Below are updates from a few of my friends in Haiti:
Matthew 25 House
Note: for ongoing accounts of life in Port-au-Prince, visit Vivian Tortora’s blog.
CURRENT SITUATION AT MATTHEW 25 HOUSE
JAN 24, 2010
MATTHEW 25 HOUSE EXPERIENCED MODERATE DAMAGE DURING THE EARTHQUAKE. THE SECOND FLOOR IS UNUSABLE. THE FIRST FLOOR APPEARS PRETTY STABLE AND WE ARE TRYING TO GET IT AN ASSESSMENT BY AN ENGINEER. WE WERE ALL INSIDE AT THE TIME AND ALL ESCAPED INJURY
WE ARE ALL SLEEPING OUTSIDE DUE TO MANY AFTERSHOCKS, 54 OF WHICH WERE 5.0 OR HIGHER ; AND THE FEAR THAT THE TOP FLOOR COULD COLLAPSE. ALL STAFF ARE SLEEPING IN TENTS IN THE BACKYARD, AND WE ARE REQUIRING ALL VISITORS TO BRING TENTS AND SLEEPING BAGS, AND FOOD. WE ARE ABLE TO PURCHASE ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED OUR GUESTS AND STAFF. WATER IS NOT A PROBLEM AT THE HOUSE.
WE HAVE ADEQUATE MEDICAL SUPPLIES AS THEY HAVE STARTED TO COME THROUGH, FINALLY. IN FACT, WE ARE ABLE TO GIVE SOME TO OTHER FACILITIES THAT ARE LACKING.
WE ARE OPERATING A FIELD HOSPITAL IN THE ADJACENT SOCCER FIELD AS WELL AS A TENT CITY ORGANIZED BY THE NEIGHBORHOOD LEADERS. THERE ARE ABOUT 1300 SLEEPING IN THE FIELD AND ANOTHER FIELD TWO HOUSES AWAY.
FOUR SURGERIES WERE DONE ON OUR KITCHEN TABLE WITH MINIMUM ANESTHESIA, INCLUDING AN AMPUTATION.
WE THOUGHT THINGS WERE SLOWING AND THAT WE WERE GOING TO BE DOING WOUND CARE, FOLLOW UP, AND POST OP, BUT THEY KEEP COMING, PROBABLY BECAUSE WORD HAS GOTTEN OUT THAT THERE IS GOOD CARE HERE.
MANY PHYSICIANS, NURSES, DISASTER RELIEF PERSONNEL, U.S. JOURNALISTS, COORDINATORS, ETC., ARE PASSING THROUGH OUR HOUSE, SOME STAYING TO HELP IN OUR FIELD HOSPITAL, SOME TO USE OUR INTERNET FACILITIES. WE ARE ONE OF THE FEW GUEST HOUSES FUNCTIONING, AND WE HAVE POWER (GENERATOR) AND A FUEL SUPPLY. WE SPENT MUCH OF OUR DAY FERRYING PATIENTS FROM OUR FIELD HOSPITAL TO LOCAL FIELD HOSPITALS SET UP BY THE FRENCH, ISRAELIS, BRAZILIANS, RUSSIANS, BELGIANS, ETC., AS SOME HAVE X RAY, SOME NEUROSURGEONS, SOME ORTHOPEDIC SURGEONS, ETC.
TO ALL THOSE THAT HAVE EMAILED AND CALLED WITH PRAYERS, FINANCIAL SUPPORT, SUPPLIES, OFFERS OF HELP, A GREAT BIG THANK YOU! OUR VOLUNTEER DOCTORS ALONG WITH OUR HAITIAN DOCTORS FROM THE COMMUNITY AND COMMUNITY LEADERS SUPERVISED BY OUR EMPLOYEE AND LOYAL FRIEND THEIL HAVE MADE A TREMENDOUS POSITIVE IMPACT ON THIS COMMUNITY. LIVES HAVE BEEN SAVED, AND IMMEASURABLE SUFFERING RELEIVED, IN A TIME WHEN ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF HAITI HAVE ENDURED SO MUCH ANGUISH AND PAIN. EVERYONE WE TALK TO HAVE LOST LOVED ONES AND FRIENDS. MAY YOU CONTINUE TO BE A GREAT FRIEND OF HAITI, DOING GOD’S WORK HOWEVER YOU SEE FIT TO DO IT.
THANK YOU,
PATRICK
MATTHEW 25 HOUSE STAFF
Haiti Medical Mission of Wisconsin
Note: my dad is a member of the HMMW team currently in Haiti.
Medical Trip to Thiotte, Haiti
January 29, 2010
A Haiti Medical Mission of WI team (6 providers, 7 nurses and 1 lay helper) carrying 50 fifty pound duffles (2,500 pounds) full of medications and medical supplies left today for Haiti. They will arrive in Santo Domingo, DR today. Early tomorrow they will travel for 8 hrs (probably sitting on top of those duffels) by… bus to the DR/Haiti border where they will be picked up by Fr Louiders and others. Then… they will enjoy a 4 hour trip over the bumpy gravel road to Thiotte. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers this week. I will update when I can.
January 30, 2010
Talked to Haiti team this morning. They all made it through customs yesterday without and problems. They had a safe 5hr trip from Santo Domingo to Malpasse which is at the DR-Haiti border. They were waiting to be picked up by the people from Thiotte. Keep those prayers coming!
January 31, 2010
The team made it safely to Thiotte last evening. They all slept in the church courtyard as Fr. is afraid of another earthquake. Today they are busy unpacking duffels.
February 4, 2010
The team has been very busy with some very sick people who have advanced stages of malaria. Evidently they have had a lot of rain there which has not only increased the mosquito population but also washed away or rotted a lot of the crops. As far as post earth-quake wound care, they have not seen many patients. They have seen a huge number of people with PTSD. As far as surgeries, they put a chest tube in someone and then Fr Louiders took them to PAP yesterday to the airport to find either medical care there or transportation to the US.
Eben-Ezer Mission of Gonaives
Note: Eben-Ezer was my home during the seven months I lived in Haiti. The final letter in this series of three messages is long but worth reading. It was written by Michel Morisset, a Haitian pastor who founded Eben-Ezer Mission. He offers a remarkable call for cooperation among the many NGOs in Haiti–both the local and the international, the secular and the religious. If you are interested in supporting Eben-Ezer’s efforts, please leave a comment on this blog and I will reply to you with further information.
Helping Those Who Have Fled Port-au-Prince
January 20, 2010
Hello Elizabeth,
The Lord bless you. Most of the survivors are leaving port au prince and going to home place. And the city of Gonaives also is expecting thousands every day and they are coming to us for all kind of Needs such as: shelters, food, clothing, school medical and toiletries. As a matter of fact even as I’m talking to you now I get 8 people just arrived unexpectedly to my home and 17 more are coming. Even though there is help international but not everyone will have access to it as usual. By the way there is a strong new earthquake that hits Haiti this mornign. Magnitude 6.1 . Specially, Many people at lacroix who have relatives in port au prince are now leaving port au prince and coming back to them. As you know the reason they are coming to lacroix is because they need helps from me. Please would you pass the news out to friends, and brothers and sisters that will be willing to help with immediate needs ?
God bless,
past. Joshua
January 22, 2010
January 21, 2010
Dear friends,
This is a follow-up on my previous newsletter, which raised a number of reactions.
Our delegation to Port-au-Prince came home safely. We have witnessed crowds bewildered and going in all directions. The few UN workers are lost among those running to them for help, with complaints or with questions. Those poor foreigners are more lost in the chaos than those relying on them. The people holding the reins are not near. They sit at the UN headquarters and in other places where the movers and shakers set short term, midterm and long term goals.
Thinking of the international Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), more than once I have challenged them as Eben-Ezer is part of their platform, to tell me where they think they are going when every organization does what it wants and not caring about what the other does. They always answer me that their orders come from their base at the international level, and they cannot deviate from their mandate after they are on site, even if they know better now.
The situation of the Church doesn’t seem to be any different to me right now. The local leadership has gone down, the decisions are being made at the ministries’ headquarters. I as a leader, have been looking for my Haitian colleagues in the capital, and they’re nowhere to be found. I wasn’t discouraged, and I still am not, but I am wondering what is the future for those resilient Christians singing in the hospitals in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic. I was moved by those hosted by a Baptist Church in the DR, where we stayed Monday night. They were singing at 4:00 am in Creole: “If Christ wasn’t with me, where would I be?” and the chorus goes “He has surprises for you also, my friend!” What is the future for the Haitian Church if we are unable to minister to those victims of the streets wandering around like sheep without a shepherd? If we let them down now, will we have the nerves to approach them after others have looked after them?
The 21st century Church has a set of problems that weaken our power. Some of us run our ministries like a business, and others like a club. We compete against each other, and when we hear another Christian is having success in an area, we approach him to steal his secret instead of joining him for the sake of synergy. Many good organizations start on a good foundation, interdenominational, non denominational, interchurch, interracial, crosscultural, but then one drop of selfish interest or motivation drives us into a religion, and we start excluding…
We no longer look for those in need, we like to partner with those who’re having success. We extend cold shoulders to those who are victims of gossips. We want to stay clean and do not want the blood of those with bad reputation, meaning those who have been hurt or assassinated by others’ evil tongues, to spill over us. In the parabole of the good samaritan, the emphasis is put on the good samaritan and not on the hurting fellow he rescued. I have heard that maybe that wounded man was imprudent. The road to Jericho was no road for a man to be traveling alone on. According to some theologians, he was somewhat responsible for what had happened to him, but Jesus overlooked all that. So a good deed counts not because of the beneficiary, but because of the doer.
I know every Christian organization is active trying to do something to help us in Haiti, but the greatest blessing of all would be for all of those in charge of those organizations to somehow, come together around one table, just like all the countries forming the United Nations in the name of their Christ and to discuss Haiti. How wonderful that would be to see the international Church in dialogue with the Haitian Church!
I want to finish this long letter by sharing with all of you where we stand right now, some of us in Haiti. We see the rehabilitation of the victims in three phases:
- The emergency phase is when they are being rescued in the streets and under the crushing buildings and being rushed to the hospital.
- The recovering phase. That is when the chaplains are needed.
- The rehabilitation phase. They need a refuge center where they interact with others and where experts come and share with them along the lines of their dormant dreams until they wake up and reintegrate society.
Between leaders in the Dominican Republic who are doing so much for the victims both on the other side and inside of Haiti, and Haitian leaders from different cities in Haiti, we are working on establishing refuge centers which will have a more poetic name than “Refuge centers”.
Eben-Ezer is being promised funding to start a refuge center for 10,000 tenants. The process goes as follows:
- to identify the beneficiaries
- to hire buses for the pick-up in Port-au-Prince and/or at the Dominican border
- to provide food, shelter and medical care to them
- to provide job opportunities for them.
We are talking of establishing those centers to be led by Christian leaders and to be empowered by the local churches in every city. Now, can you, my brothers and sisters, imagine what the need will be for us at Eben-Ezer in human resources in order to be efficient and effective in operating our center ?
We will need to provide you over the week-end a list of specific skills needed, but you can already be thinking of your own abilities as a potential volunteer in the meantime. We will see what the funding agency will offer to those volunteering in terms of financial support on the ground.
Yours in the gap,
Michel Morisset
