Monte Sahlin, a Seasoned Voice on dealing with the Haiti Tragedy

We are at the two week mark of the devastating earthquake that leveled Haiti. The videos and images keep resonating in out hearts. The stories of miracle rescues are quickly blighted by the dust, stench, and growing human despair.

We on lookers to this terrible catastrophe have remote after shocks going off in ourselves. We need calibration and re-orientation to deal with the spiritual, emotional, and physical assault on our human sensibilities.

As I considered who had the largeness of heart, the depth of experience to bring a healing word, and offer a set of guidelines on how we can navigate our journey forward, Pastor Monte Sahlin is the name that was the obvious choice.

Pastor Monte Sahlin

Sahlin is an ordained pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, currently serving in the Ohio Conference of the denomination. He served for 12 years at his denomination’s North American headquarters with responsibilities for church ministries, media projects, social needs , and research and development.

He then served eight years as a regional vice president. He has pastored small and large congregations in major metropolitan areas and Appalachia.

Pastor Sahlin has worked as director, board chairman or strategic consultant with more than 100 innovative, community-based ministries, church plants and nonprofit organizations over the last four decades.

In 1994 he was awarded an Outstanding Public Service Award by the United States government and in 1996 he participated in the Presidents’ Summit on Volunteerism as well as the prepatory gathering of 50 representatives of the nonprofit sector at the White House.

I was indeed privileged to get a few ticks on his impossible schedule to dialog on how we can move forward in a constructive manner in the rebuilding of Haiti.

The questions and challenges are daunting, but his keen insights provide the building blocks that we can add our equity to make Haiti2.0 possible.