Haiti - Initial Report

Written by: Gary Hale

February 2010

We have returned from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti after spending five nights in the city. I was accompanied by two men from our church (IBEM) and ministry in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, Marco Uribe and Chad Justice. We collaborated with missionaries from various Baptist mission agencies, including BIMI, Global Faith and BBF. Our staging ground was a Baptist church in Port-Au-Prince which had storage facilities and room for us to camp, organize supplies, and meet national pastors.

We had two primary objectives for going: help with immediate relief through the local churches and survey the damages to church structures. Below is an initial report.

First objective:

Our Dominican churches had collected supplies and given special love offerings to help in Haitian relief. As a result, we were able to distribute food, water, and clothing to 14 national churches by giving the supplies directly to their national pastors for distribution. These pastors were known and trusted from their long-term association with both Wes Lane, BBF missionary, and the local pastor/missionary at the church where we were staying. Many of the national pastors had been sent out from that church.

For our part, IBEM brought 1000 water bottles, clothes, and medical supplies. Other missionaries and churches brought other supplies.  Once in Port-Au-Prince we were also able to get some food supplies from the bigger aid agencies at the airport which had palates of food sitting there.

A warehouse has been rented in Port-Au-Prince for the continued short-term storage, organization and distribution of food and supplies.

Second objective:

We were able to do on-site surveys of several local churches and their respective schools (many churches have their own school because often public schools are not even available). Though some of the bigger  structures will require engineering expertise, most of the churches we visited were simple structures which we were able to assess.  There was a full range of damage from total destruction to slight cracking in walls.

More than 20 churches and pastors’ homes have been surveyed. A fuller, compiled report is being prepared which will help us collectively prioritize the churches in the most need.

Personal ministry:

I was invited to preach Sunday night to the Baptist church where we were staying. About 150-200 people seemed to be in attendance. It was a blessing to be able to see the faithfulness of the people and to encourage them from Ephesians 1 of the things that an earthquake cannot take from them. Their worship of God through their singing, testimonies, their giving in offering the little they had, and attentive listening to the Word was a great blessing to all of us.

Future follow-up:

Once the full report is finished, churches and missionaries will be able to begin to select churches in which to help rebuild. For IBEM and Daystar Baptist Mission’s part, more than $17,000 has already been raised for this effort with more money being sent in. With an understanding of the context and the local network of pastors and missionaries, we will be able to administrate the funds in order to ensure that we maximize the money given.  Getting these churches back into their buildings is a critical priority.

There is a clean and secure place where incoming relief, medical, and construction groups could stay. Ideally, the construction groups would be small, allowing for the employment of locals to help. Oversight is needed from the standpoint of ensuring that these buildings are built better; most of these church buildings were built with serious defects in materials and practices – e.g. a common, cheap white sand which does not bond used in mortar, rebar not anchored far enough inside of columns, rebar too thin and not gridded in floors/ceilings, ceilings too heavy for the support columns, etc.

General Notes:

• Our relief efforts and strategy have been based on the conviction that local churches in the States should cooperate with local churches in the Dominican Republic in order to help the local churches in Haiti – this is the body of Christ interconnected. By working through known local pastors and churches we are able to effectively administrate money and supplies from the ground up. 
• There is a logistical nightmare, as far as food distribution, at the airport in Port-Au-Prince. While we were initially able to get some donated food in order to distribute, this door is rapidly closing. An unbelievable amount of food sit packaged on the side of the runway. Tents are full with food. However, the UN and other bigger organizations are very slow in distributing. Often, when approaching these agencies, one finds different directors from day to day. Most of these agencies have no idea of how to distribute within the local context. What is distributed is often to the same people in the same locations. Bureaucracy is a growing problem. Missionaries and organizations who know the local context are often stonewalled in their attempts to help distribute inside the damaged neighborhoods of Port-Au-Prince.
• Groups are coming into Port-Au-Prince to help with little understanding of the local context. Many groups are merely going out to tent cities and distributing. In many cases, the same people are receiving food and help because of their proximity to roadways.
• Local churches are in a serious state. If their structures are still standing, most congregations are not meeting inside of them. This is because the people fear collapse. In many cases the churches have no patio area in order to meet, thus essentially eliminating any common place for worship. This has resulted in abbreviated services or even closed churches since the earthquake.
• As has been reported, damage to Port-Au-Prince itself is catastrophic.  Tent cities with thousands of people are found in open patches of land.  Thousands of other families live under tarps beside their destroyed homes, afraid to move away for fear of looting. Thankfully, rains have held off.  However, when the rains come there is going to be a major crisis with dysentery, typhoid, etc.

IBEM Notes:

• Our local church collected supplies and gave more than $300 in a special relief effort.
• Our DR church will likely be voting on adding the missionaries in Haiti in charge of the ministry where we staged our relief effort, as our fifth missions project for monthly support, joining Peru, Spain, and Equatorial New Guinea (Africa), and the DR Vision as our world outreach.