Paying a Price for Taking a Stand

Paying a Price for Taking a Stand

May 7, 2024

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guests: Lloyd Pulley, Dennis DeLuca

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on 5/7/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer:         While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning this dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:  Welcome again to Stand In the Gap. Today I am your host, Jamie Mitchell, the director of church culture at the American Pastor’s Network. The Lord Jesus made a sobering statement in Luke 14, starting verse 27. He said this, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build. A tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish all who see it, begin to mock him saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. The idea of counting the cost, being willing to pay the price for the cause of Christ is something we greatly respect and marvel. We recognize whether in leadership or not, all followers of Christ will be asked to sacrifice at some level.

Jamie Mitchell:  All of us might say that we are willing to face persecution, hardship, rejection, ridicule for the savior, but most of us really do until now, more and more under horizon, we see the world turning against believers and the values we hold. We might have been able to avoid conflict and resistance from the world in the past, but I believe those days are over What we believe and what it means to stand for Christ is so counter-cultural that daily we could find ourselves being canceled, arrested, fired, penalized for our faith. The battle is growing and we will be asked to take a stand and pay the price. Well, that’s the name of today’s program. And to help us, I’ve asked two people to share the hour later on the program, we’re going to hear a return guest, Dennis DeLuca. Dennis was the driving force behind School of Grace in Haiti, and we’re going to hear an update from that work and some of the practical and painful price he and those involved in Haiti have paid.

Jamie Mitchell:  But to kick off our time a new guest, pastor Lloyd Pulley. Lloyd is the lead pastor at Calvary Chapel, old Bridge, New Jersey, and has been there for decades. Not only is committed to hold up the truth of God’s word each week and challenge his flock to do the same, he has taken some strong stands against unrighteousness and morality and injustice. And as courageous as Lloyd has been, he’s been bedeviled, hated and attacked, and he continues to fight on and pay the price. Today we want to learn from these two brothers from their experiences. Lloyd, welcome to Stand in the Gap Today.

Lloyd Pulley:       Thank you, Jamie. It’s really good to be here.

Jamie Mitchell:  Lloyd, you heard my opening and knowing a little about you and your church and you’re not afraid to take a stand, but nevertheless, there has been cost over these years of ministries. What types of challenges and resistance have you experienced and what cost have you faced over the years?

Lloyd Pulley:       Well, it’s a challenge more and more because the word of God we see as central and the Lord has called us to go into all nations and proclaim the gospel. And he didn’t ask us to do it only when it was comfortable and easy. And so over the years, we have sought to be strong where we are also to go into places we’ve church planted in places in Uganda and Serbia, various places that were challenging. We’ve got some friends in Haiti. I’m interested to hear the segment coming up. Things going on there is horrible. But yes, it’s a challenge, especially when you are standing against the tide of a lot of things that have gone on in education in the last six decades since Bible and prayer have been removed. I don’t think parents have any clue. It’s not Mayberry RFD anymore. They have no clue what their children are being taught.

Lloyd Pulley:       And we saw this early on, we started a school, but I still have a burden for many. We actually have a homeschooling network as well, but I still have a burden for many parents who just still trust the public school and they’re not really engaged and they don’t know what’s happening to kids. So we found a needful to get even more bold with this, with a group going to school boards and basically respectfully, we’re not looking to grandstand. We’re not looking for some to poke people unnecessarily. We just want to point out some of these policies that are keeping parents from things going on are just egregious and wrong.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, Lloyd, I mean you just take the word of God and you look at the word of God and you could just turn page by page and you could pick out things that if you start talking about some of the things that are in the word of God out in the public square, you’re going to face some type of resistance. But you could have chosen as many pastors do a quieter, more reserved ministry. But as you’ve shared with me, you want to be a genuine shepherd and not a harling. And that motif, as we’ve talked, has great meaning to you. What’s the difference between a shepherd and a harling, and does it influence your stand on issues that you take?

Lloyd Pulley:       Well, absolutely the shepherd will lay his life down for the sheep and will do that. But every now and then he’s going to need someone to hire to watch the gate and watch the door. The problem with a hiring, I mean, he might be there to be faithful to feed the flock. He might be there to take care of certain things in it, but when the wolves come, this is a job for him. This isn’t his life and he’s running. He’s running for his life. And the wolf will then have its way with the sheep. And when lings are in the pulpit, there’s going to be a lot of wolves in the congregation and they’re going to be making the lambs disappear a little at a time. They’re going to have their way. And I believe that we need to recognize that yes, we’re there to reach the world. And some pastors have taken this nice approach like, well, let’s just be nice and they’ll love us and then they’ll respond to us. And sometimes you have to be bold with truth.

Lloyd Pulley:       What is truth worth? Jesus came to bear witness of the truth and it cost him his life. And I don’t know, but what we need to raise a generation of people who love truth more than being liked, more than promotions, more than their jobs, more than their families, more than even their own life. And until we have people that love the truth more, we will. What will be our price? At what point will we say if this cost us too much? I think we need to prepare ourselves ahead of time, that as it gets increasingly darker, we’re going to have to be faithful to shine our light and that will come at a cost. And it certainly has in our ministry and certain things, it’s been costly to do the right thing. People are offended. I’ve lost some good people that just couldn’t go with us. During the whole covid thing. We lost funding in our school because we refused to follow some of the mandates that were ridiculous and we’ve lost funding for the special needs kids. Eventually they restored it again. But it’s just watching this world and where it goes. We can’t follow the culture. We’ve got to set the tone for what God has called us to do and bring the truth of the gospel no matter what the cost.

Jamie Mitchell:  Ladies and gentlemen, I hope as you’re listening, we’re setting the stage for our conversation today because what I’m suggesting is that not every pastor and not every Christian wants to take a stand or they’re willing to take a stand to a point but not pay a price, and it goes hand in hand. And this is where hard choices need to be made. Now when we come back, I want to ask Lloyd some specific issues that he is facing that we could be facing and we can learn for as we talk more about taking a stand and paying a price here on Stand in the Gap. Well, thank you for coming back on this Tuesday edition. My first guest is Pastor Lloyd Pulley of Calvary Chapel in Old Bridge, New Jersey. You live in the north Jersey area. You got a great church and a wonderful pastor and a great history there. Please take advantage of that. We’re discussing this idea of taking a stand and paying the price. Lloyd, I know you have faced pushback and even persecution for the stands you’ve taken. I want to look at some specific ones, and first, I know one that is near and dear to your heart, and it’s the issue of the abortion and pro-life concerns and standing for babies in the womb and moms and dads who choose life. What have you done? But more importantly, what opposition have you faced? What has been the price you’ve paid?

Lloyd Pulley:       Well, what we’ve done is acquire two medical units that go park outside of abortion clinics that give free ultrasounds and free testing. And at a time right now when the New Jersey Assembly and Attorney General is coming after crisis, pregnancy centers as fake units, as fake medical units, we have fully licensed, we’ve covered every HIPAA law, we cover every dot, every I cross every T to do things legally. And up until this date, we started right in the middle of Covid and there’s been over almost 1100 babies that have been rescued. These babies would be dead an hour later if we hadn’t been there offering them the women a chance to see their baby for free on an ultrasound when they see that baby 80% choose life. So this is what we’ve done. We’ve been doing this. We’ve got a great team going to various places around the estate, but we just got wrote up in an article up in North Jersey.

Lloyd Pulley:       The Attorney General would go out in front of the unit or in front of the pregnancy center, and then he basically say how illegal they were and they weren’t medical, they’re fake. And then they had a picture of our unit and in the article, and so it was false representation. We are fully medical and we were checking with our lawyers. So what can we do? Well, they just came short of the line of defamation. So there’s nothing you can do at this point, but if they stir up people, and of course people, I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news today, but the Sunday there was a shooting or an attempted shooting of a pastor. A man walked right after the pastor in his church and pointed the gun at him and fired, but it clicked. It didn’t fire with misfired and grabbed him from behind and tackled him and they subdued him.

Lloyd Pulley:       But this I believe is going to happen more and more. What’s unfortunate is that truth is suppressed and a viewpoint of religious view of life. And Ru’s babies will stir up a great cancel culture and they’ll come with hatefulness and they’ll stir people up and violence is going to ensue. It’s really a dangerous time to speak for truth. But look, I’m not going to just do it when it’s comfortable. So we took a big step. It was very expensive, very big ministry, but I felt like someone’s got to speak up and do more than just speak up, be there. Now we have the most amazing thing with these babies that have been rescued. Our detractors will say, oh, you’re guilting them into keeping their baby. You’re making ’em feel bad and you’re yelling at them. No, we don’t. We are very gracious and kind. And when they see their baby, they choose to keep it.

Lloyd Pulley:       We give them some resources, we get them free medical connections. The ladies in the church give baby showers to them, get them plugged into a church. We’ve seen a couple hundred women also respond to the gospel along with sometimes their father of the baby that comes aboard. And then we get pictures from these moms unsolicited saying, thank you for being there at a time when it was the darkest point in my life. Look at this beautiful baby who wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. And so we just kind of think maybe one of those little babies will be the next Moses and Daniel and David, and that’s our joy.

Jamie Mitchell:  Wow. But the fact of the matter is, Lloyd, you are being bedeviled like you’re the evil one or you’re the enemy or you’re the one who as they say, is putting guilt upon people. Well, if abortion we thought was going to be an issue, I think the bigger issue is coming down the pike with this whole transgenderism. Lloyd, you’ve told me that your church is trying to take a stand regarding parents’ rights and schools, especially schools that are attempting to corrupt or hurt young people facing transgenderism. What is your church doing? And again, what price is it coming at?

Lloyd Pulley:       Well, we work with a couple of organizations, Greg Quinlan and Sean Highlands Ministries who help equip churches to know how to get in the battle here because they’re passing egregious laws right now before the state Senate are some discussions on whether a 14-year-old can be emancipated in a sense where he doesn’t have to get permission from his parents for psychological or medical treatment. And of course under medical is just about everything you can imagine, transgender and everything. So they’re basically taking parents out of the equation. Parents are superfluous. The state who owns your children? Well, the way these legislators are acting, they’re acting like the state owns the children, and this is kind of very akin to Nazi Germany, the Nazi youth movement. So we are seeing a movement like this. So what we’ve been doing, a group of people in our church have been going around to various school boards and we respectfully, we’re very articulate.

Lloyd Pulley:       We’ve done our homework. I post some questions to our school board as well, and some of them just absolutely hate us. They say, we have no right to be here, which we do. They say, you’re not in our district. It doesn’t matter. You can go to any school board in the state if you’re a taxpayer. And what they’re claiming we’re doing like going from different places, they have activists going to all these school boards and pressuring the last school board, we had two ministers of Satan showed up and mocking this idea of parents, parents don’t know how their children are in danger and we’ve got to protect them kind of mentality. So we just say no. The Bible says God has given to parents that authority and we cannot give that over to the state. We must stand for our children. And so we’re trying to empower teachers that are with us, school board members that are trying to fight this battle and feeling no one’s coming to help them. We’re coming alongside parents of course. So we’ve been encouraged by many parents, but we’ve also been threatened. Some of our people have been literally surrounded and yelled at, this is a price you pay to speak up for these ones that can’t speak for themselves.

Jamie Mitchell:  Lloyd, as a pastor, I can’t help but think we kind of understand what’s happening out in the world. But I’m going to take a leap of faith here and ask you this question. My guess is you’ve also faced resistance from within the church community and maybe even from other pastors along the way. Has that been the case?

Lloyd Pulley:       Well, yes. There have been some people that have felt we’ve gotten too political, and I remind them that my real focus, of course, is the gospel. At the same time, just as the proverbs say, if you know that someone’s drawn toward death and both babies in the womb as well as not just babies in the womb, but these children, if they are affirmed and confused before puberty and they enter into puberty with that confusion, they will get stuck in that confusion and they will be more suicidal than ever. We have seen suicide rates skyrocket, but it’s funny how they create the problem and then they blame believers who are not affirming them for the reason why the suicide rate is so high. The more we’ve affirmed them, the greater the suicide rate has come. In fact, a lot of studies are showing that if people go through the hormones and they go through the operation that in every respect they’re doing much, much worse. And of course, who hasn’t heard Chloe’s testimony of how she questioned where were the adults in the room? When these administrators were affirming me to get hormones and to get that, I’m confused as a young kid. They affirm me in my confusion. And now I made decisions with my body as a child because of these adults that didn’t stand and help me hold the ground because 95% of kids that are confused before puberty will outgrow it. But it will be a great problem if we don’t speak up against these activists in these schools.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, remaining quiet is always the easier path. It doesn’t take the pain. Lloyd, one last question. We got about a minute and a half left. You’ve been at this a long time and you have taken stands in myriads of ways and you’ve paid the price in myriads of ways and there’s tremendous fruit. We see that. If someone were to say to you, pastor Lloyd, all that you’ve gone through, has it been worth it and was the gains worth all the pain?

Lloyd Pulley:       Well, when I was holding a little two day old baby in my hands from a mom who chose to keep that baby, and I looked down at this baby and all I could think of is Moses’ parents who protected their little baby because they saw he was a beautiful child, which literally means that they really saw there’s a purpose for this child and God’s purpose for any life that feels there is no purpose. They feel depressed, they feel anxious, they feel empty, or they have gone through all of these things that they have hope in the gospel. There’s hope that can become a change for that person and people to the lowest point in their life, there’s hope. We need to come alongside them and moms that are ready to give their baby up, they’ve lost hope. And most of the time it’s because there’s not a man supporting them in that decision. And this is why we try to have help for all these different people. But listen, when I see those babies, I see those parents and I see the thanks. A couple coming to our church that took the abortion pill and then they found us and they took the reversal and we scanned them. They kept the baby. They both came to Christ. Now their whole family’s on fire for the Lord, and they’re so thankful. Amen. We were there. That makes all the detractors mean. Nothing mean seem like nothing in comparison.

Jamie Mitchell:  Hey, thank you Pastor Lloyd purely for your pastoral perspective. When we return Dennis DeLuca, we’re going to be back talking to him about Haiti. We’re talking about taking stands and paying the price. Join with us for the second half. Stand in the gap today of this special stand in the gap today. Our title today is Paying the Price for Taking a Stand, and we are talking with leaders who have courageously stood up against the enemy of our souls and it has cost them trying to learn from them and be inspired by them. Well, joining us on the program now is Dennis DeLuca. Dennis was with us before as we have discussed the situation in Haiti and the impact on the ministry that he really gave his life and his wealth over the past 10 years. Dennis, welcome back to Stand in the Gap.

Dennis DeLuca:  Hi Jamie. Thanks for having

Jamie Mitchell:  Me. Dennis. When you were with us in the past, I had you share about the declining condition in the island country of Haiti, the US media here in America. They basically have ignored the violence and the upheaval in that country, the atrocities that gangs have inflicted on people. Dennis, it was bad a number of months ago when you shared with us where is Haiti today and what is the most recent news that you have heard about Haiti?

Dennis DeLuca:  Well, it’s worse than it was. I mean, it’s almost in total collapse and it appears that the gangs are killing one another and killing innocent people. And we may be close to a civil war there no government operating, so it’s pretty bad. The news that we get now because our people have scattered, and Patrick, our director, is no longer in country, so I’m getting very spotty Up To Date information, a AP and Miami Herald. We get a lot of information through the local newspapers. And what we’re seeing now is that I guess in February, the prime minister left the country to try to meet with the people in Kenya who were going to send in a force. He was then locked out of the country and was not allowed to come back. And on April 25th, under the threat of assassination himself, he resigned as long as they put a transitional council together that would appoint a new prime minister, they did that.

Dennis DeLuca:  It’s a nine member council. Before his Ariel Henry, the original Prime Minister left office, his cabinet chose Michael Patrick Bo as a interim prime minister. The transitional council took place. They had no interest in him. They appointed Pritz Aire as the new prime minister. He was a former sports minister. I don’t know what qualifications he has, but that move has already is already threatening to fracture the council. They just seem to never be able to work together to work things out. So that’s what’s happening with the government As far as on the ground, I mean, I could just hit you with a hundred bullet points to tell you what’s happening on the ground. The gangs broke in and released the prisons. Prison is 4,000 of them from two of the main prisons since January up to March two months, 2,500 more people were killed or injured. 9,000 have fled Port-au-Prince in one month to live where who knows gangs now control 80% of the capital of Port-au-Prince the gangs. This is crazy. They claim that they’re liberating their country, but we know the truth the US has

Jamie Mitchell:  Given. Dennis, Dennis, hold on a second. You think about the time, the effort and the money that the US poured into Haiti and now this disaster down there, but even more so that we never hear about this here in America. And I mean the little bit that you’ve shared probably has been more than whatever newscast has shared, but Dennis, I really want to get to this point. You were instrumental in starting School of Grace. You’ve made a wonderful impact in the lives of students, teachers, staff. However, the reign of terror in Haiti had found its way to the school. Where is the School of Grace today? Tell us, give us an update on the ministry.

Dennis DeLuca:  Yes, the School of Grace and Grace Church, we had two operations going there no longer exist. The gangs came into the village and they murdered a bunch of people. They raped a lot of women. They burned down everything they could burn and anybody seen, even just walking down the street was subject to being assassinated or executed for no reason at all. So everybody ran, including our people, our pastor and our director was on a kidnap for ransom list. We found that out through people who had children in our school who were actually gang members. And so we put him on the run and finally we decided that the school could never reopen. The gangs have squatted on our property. They’re using it as a staging place for their criminal activities. They stripped the school, they ransacked it. They took everything that wasn’t nailed down and they were selling it on the black market.

Dennis DeLuca:  Our people are gone. We don’t know where they are. And so our board of directors decided that we just could not hope to reopen and we needed to stop asking our donors to give money to a ministry that no longer existed. So we closed. And that was just in the past 30 days that we came to that decision. Patrick is now in the United States in Indiana applying for asylum as his life is in danger. His wife and children are in a small village in the northeast corner of the country to try to keep them safe with hopes that he’ll get asylum and then they can join him in the States. So that is what has happened. I mean, it’s over. I’ve been 15 years in Haiti, 10 years with the school and church. Everything was going well according to God’s plan and evidently he has a better plan now because that’s what I always believe. If he was going to close the School of Grace, that just tells me he has a better plan.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dennis, what happened to the students and the teachers? Where did they go?

Dennis DeLuca:  Well, we kept in touch with our teachers by way of Patrick and email and text, and we paid our staff for well over a year, even while the school was closed. We felt that they were our family and we continued to pay them. A lot of them have evacuated to cap Haitian, which is the northern tip of Haiti. Some of them are still in southern Haiti. And we had one teacher that was murdered. We had some that were kidnapped and the families had to pay ransom to get them back. Some of them have taken up residents in the Dominican Republic, and some of them have even come to the United States, whether it’s legal or illegal, they are fleeing Haiti by the thousands. Over 9,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince in just one month. And the rate of people that are trying to just leave the country is incredible. I mean 11 million population. I don’t know how many of that 11 million are not trying to get out of the country, but it seems like a bunch of them are.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dennis, we’re going to talk on our last segment about how this has affected you personally and some lessons that you have learned. But one of the questions I have about Haiti, and maybe you can give insights, is why are we not hearing about this here in America? Why is there seems to be an avoidance and is part of it that the corruption of Haiti is seeped its way back here to America or vice versa?

Dennis DeLuca:  Well, yes, there’s no question about that. That some of the organizations, the NGOs that were operating in Haiti that were receiving large donations for the betterment of the Haitian people in the Haitian country, it never made its way to the people. The corruption is something that took place when they got their independence in 1803 and it’s continuing on to this very very day. So yeah, it’s a corruption there and corruption here. There are rich Haitian people and they do little next to nothing for their own people, and the gangs are murdering their own people for no reason. It is just a mess in that country. And you have 10 non-government organizations that have been operating there for years. And if it weren’t for those 10,000 NGOs, I don’t know where the Haitian people would be because they weren’t getting anything from their government. They weren’t getting anything from wealthy Haitians. They were just being spat upon basically by everyone there.

Jamie Mitchell:  And why is the media ignoring this? Dennis, you have about a minute, 30 seconds before the break. Why is the media ignoring this? Do you have any idea?

Dennis DeLuca:  Well, the only thing that we can configure is that there is no economic benefit for the United States to be involved in Haiti. They were a slave country and we were for the slavery that was going on there. We weren’t for them when they got their independence. And some of that still spills over that there’s no reason to be involved there. They have no industry for us to work with. So I think that’s part of the main reason, and nobody wanted to get involved with the corruption that was going on there. So it’s just been ignored until recently.

Jamie Mitchell:  Yeah. Friends, if it sounds like it was demonic, it was was evil. It was horrific. When we returned, I want to talk to Dennis about the personal toll that it took. We’re learning from leaders today on how to take a stand and pay a price. Join with us in a few moments as we enter into this last segment. I want to jump right back to Haiti and to the School of Grace and the story that Dennis DeLuca, our guest, is sharing on the sad details. Dennis, the school has shut down. Students have scattered, teachers and staff have fled for their lives, and some have even given their lives. As you mentioned, you’ve been involved in Haiti for 15 years, but 10 of it. You were a strategic and primary investor in the School of Grace. It was a major financial investment over these years by yourself and many, many other folks. Many have you calculated the cost of what all this ministry in Haiti cost? And do you ever question was it worth it?

Dennis DeLuca:  Well, prior to the school, I was invested with Mission of Hope and putting Patrick through the Bible College so that he could become the pastor and director of our school. I built houses for him and his family. I have been involved long before I got involved in the school. Since getting involved in the school, I estimate, and I have a lot of documents to show a lot of this and some of it I don’t. We estimate that the build out of the property was somewhere between 150 and $200,000 over the 10 years. The overhead to run the school for just that time was anywhere from 200 to 250. So the total investment right up to the day we closed was 350 to $400,000. And then we had 150,000 in the bank, which was given to us by our donors for specific reasons, a library, a bus, et cetera.

Dennis DeLuca:  And that money was, we offered to give it back and they said, no, pay it on forward. We’ve donated a hundred thousand dollars to Mission of Hope. We’ve donated $50,000 to Haiti Bible Mission and Jeremy Haiti, and then we closed the doors. So it’s been a heavy investment of my time. It was almost like a full-time job over all the years. I had to continue to give, our board members have to give up their time, talent, and treasure. Everybody was contributing, and that’s how we were able to raise the funds to do the things we did. You asked me if it was worth it, Jamie. We’re all going to go to the judgment seat.

Dennis DeLuca:  And when we do good works, we will lay gold, silver, and precious stone at our savior’s feet, not hay, wooden stubble. That makes it well worth it. The Lord tells us with his inspired words that when you scatter believers, you make more believers. That makes it well worth it. Two to 3000 students have learned the Bible going through our school. Many people have been baptized. The ripple effect of that I have no doubt, will produce more good works. And people have asked me, what would you want to see when you get to heaven, the result of what you did? How many people would have to be in heaven that are in heaven at least partially because of what you did in Haiti? And I always said, if just one person believed on Christ, I would consider it a home run. If two, I would consider it a grand slam. So it was well worth it. I’m still serving the Lord and am waiting for what he always has for me next. But yes, it was worth it. How can I not say it was worth it? He’s my Lord and Savior. He’s the creator of the universe. And look what he did for me.

Jamie Mitchell:  So yes,

Dennis DeLuca:  Well worth it. I’d do it over

Jamie Mitchell:  Dennis. Do we give up on Haiti? I mean, some would sit here today and hear this and say all the time, the effort, the endangering of lives, building buildings that are now headquarters for gangs. Do we give up on Haiti or do we keep believing and trying even though we’ve had major setbacks and disappointments like this?

Dennis DeLuca:  All I can do there, Jamie, I speak for myself. I’ll be 74 in a couple of months and I just don’t have it in me to go back to Haiti and start again. I’m too old now. I’m too tired. And quite frankly, even talking about Haiti now, I try not to be affected by it, but it’s like picking a scab. It hurts and it’s going to have to be up to somebody else. Like I said, there’s 10,000 organizations there. I don’t believe that we will give up on Haiti. I don’t believe God will give up on Haiti. God as we know, he doesn’t want to lose even one of us. So he will continue to do what he wants, the way he wants to do it. He doesn’t owe us an explanation and it will be his way. And since he never makes a mistake, it’ll be the right way

Jamie Mitchell:  Now as desperate of a situation as in Haiti and some of the violence and there are Christian ministries that are still there and still trying to affect life change. Is that not the case, Dennis?

Dennis DeLuca:  Oh, it is. And I just told you we gave $150,000 to them just as we were closing. Mission of Hope has several locations in Haiti that are still functioning, not the one that was closest to us. There was a gang operating in Te Yen where they were, and that’s the one where the next village over. But there are parts of Haiti that are still functioning. Mission of Hope is functioning. Haiti Bible mission is functioning. Haitian Christian ministries with six or seven locations is still functioning. So there are a lot of people that are still working and doing God’s work and having an impact in Haiti.

Jamie Mitchell:  Amen. Amen. Well, Dennis, God bless you. God bless the Board of School of Grace and for the great work that you’ve done there and the sacrifices that were made. Friends, we are never a failure as long as we are faithful. And today’s program has been dedicated just to give you a taste of two courageous individuals, pastor Lloyd Pulley from Calvary Chapel in Old Bridge, New Jersey, and Dennis Delucca, founder and board president and main motivator and instigator behind a great work in Haiti that now has suffered a major defeat, but their faithfulness of taking stands, being willing to sacrifice and pay the price and to do God’s work God’s way as God leaves doors open. Listen, we have been saved, and the likelihood is that we will suffer. We will experience persecution. We’ll experience pain, we’ll experience loss and defeat along the way. But that is what God has called us to do.

Jamie Mitchell:  And we have been called to take a stand and to pay a price. And our concern, especially here at the American Pastors Network, as we look at the landscape of the church here in America and the landscape of believers and pastors, is we’re finding more and more people who are unwilling to take a stand and unwilling to speak up. And so we hope today you have been encouraged to take stands and to be willing to pay the price. Well, that’s the end of another stand in the gap today. As I encourage you every time, live and lead with courage, be willing to take that stand. Hey, we’ll see you back here in approximately 23 hours for another stand in the gap today.