendent,, Dr. David Nixon; Southern Florida NMI President, Dennis Moore; Southern Florida Work & Witness Coordinator, Rev. Roy Shuck (Naples Faith Community) and Rev. Zamor. Rev. Shuck and his daughter were responsible for acquiring the computers and creating special programs to help in training students on technology.
Rev. Zamor expressed his sincere appreciation for the new computer lab and for the other contributions that have been provided to his 1,000+ congregation and school of 800+ students.
Dr. Nixon pledged his continuing support for the Gros-Morne area and told the mayor to expect more quality programs for his community from the Church of the Nazarene. The population around the Gros-Morne area exceeds 200,000 people.
This is the second Work & Witness team from Southern Florida to visit Gros-Morne — which is over 100 rugged miles north of Port-au-Prince. In addition to the construction of the computer laboratory, other team members painted the interior of 12 classrooms at the school. The first team to visit Gros-Morne earlier this year constructed 100 pews for the church sanctuary. Another Southern Florida team is slated to visit Gros-Morne early in 2013.
