David Short, of South Dayton Presbyterian Church (pictured in previous post), will be heading up the relief teams sent from the Ohio region. He has recently returned from a team mission to Haiti and has daily accounts of the journey at http://www.southdaytonpcachurch.org/haiti/default.htm

Here's a sample:

Friday, February 5, 2010 - Haiti Day 6

Bonjour...

Sorry about not sending out an email yesterday. After we had breakfast yesterday Bryan and I separated from the rest of the team to do a little more assessment before our long trip back to the Dominican Republic. We started out with a visit to one of our churches in Les Cayes. It was Englese Bon Berger, a church of 4000 with an orphanage, a school and a full clinic with surgery room (this part is still in development. The church was planted here 3 years ago. Part of the design of the Haitian church is to provide a holistic approach to church planting. The need is so great and more than just the soul needs to be ministered to.

After the church we checked out the guest house in Les Cayes. It is a beautiful 3 story complex, but it looks like they will need to move out until some structural analysis is done. All of the ceilings, which are concrete slabs are showing stress fractures.

Some of the things that we learned about Haiti are:

- there is 1 doctor for every 37,000 people

- there are currently 10,000 NGO's trying to help here, with no centralized organization

- education in the country

- 4% is educated by the government

- 17% is educated by the church

- 8% is educated by other organizations

- 71% is illiterate

On our way back to the DR we drove through Le a Gere (spelling) which was near the epicenter. 97% of the town was destroyed.

Update from Medical Mission Team

A group of doctors and one journalist have partnered with ESMI in Haiti this week and have some amazing reports chronicled on their blog. They also have an eye-witness account from a worker at an orphanage of the earthquake. Do check out their work:

http://morethanmedicine.wordpress.com/

The Miami Connection

 

From left to right are Curt Moore, Leslie (El Shaddai Ministries), David Short, and Dick Griffith.  The group was taking a break Thursday between purchases of equipment and trips to the port in Miami. A container and 26' truck are due to arrive in Port Au Prince either today or tomorrow. Dick and David will be traveling to Carrefour to establish a long-term disaster response base camp. Please pray for their travels and safety as they undertake this great task.

Containers Due to Arrive in Port Au Prince

A container and a 26' International truck should be making their way to the port at Port au Prince, Haiti today. Inside each are supplies to begin equipping a two story bungalow in Carrefour as a disaster response base camp. Dick Griffith of Chattanooga Valley Presbytery and David Short of Ohio Valley Presbytery arrived in Miami Tuesday and began making purchases based upon a take-off list for the items needed to rehab the Carrefour facility. Wiring, plumbing, tables, chairs, fixtures, tools, and a generator were purchased. Curt Moore, the MNA Gulf Coast rep. drove beds, mattresses, and other supplies from Lagniappe Church in Bay St. Louis, MS. Working with El Shaddai Ministries they brought all supplies to a port in Miami which shipped out Friday. David and Dick will be arriving in Carrefour the first week in March to begin setting up the base camp and meeting teams due to arrive March 6. Please pray that all supplies make it to their destination and that Dick, David and others will get our facility up and running in order to multiply our relief efforts in Carrefour and beyond.

Supplies to Haiti via Miami via Mississippi

A truck load of steel bunkbeds and an equal number of mattresses will be driven from Lagniappe Presbyterian Church in Bay St. Louis, MS to the El Shaddai facility this week. Lagniappe hosted a number of teams in response to Hurricane Katrina and are donating much needed supplies which will be used to establish a disaster relief camp in Carrefour. Along with the beds will be a piece of heavy equipment which will be used to excavate, level ground, move concrete, and transport palletized items. God was gracious to provide for those in need after Katrina and continues to provide for those in Haiti. Please pray for Curt Moore as he travels from Bay St. Louis to Miami and for the transportation service which will haul the skidsteer. Lord willing they will all be together in Miami and will be loaded into a container along with other supplies for transport to Haiti.

And they're going back...

Pastor Mike Hsu of Grace Chapel of Lincoln, NE, has just returned from a team mission of several weeks in Haiti and Mirebelais with Brian Kelso. Here is a sample of a day through his eyes. If you'd like to read more about his experience, please check out his blog: www.hsumike.blogspot.com

2/10 Successful Day So Far

We started unloading the container at about 10:30 this morning. Because the semi could not make it up the hill, we unloaded about 20,000 lbs. of supplies and walked them the 75 yards or so to the dropoff location. We had over fifty Haitians including small children and elderly men and women carrying supplies. We're talking 8 yr. olds and 60 yr. olds carrying 50 lb. bags of rice and oats on their heads. These people are amazing. Then they got the truck over the hill and we unloaded the rest of the 20,000 lbs. on location. Next, we set up the crane with directions consisting of a picture, but Frank and Gene were great. We set up the crane with two large steel beams each weighing 200 lbs., bolted to the top, and then lowererd the 4000 lb. container to the ground. This was the part of the project where it was important that we have four Americans at each corner of the container with clear communication as we lowered the container in unison. Gene walked around to make sure the container remained level and Frank, Trey, Chris and I lowered the container. We got it done safely and efficiently. Praise God. We took a short lunch break and for the last four and a half hours, we have been working with the PaP University students to get the food into family packs in preparation for distribution. This day has been amazing. This particular project is why we came to Haiti in the first place. Though delayed by a week, this has been an awesome day so far. We still plan to work into the night. As I was working alongside Ralph, the Haitian student leader, Ralph said, "we will need to play basketball" : that gets me excited.

Blessing through ESMI

Ed O'Brian, who has been organizing Florida-based food donations for ESMI, has just reported that they've filled a 20-foot truck container with $3000 worth of food and water supplies, to be shipped to Haiti next week. The container full of rice, beans, tents, water, and other supplies will arrive at Gonaives, Haiti and be conveyed to food distribution sites, as well as to pastors' families that are in need, on its way to PAP.

The container's contents have been donated by people from Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church and others in the local area, and Ed estimated over 500 people got involved. Ed noted that he'd been on mission trips with Spanish River Church in the fall, but couldn't leave on the latest mission to Haiti, so his involvement in coordinating the food donation became his mission.

For those of you seeking similar ways of participating in what God's doing, Ed noted that food is becoming less of a need, rather direct monetary donations to ESMI will go further. The ministry is attempting to buy 5 trucks in order to facilitate the distributions, transportation of teams, and to serve other needs in Haiti.

A team in Haiti from Spanish River Church

A team sent from Spanish River Church partnering with ESMI is doing great work at a hospital, orphanage and food distribution center in Gonaives, Haiti. Follow their movements this week through their blog: http://srcglobal.blogspot.com/

We'll continue to update on the movements of teams and supplies sent through PCA ministries to Haiti.

The Big Picture

MNA Disaster Response is working to assist PCA Pastors Dony St. Germain and Brian Kelso. These men are MNA Senior Staff members and have been working in Haiti for many years. In order to determine how best to help these men and their ministries MNA Disaster Response sent assessment team, including MNA Disaster Response Director Arklie Hooten, to travel into Haiti with these men. While in Haiti these men made contact with various ministry sites to determine how best to stage MNA Disaster Response Volunteers to response to this terrible disaster. 

Currently MNA staff are working with 43 church plants which had started prior to the earthquake and is ministering to hundreds of Haitians on a regular basis. They are also working with 13 orphanages with 2,200 orphans as a ministry of mercy and outreach. This ministry is also involved with numerous local church schools and micro businesses. 

Many of the 43 church plants already underway are in cities outside of Port-au-Prince. Because of the intensity of the destruction concentrated in Port-au-Prince many thousands of people have fled that city in search of a more stable place to live. This large movement of people has caused many of the outlying cities to more than double in population, with no increases in infrastructure – infrastructure that was also affected by the earthquake. This has caused depletion of almost every type of resource that a city or town would normally afford.

MNA’s initial assessment is complete with the return of the assessment team this week. A second team is on the ground now assessing damage to over 30 homes of El Shaddai Ministries church members in the Carrefour/Port-au-Prince area. A plan has been established to direct the response of MNA to this disaster. Of course as with any event of this magnitude, this plan is subject to ‘tweaking’ and change as future events unfold. At this point the plan is as follows:

• Mobilize medical teams as space allows. This began within days of the earthquake and is continuing. Currently teams are booked through March. If you are a trained medical provider and desire to serve you can register now. To register, see link below.

• Set up earthquake response operations at Carrefour, a city near the epicenter of the quake. We are moving deliberately and as quickly as possible. This site will become the headquarters for the response. MNA Disaster Response First Responders are preparing to mobilize to secure the facility and prepare it for a long term response. We are currently gathering materials and supplies to ship to Carrefour in advance of the arrival of the First Responders. We expect this phase to take up to six weeks to complete. Once the volunteer facility is ready to go and the airport re-opens in Port-au-Prince, mobilize teams to assist in the rebuilding efforts, beginning with the homes of the members of El Shaddai mentioned above. It is absolutely cost prohibitive to send teams through the Dominican Republic and creates a significant logistical problem for coordinating over-ground transport, which is the reason to wait for the airport to open in Port-au-Prince.
• Continue to provide teams to both El Shaddai Ministries headed up by Pastor St. Germain and Great Commission Alliance headed up by Pastor Brian Kelso at various short term sites in Haiti, once the Port-au-Prince airport re-opens.

We are putting together a list of immediately needed resources and will be making this list of specific needs available shortly. Please check back later this week for this list, including specific instructions regarding packaging, palleting, and shipping these resources.  Please consider an immediate financial gift to support relief effort planning, assessment and setting up a base of operations that will facilitate and care for future long term recovery volunteers who will be working in difficult conditions.

Arklie, Jordan, and the Asessment team in Haiti