Local-Global Partnership Equips Business Professionals in Haiti

Jan. 25, 2011 — Wisconsin businessman Jack Van Der Ploeg knew he was called to mentor the first time he learned of opportunities with Haitian business professionals. “It was then that business-as-ministry clicked,” he says.


With two decades experience in refrigeration, Van Der Ploeg has been an active member of Brookfield Christian Reformed Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, ever since moving there from New Jersey following a six-year term in the Air Force.

Upon entering business as a young man, however, his talents in business leadership and strategic planning were seen as those he should invest outside the church—Monday through Friday. "Back then, our business experience wasn’t seen as ministry in itself," he recalls. "Now, I know that God has been training me for years, and has prepared me for this kind of work—a calling I’ve been fulfilling for the last few years."

Following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, it took a week before Van Der Ploeg could get in touch with a Haitian business owner he's mentored for half a decade, Wilsonor Jean. They first met when the Brookfield CRC business partners, a growing group of professionals within the church, agreed on a partnership with Jean and other Haitian business owners through Partners Worldwide, a faith-based international business development organization based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Partners Worldwide is recommended for support by the CRC.

Since first connecting with Brookfield CRC business partners, mentee Jean has successfully expanded his cement-block manufacturer in Gonaives, a city 90 miles north of the Haitian capital.

Employing over 20 young men today, Jean remains one of the only local suppliers in the city offering high-quality blocks and employment in post-earthquake Haiti—particularly needed as tens of thousands fled to Gonaives last year for shelter, protection, and jobs.

A dairy business is also back in full operation, says mentor Van Der Ploeg, producing 4,400 bottles of milk a week for local schools in a town west of the earthquake's epicenter. The children—as well as local dairy farmers, employees, and distributors—have all benefitted from rapid recovery of the business.

"Looking back over this year, these businesses are essential to Haiti," says Van Der Ploeg. He has traveled there five times since the earthquake to advise business owners he’s known for the past several years.

Employees bring home an income for their families, and many other victims, instead of making them rely on free food that undermines the agricultural community in Haiti. "We don’t have stuff we give away," Van Der Ploeg notes.

"Instead of getting our money from donors, buying things in our home country, then taking it to Haiti and giving it away, we take ourselves to business owners that produce the needed products in Haiti and stimulate the economy through local business, where you then see that money reused six or seven times."

"These business people are gifted in ways that many of us are not, seeing opportunities to grow jobs, businesses, and employ people," says Peter Verhulst, pastor of Brookfield CRC.

"They have God-given gifts in that regard, which need to be combined with the vision for God’s kingdom."

During his 12 years with Brookside CRC, Verhulst says he's been personally challenged by Van Der Ploeg and other business professionals within the congregation. "They’ve really created a new context, setting an example for how businesspeople can be involved in the world. That example has been soaked up by the congregation."

"Great opportunities exist right now to expand the influence of Christian businesspeople in Haiti," says Daniel Jean-Louis, the Partners Worldwide manager in Haiti and business professor at the state college in Port-au-Prince. "Right now, all Haitian businesses involved with us are back to work at full potential—and most are now expanding."

According to Jean-Louis, Brookfield CRC business partners have been pioneers in business growth throughout the country. The network continues to grow, he adds, including a pharmacy, bakery, and tailor Van Der Ploeg is already mentoring, as well as an association of small business owners who learn through a savings and lending program and can participate in wholesale operation producing affordable food staples.

“Jack is a manufacturer,” says Jean-Louis. "He’s been running his own companies for years. To connect someone of that caliber with other Haitian business professionals in manufacturing is powerful—learning from one another’s environments, building on the local capabilities. With the results this year you can see that he and others have been a key instrument in making this happen.”

Jean-Louis says these mentoring partnerships are more than business consulting. "It’s a long-lasting relationship that doesn’t solely tackle the logistics of business. It grows as a person-to-person connection between two professionals with a shared vision. It’s their determination to press on as businesspeople willing to make a difference in the world in the name of Christ."

Pastor Verhulst agrees. "I grew up as a kid thinking that God called people to be teachers and pastors, but as you mature you begin realizing that God's calling is larger and wider than that. When businesspeople employ their gifts in this way, that’s when we begin to see and understand what differences can be made."

—by Jacqueline Klamer, Partners Worldwide