What brings a couple to, then later keeps a widowed missionary in a country with an arduous history of violence and unrest, hurricanes and earthquakes, all while living in a state of indigence?

Dwane and Janice Baker arrived in Haiti in January 2003 feeling helpless, inadequate, and unable to communicate with the people. The money was different, they were often without electricity, and they walked most places or were dependent on others for transportation for three years. Why? “Because God laid it on our heart to be here. Romans 12:1-2”

After Dwane and Janice had invested six years in Ethiopia during the reign of Haile Selassie, then in England for 19 years, they became burdened for Haiti. While on deputation, Dwane had a unique visual ministry using ventriloquism and gospel illusions to effectively share the gospel during family VBS weeks located around the country where they saw scores of people saved and many youth surrendering to ministry. Even before arriving in Haiti, the Bakers became acquainted with fierce adversity as Dwane was attacked, robbed and severely beaten taking 6-12 months to heal, then again as Janice was involved in a car accident that totaled their vehicle yet she escaped unharmed.

After having learned Amharic while serving in Ethiopia, they took on the laborious task of learning Creole as a third language while in their early 60’s. Within a few short months, he, with the help of an interpreter, was preaching to Haitian pastors, and in youth camps and revival meetings. Janice often taught the women during Bible conferences.

In January 2004, they began receiving warnings from the US State Department that, due to unrest and many being killed, it was unsafe to travel to Haiti. This was just the beginning of what would become a constant threat to deal with in their ministry. Initially, after making multiple attempts to reenter the country, they were finally able to return for a survey trip in April 2004. There they found lots of problems including high food prices, less electricity than before, with people having lost hope of life ever getting better. By July 2004, they were able to return to ministry in Haiti, taking with them a donated generator that would help them with more consistent electricity.

Shortly after arriving back in Haiti, Dwane suffered a serious accident, breaking several bones which required many months of recovery. Yet they remained faithful in teaching and preaching in meetings and in the Bible school.

God has answered literally countless prayers on their behalf – from providing the product they needed to clean their fruits and vegetables, to supplying the much sought after lesson material, to providing guardian angels time and time again during threatening or dangerous situations which sometimes restricted her to her home for weeks at a time. “God’s grace has kept me content even with tire burning, yelling outside my wall on the noisy streets, and the rock throwing as well.”

Dwane Baker unexpectedly went home to be with the Lord on January 3, 2010 after suffering from a massive stroke. Janice also lost a six-year-old granddaughter to cancer only a few weeks later.

How does a widow in her late 60’s continue on with the work in a country where her daily existence is threatened?

Janice returned to Haiti in April 2010. “Going with missionary Susan Perkins to see a work site that is part of the BBFI rebuilding program has given me more of a burden for Haiti.” Seeing the sweat pouring off glistening white faces of those from America on a mission trip, alongside the glistening black Haitian faces as they dug the foundation for a church by hand, confirmed in Janice’s heart that God was still at work.

Many missionaries know the lifetime commitment it takes to learn the heart language of the country they are called to. Driven by a passion lasting for years to more effectively communicate with Haitians, yet not having a language tutor, Janice spent 2-4 hours a day using cassette tapes, books and a Creole dictionary to study and try to become more fluent. All the while, Janice was in great demand as a teacher in the Haitian churches. One pastor called her every week wanting her to come and teach. Concurrently, she has had a second ministry teaching counseling and ethics classes in the Bible College. “The teaching and preparation is tiring as Satan fights it all and in Haiti his presence is very real.”

“God has called me to a task so burdensome that any who considers the weight of it would not desire it, but also so wonderful that who am I to be so privileged. The joy of teaching is knowing the presence and working of the Holy Spirit in the ministry” says Janice as she has watched God change culturally accepted actions in Haitian homes to those which honor God. Teaching is her ministry – six hours a week at the Bible Baptist College, two hours a week individually with one pastor, three hours with another and one hour a week with yet another. She also teaches a series of six lessons on the home, then moves to another church to teach these same lessons. Pastors are wanting these lessons in Creole so they can teach it as well. As she teaches on how biblical morals shape the home, she finds that good families build good churches.

Continuing the challenge to Bible school students which began in 2004, the Bakers have given out literally hundreds of Bibles to students who have earned them through quoting an extensive list of Bible verses as well as the books of the Bible. The Bible has become a most cherished possession among believers there in Haiti. In the aftermath of the 2016 hurricane, one of her students and his family had lost everything, yet he came asking her for a Bible.

Janice has often been faced with hard questions like “How do you build faith in God when life is so hard?” “A Bible school student came in one day, stomped his feet saying, ‘I am not staying here! This place is dirty; it stinks! It will make me sick!’”

Her response? “What if I were to stomp my feet and say ‘This country is dirty, it stinks and makes me sick; I am not staying here!’ Praise God He has compassion on the Haitians so I am here to stay.” Janice often sees the desperation of many who are suffering and out of work, yet she walks the floor and prays because she teaches on faith and lives by faith before those who go hungry. Her only answer is Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

In an impoverished society, you can expect it to greatly restrict the establishment of churches. Yet the Independent Baptist Church of Truth where the Bakers occasionally taught faithfully gave their two mites and continued meeting on a plot of ground beside the road as over the course of eleven years they dug the foundation, made blocks by hand, until they finally topped it off with a tin roof. Another church was started in someone’s yard. Even with no shelter from the rain or sun, they saw this church grow exponentially. 

Dwane and Janice personally led hundreds to Christ, trained dozens of leaders and have seen approximately forty churches organized across Haiti through the power of God. Even now, Janice prays for more ministry. Haitian pastors have encouraged her over and over to “grow many years young” so she can teach many more years in Haiti.

Are you prepared to say “yes” to God’s call no matter where He takes you?

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