PRINCETON, Ky. (BP) — It was more than a decade ago that Kyle Noffsinger began to have a “real heart for mission work.” That passion has led him to a lot of places, and last week it led to the dangerous, poverty-ridden country of Haiti.

Noffsinger, pastor of Southside Baptist Church in Princeton, did a two-day conference for about 80 Haitian pastors and church leaders. “It went really, really well,” he said, “better than last year. It was very hot, and there was almost no ventilation — but pastors came from all over Haiti.”

Missions involvement was spurred for Noffsinger by visits to Native American reservations in Arizona. He later participated in trips to Sub-Saharan Africa.

“I knew I wasn’t being called to move and go to the mission field, but I asked what I could do to maximize my work in the nations,” he said. His heart is to equip pastors who haven’t had access to the mentorship and educational opportunities available in the States.

Noffsinger said Southside and the Princeton community provided a financial blessing for those pastors attending the conference, noting that many of them had to pay gangs for passageway to get to the conference.

“We tried to make it where they (pastors) weren’t out any money,” he said.

The U.S. Department of State has a travel advisory warning against going to Haiti, citing a threat of “kidnappings, gang violence and potential civil unrest.” Reports of gang violence have escalated since February of this year.

As recently as May, an American missionary couple was killed by gunmen while hosting a youth Bible study at a church in Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince.

“We were in an area known as Cap-Haitien, which is on the other side of the island from Port-au-Prince,” Noffsinger said. “I really wanted to go, but I have a family and a church, so I wanted to be careful. I read an Associated Press article that explained what had made Cap-Haitien immune to a lot of the violence and carnage.”

He was accompanied by Janie Frailex, a Southside member who has been heavily invested in Haiti mission work, and for decades has spent a good portion each year in Haiti.

“She has an amazing heart for the place and has multiple contacts there,” Noffsinger said. She connected him with a 40-year missionary from Canada who served as translator.

Noffsinger saw first hand the plight of people in Haiti, meeting a woman who has spent a couple of weeks in captivity after being kidnapped and held for ransom by a gang.

The trip also helped him understand that regardless of the economy and living conditions, “we all have the same struggles, and churches all go through the same stuff.”

After teaching on John 21, during a question-and-answer time, a young man asked Noffsinger if he could speak on the difference between desire and lust.

“It opened my eyes,” he said. … “We all have the same struggles and problems. Churches have people and people (in different countries) are not all that different from one another.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — This article originally appeared in Kentucky Today.)