Haiti Earthquake: Message From the Field
January 18, 2010
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Ken L., Senior Project Manager, CRWRC
-"Yesterday, I travelled with a colleague to visit the community of Bolosse, to meet with one of our partner organizations, the UEBH (Union of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Haiti). They have a Bible college and pastoral training campus up the mountain. It took much longer than is typical to drive there as we negotiated the narrow streets, we were stopped numerous times by power poles and lines down across the streets and/or crews of search and rescue personnel still combing through the rubble, and had to back up and search for another way.
The beautiful grounds of the college are now an impromptu refugee camp. Over two thousand people sleep each night spread out on the grass. One of the key teaching centres is partially destroyed and two students were killed. When we arrived, an open air church service was underway. We heard passionate prayers pleading for courage and help and then stood and sang hallelujahs to Jesus.
The leadership of UEBH are looking to CRWRC and Dorcas for assistance for food, temporary shelter and medical supplies.
From there we drove to Leogane, a town of about 15,000 about 20 kilometers away. About 80% of the buildings were destroyed there. It was emotionally numbing to drive down some of the streets, others were impassable. We had a staff member of Medical Teams International with us and we visited the St. Croix hospital that she used to work in. It was standing with relative little damage. But next to it, the guest house was flattened and we talked to Suzi Parker and her husband, volunteers from the USA, about their miraculous escape.But perhaps the most impactful sight of all is that of people sleeping and living outside.
Living on sides the streets is nothing new in Haiti as I had grown accustomed to it during the five years my family and I lived here. But now, all over Port au Prince, every open area, parks, school yards, plazas and parking lots have people camped out in them.
The central part in Petionville is packed with people, from babies to grandparents, sitting or lying on blankets with a plastic basin here or there and sheets draped from pole to pole to protect from the sun. Leogane has three centres that are now refugee camps. After shocks continue to ripple and people are afraid to sleep in their houses or have no houses to sleep in.
Thank God, it is the dry season and that the rains are not expected for the next few weeks."
What Can You Do?
-> Pray for Haiti
-> Donate to Dorcas: Help us help!
Shelter (temporary, transitional and eventually permanent homes) will be one of CRWRC's and Dorcas' key priorities.
Please visit our webpage soon again for updates!
(photo: Earthquake survivors wearing masks are seen in a street of Port-au-Prince January 17, 2010. U.S. troops will help U.N. peacekeepers keep order on Haiti's increasingly lawless streets, the country's president said on Sunday as aid workers struggled to get food and medical assistance to desperate earthquake survivors. Picture taken January 17, 2010. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva (HAITI - Tags: DISASTER) REF: RTR290UK_MAIN_PICTURE2
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