In one of Haiti’s largest cities, Cap-Haitien, a seaport, commercial center, and tourist attraction sitting on the Atlantic Ocean, some 5,000 Seventh-day Adventists marched through the streets on Sabbath, or Saturday, April 12, holding flags and banners and passing out literature to the thousands they met.

The march was a highlight of the annual five-day event called “Convention Generale des Predicateurs laiques d’Haiti,” a convention of more than 600 Adventist pastors and lay preachers from across the country who participate in evangelism and certification seminars.

Leaders from the Inter-American administrative region of the church spoke on topics including “Evangeliving,” a new concept of evangelism in that region that concentrates on the participation of lay people, “Go One Million,” an initiative to mobilize, train and equip 1 million Adventist lay people for evangelism by the next Adventist World Session in June 2005, and Family Life certification programs.

Calling the convention a “very impressive event,” Pastor Luis Fajardo, lay activities director for the church in Inter-America, said, “To see the delegates and church members so dedicated, even in the pouring rain, praising the Lord and committed to the task of sharing the gospel was a blessing.”

Fajardo says that although church members are struggling and facing many challenges, their faithfulness is strong.

The evangelistic programs in Haiti are part of a larger scale evangelism effort throughout the Inter-American region, in addition to the region’s participation in the “Year of World Evangelism 2004,” a world church initiative that attempts to involve every Adventist church member in evangelism.

Haiti has nearly 265,000 Seventh-day Adventists worshiping in 355 congregations.