Relief for Haiti: Transitioning to Longer-Term Solutions
While we continue delivering food and supply kits to our church partners for the immediate relief of the families they serve, we are beginning to shift our focus from short-term relief to longer-term solutions.
One possible component of a larger strategic approach includes working with other organizations in Haiti to implement income-generating activities for those who have lost homes, property and the means to provide for themselves.
Beginning in March and continuing every three months, we will begin hosting conferences and workshops for key church leaders in Haiti. We not only want to encourage them, but we also want to challenge them to be a prophetic voice during this time.
Edouard Lassegue, Vice President of the Central America and Caribbean Region says,
“Compassion has earned respect in Haiti and we are uniquely positioned to leverage that respect and the strong relationships we have developed with church leaders. We want to use our credibility to encourage them to be a voice for what is right, for service, for responsibility — that is what is required in a time like this.”
As far as the children themselves, safety is our top priority. Until children and their families can move back into permanent dwellings, protecting them in the tent cities is essential.
Helping Haiti: Our Food Kit Distribution Process
We continue to procure and deliver relief supplies through our staging area in Florida and our two supply warehouses in Haiti. We estimate that 1,000 emergency relief food kits are arriving in Haiti daily, some of which are donated by church partners in the Dominican Republic.
Food kits are put together in the Dominican Republic and delivered to our Port-au-Prince warehouse via large trucks. In high-risk areas, we use security assistance from the U.S. Army, though at times this draws unwanted attention. As food and relief supplies become more readily available, there will be less of a need for this.
Smaller vehicles from our Haitian church partners come to our Port-au-Prince warehouse to pick up the food kits.
Each food kit gives a family of five one meal a day for two weeks.
As Buildings Shook and Crumbled
Compassion Canada CEO Barry Slauenwhite and a group of fellow Canadians were met at the Port-au-Prince airport on Jan. 12 with an unexpected diplomatic reception. It lasted only 15 or 20 minutes, but it was long enough to possibly save their lives.
Barry was leading a weeklong vision trip for six Canadian pastors and their wives. Their home for the week was to be the Hotel Montana. But less than an hour after landing in Haiti, it became clear that this trip would take a very different turn.
Clean Water for Haiti
The critical need the poor always have for water has been heightened in Haiti after the earthquake. We’ve used various ways to distribute water to our church partners, and we’re looking to our strategic partnerships to continue to meet the short- and long-term needs.
We have a long-standing relationship with Healing Waters International, providing water systems to church partners in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
In response to the immense need in Haiti, Healing Waters International has provided 2,500 one-gallon jugs of water at no cost to Compassion Haiti. The water was bottled at the Healing Waters projects at our Dominican Republic church partner sites. If there is continued need, they are equipped to begin bottling on a daily basis.
The water will be trucked to Haiti along with the family food kits being assembled at our warehouse on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border.
We will also investigate several long-term solutions, such as building water systems at church partner sites in Haiti.
According to Gregg Keen, our Complementary Interventions Director,
“Healing Waters International and Compassion have been good partners for several years. When the disaster hit Haiti, Healing Waters was among the first organizations we called to ask what their response would be. They went to heroic efforts to find available water bottles in the DR when none could be found there. Bottled water will help people to avoid drinking and using contaminated water and the related diseases they can cause, especially in a disaster situation like this one. The impact of this can’t even be measured.”
Healing Waters’ mission is to empower local ministry partners to bring physical, social and spiritual transformation to poor communities, a mission that makes them an excellent partner for us.
Read more about our partnership with Healing Waters International.
Help Haiti
We’ve been helping Haiti for more than 40 years — teaching, feeding, educating, loving, mentoring, caring and most importantly, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Will you join us in helping Haiti rebuild?
Thoughts on Haiti From Haiti: 21 Days Later
This was written yesterday by Bob Thorp, a member of our Complementary Interventions team, who has been in Haiti working with our staff since shortly after the earthquake.
“I’ve witnessed a metamorphosis here since arriving here 21 days ago. Then, the words I could use to describe what I saw was a whole city in shock, walking around like zombies, walking wounded. Blank stares. Hollow eyes, caked with mud, now dry from an inability to produce more tears. A survival mentality had set in – each one for themselves. Walk right past someone trapped, because they needed to get home to find their own loved ones.
“Today, car horns blare from 4:00am on late into the night. The continual roar of traffic, occasional squealing of tires, movement everywhere. Life is returning to Port-au-Prince. It started like a drip – in dire need of food and water, street vendors started setting up shop – hawking anything and everything. Fruits and vegetables started appearing. Clothes, used and new – recovered from the rubble of someone else’s house – who knows – now hand on clothes hangers covering a filthy crumbling wall like royal curtains. Mountains of shoes have also made it to the street vendors. Even seen a place where you could buy just one shoe! Not sure why, either they had a niche for those that could only find one of their shoes. Or more morbid, selling shoes to all those who lost limbs because of this tragedy.”
Read the entire blog post.
“I’ve witnessed a metamorphosis here since arriving here 21 days ago. Then, the words I could use to describe what I saw was a whole city in shock, walking around like zombies, walking wounded. Blank stares. Hollow eyes, caked with mud, now dry from an inability to produce more tears. A survival mentality had set in – each one for themselves. Walk right past someone trapped, because they needed to get home to find their own loved ones.Life in Haiti After the Earthquake: It Just Hurts
Received from Scott Todd, our Senior Ministry Advisor, who is leading our medical team in Port-au-Prince.
Saturday, Jan. 30 – We had the chance to meet eight leadership students today. We sat in a circle in the parking lot listening to their stories as ashes drifted like snow upon us and the smell of burning plastics scorched the air.
They spoke of how important Compassion’s work has been in their lives. Some shared with tears about being selected for the Leadership Development Program. I don’t know whether the tears flowed from joy, gratitude or something sad.
Like the dream that almost came true. They had climbed so high. From the slums to the universities. But when we asked how many went to schools which had been damaged in the earthquake all of them raised their hands.
We asked how many had lost friends or loved ones and all raised their hands again.
At one school 90 percent (180 out of 200) of the students were killed. With buildings collapsed, professors and administrators dead, its hard to imagine how those dreams can come true now.
May God have mercy on us if we fail to find a way forward for them. They are Haiti’s future.
Life in Haiti After the Earthquake: Carrying On
From Scott Todd, our Senior Ministry Advisor, who is leading our medical team in Port-au-Prince.
I’m in my tent. Too tired to go up to the place where I can connect to Internet on the sloping desk and wobbly chair in the parking lot – so I know this won’t go out tonight.
Today (Jan. 29) we returned to the area we visited on day two. Leogone. Almost a two-hour drive. It is an absolute war zone of destruction. Nearly the whole town is rubble. I felt a deeper sadness than the other places – a community completely broken. Yet, they were clearing away the debris from the streets and already beginning to rebuild.
We arrived at the church, a partner in our program, to find a group of people under a tarp canopy. We assumed they were patients waiting for our arrival as had been the case on previous days. They weren’t.
They were the people of the church who had gathered for fasting and prayer. They sang, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our hopes and griefs to bear.”
We set up the clinic with greater proficiency today – larger tarps, larger ropes, higher anchors so the heat radiating under the plastic didn’t bake the people (and us).
Another day of broken bones and infected wounds. A few unexpected cases – a man with polio who had fallen and needed surgery, a young boy whose foreskin was nearly sealed, preventing urination, creating back pressure and infection risk.
Half the team has suffered intestinal problems, but they carry on despite their misery. It didn’t help that there were no latrines available today. We “stood guard” for one another.
The person I will be specifically praying for tonight is Chantal. Mother of five. We saw her two days earlier and I believe it is by God’s guidance that we came to this site today.
Life in Haiti After the Earthquake: Living by Faith
Received from Scott Todd, our Senior Ministry Advisor, who is leading our medical team in Port-au-Prince.
Back at my sloping desk in the parking lot with my chair tottering over the pothole.
In some ways today (Jan. 28) was the most exhausting. Mainly the heat in our “clinic.” Once again, under tarps despite a respectable-looking church right next to us.
Our team used the church for sorting meds and eating lunch, and I hope that our occupying it might encourage the people to overcome the fear that the earth may shake it down at any moment.
Treated over 100 people again today, but the conditions generally seem less severe in the city, where people are getting access to health services.
The story that will most trouble me as I try to sleep in the parking lot again tonight is the two very young children (approximately 2 and 3 years old) whose parents both died in the quake.
These young children are registered in our Child Survival Program. Their aunt came to take them and is caring for them.
I just learned an hour ago that their aunt is 15 years old and they are sleeping in the street under a makeshift tarp tent. It’s night now and I wonder how that 15-year-old girl is going to find any food for herself or for those little ones.
I’ve only shared about the kids and people we’ve been seeing, but I want to say something about our staff in Haiti.
It just isn’t possible to describe the emotional burden they carry. I spoke with Jozue (Joshua), who works for Compassion and is pastor of the church where we set up the mobile clinic today.
Jozue told me that on the day of the quake his wife was getting ready to wash their two little girls. Their water is outside, like a backyard spigot, and when mom went out to get the water one of the girls saw her go out and began to follow. Then the second one followed.
Mom saw the girls coming out of the house and said “Get back inside.”
But the girl said “No!”
“I said go back inside!”
But the girl stomped her foot and insisted, “No!”
Life in Haiti After the Earthquake: Reclaiming Beauty From Despair
Received from Scott Todd, our Senior Ministry Advisor, who is leading our medical team in Port-au-Prince.
Today (Jan. 27) was … not sure what word could cover it. The team went to a rural site (HA748) and set up our clinic under a large mango tree.
I had to stay back in the morning because we had medical supplies that had missed the original plane and it was important to receive them. They were tagged to me, and we didn’t think U.S. forces would allow anyone else through.
So, with a tail number on an aircraft we went through the two checkpoints and were suddenly amidst the chaos of the tarmac. Massive cargo planes from the U.S. military being unloaded, vast field of materials, also some non-U.S. big planes – a 777 from Israel…. Helicopters of all types buzzing around.
We took a guess at a small plane and drove out to a field where they were parking smaller charters and we found our guy grabbed our meds and got out to HA748.
The team saw much heavier needs today. I held an 80 year old (approximately) lady for 30 minutes while she writhed in pain as our orthopedic surgeon amputated her toe. It had been crushed and was rotting infection up into the bone so it needed to be completely cleared out.
That old lady was made of leather and wire but wailed away. We probably saved her life – certainly her foot as the infection would have progressed.
Life in Haiti After the Earthquake
Received from Scott Todd, our Senior Ministry Advisor, who is leading our medical team in Port-au-Prince.
Last night’s (Jan. 25) arrival – in the dark, no lights in the airport, Humvees and Marines roaring around, bags thrown on the tarmac, smell of jet fuel, shouting, chaos, can’t find our pickup, pulling out over 30 duffel bags and boxes, driving through the chaos of Port-au-Prince with three of our guys on top of each pickup “guarding” baggage.
Touring our office at night with flashlights, framed mission statement on the wall tilted, leadership principles tilted, warning to walk clear of certain walls which are collapsing – pitch tent in parking lot, spray some DEET, take some Malarone, sweating from hauling stuff.
Today (Jan. 26), our medical team worked under tarps because the people are afraid to go inside buildings. Within an hour we were up and running and saw approximately 100 patients.
Each patient registered at entry through a gate with name, basic info including height, weight etc… and took a number. Some were triaged. Others waited to be called to one of four (sometimes five) stations. Each station had a doc, nurse and translator (though some of our Haitian nurses also served as translators).
The cases were not as severe as I expected with some very serious cuts and abrasions that were infected and needed dressing, some dislocations, a few bone issues. Many were just overwhelmed and needed someone to look at them and tell them they were okay. We prayed with some of them.
Looking Past Haiti’s Short-Term Needs
“First, I ask God to forgive me for my sins.”
That’s the answer 12-year old Robinson gave me when I asked him what he’s praying for this week.
It might sound like a sweet prayer from a 12-year old, until you realize that Robinson is living with his family in a tent city in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. And the reason for his prayer is that Robinson, like many others here in this quake-damaged country, believes the terrible disaster is the result of sin.
And he feels ashamed.
He thinks God shook the earth to destroy his poverty-stricken city, killing thousands of people—all because he did something bad; he pushed another boy on the playground. It’s heartbreaking.
This is a great example of why the help we bring to Haiti has to go beyond food, water and medicine. Yes, those things are vital. And they need them now. But if we are going to look past the short-term, to the future of Haiti, our relief efforts must include a spiritual component. (more…)
