The obit reads very simply providing a snapshot of a man who casts a very large kingdom shadow. On the day of resurrection many will rise up and call him blessed, not because he was a larger than life saint but because he and his wife Leone did what the Lord called them to do. As a result, there are many thousands in the kingdom both alive and glorified and tens of thousands more who have been touched by Jesus because of the ministry begun in Haiti by Jim and Leone Wallace. It’s hard to overstate the impact of this work, let alone speak of its ongoing witness. It just continues to grow and expand through the educational, medical and church planting work. To provide insight into how this great work began in the lives of Pastor Jim and Leone, to offer a tribute of praise for their pioneering sacrifices for the Gospel and to inspire others to do likewise, I offer some excerpts from a letter Jim and Leone wrote describing how it all began.

In July of 1966 we were living in Port-au-Prince studying Creole under the O.M.S. mission. The Lord began to speak to our hearts about opening a new mission. He gave us a vision as to what it should include to better serve the people. We were reluctant to think along these lines because we were already working with an established mission. However, daily this was upon our hearts. Finally yielding in prayer on the matter, we asked the Lord for direction.

Soon we met a man and became good friends. We only knew that he worked for the Department of Agriculture. One day we asked our Creole teacher if she knew this man since her husband also worked in that same department. “Oh, yes!” she replied, “Do you know him? He’s a high official in that department.” We were surprised, but knew the Lord was leading us to the people that we needed to know to start a new work. We talked long hours with this man about Haiti and its needs and what we would like to do in the country. Before long he told us that he had four different locations that were available to use for the type of mission we felt led to establish. We were still not real sure, so we continued to seek God’s will. We made several trips to some of the locations. We began to feel that perhaps the Lord was leading us away from O.M.S. and the missionary radio work.

We prayed much and “put out the fleece” in this fashion. “Lord, if you really want us to launch out, give us a contract with the government to protect ourselves and allow us to receive items duty free. If the government does this, we will know you are in this venture.” We then drew up a contract which we felt covered all these things. We prayed about a name before presenting it to the president of Haiti. The Lord gave us the name of “Project HELP.” A fellow missionary with O.M.S. said, “You’ve asked for the moon! If the government ever agrees to all these things, the Lord must really [be] calling you to start a new work.”

With much prayer, fear and trembling we gave our request to our Haitian friend to present to the government. After a week or so he came saying we must go before the Minister of Finance about this contract. Again with a prayer in our hearts and on our lips, we met with this man. The contract had been read, approved and signed by President Francois Duvalier himself and ordered to be published in the official government newspaper, which made everything completely legal. We signed the contract with a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord.

We now had a signed contract with the Haitian government but no decision as to which place we would choose to locate. As we pondered and prayed about each place, they soon began to drop away. The Lord’s choice was Borel. Now another contract needed to be prepared for the property there. With the Lord’s guidance the Minister of Agriculture gave us a 25 year lease At Borel with the option to renew or extend the lease upon the agreement of both parties or to terminate with a four months notice. The Lord brought Project HELP into being through prayer. You could say it was born in prayer.

We met with the Commission on World Missions (at our request) in the fall of 1966 and shared with them what had developed and asked if they would be interested in sponsoring a new work in Haiti. We presented the contract we secured from the government and took them to Borel to look around. They gave us the go-ahead to proceed with the development of Project HELP. We met with them again in January of 1967 and finalized plans for us to begin the work at Borel from our mission work at Cap Haitian.

We moved to Borel in April 1967 and held our first service on the last Sunday of the month. People just passed the word along by mouth about the service. We assigned Pastor Lou Lou Jeudy as the first Haitian pastor of the new work. Twelve people came to Christ that morning. We had no seats, just a room without lights, but the room was full. For the evening service we strung up a light bulb, but still no seats. We had a packed out room again. Twelve more were saved and they became the foundation for the new church. The next week the walls were knocked out and the room enlarged. We did this for several weeks until we were having 600 or 700 persons attending. At each service a number were saved. For seating we used cement blocks with boards across them but the Haitian people did not mind and we didn’t either for the Lord was blessing.

Haitian school children in 2009

We started a school in October with about 350 children. That was all we could handle at the time. We hired workers and bought food for them to cook for the children each noon, free of charge. The dedication of the Borel mission was held in October 1967 with the Commission on World Missions attending. In the beginning days it was hard, for the well was stopped up (no water), no electric and the buildings in bad repair. A lot of work and prayer went into Project HELP. Many workers came that summer of 1967 and spent a week or two helping to fix up and prepare the mission compound. In those days we had six or seven preaching points and increasing. We had a large staff of Haitian workers. The work has continued to grow under the leadership of those that have been in charge since we left. This is basically the background and beginning of the work.                             
       Jim & Leone Wallace
       August 28, 1985

The Borel mission house as it is today

Today the CGGC work in Haiti includes 29 churches with 4,290 in worship on any given Sunday, 16 schools with thousands of students and a clinic and hospital at Pierre Payen that care for hundreds every day. Pastor Wallace returned to Haiti in 2007 for the fortieth anniversary celebration and reflected upon the changes wrought in that time (see The Missionary Signal: Vol. 61, No. 4).

Guests at the 40th Anniversary Celebration in Haiti
(Pastor Wallace is fourth from the right)

“It is not often we are able to see something we have had a hand in starting in life come to such glorious victory. Without a doubt the church and schools have had a great part in changing the whole area, and the people are very much aware of this and are thankful that Project HELP came there.”

INDEED! Praise the Lord for prayerful, self-sacrificing servants like Jim and Leone Wallace who opened their hearts and lives to God’s call. Pastor Jim will be greatly missed by us all on this side of the gate, but the work begun by him and his wife will continue to impact the people and land of Haiti until Jesus comes. On the passing of this saint of God I put forth a challenge for myself and everyone. Let’s commit our lives to making a significant difference for Jesus and the sake of lost mankind. What new thing would He have you and me begin that just might make a huge kingdom difference in this world? Psalm 116:15

Pastor Ed