REPORTS OF DEVASTATION
The 7.0-magnitude quake struck just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 12, about 10
miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, a city of about 2 million people in southern
Haiti. The crescent-shaped nation, southeast of Cuba, shares the island of
Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic and is the poorest country in the Western
Hemisphere.
Though communication is difficult, church members have received some reports
from Haiti:
• At least nine members of the Delmas 43 Church of Christ in Port-au-Prince died
in the quake, preacher Jean Robert St. Hillare said in a Wednesday morning e-
mail message.
"We're still looking for dead bodies," St. Hillare said. "We have almost 50
members who need medical care, almost 290 homeless. That's sad. There is not
even bread to eat right now."
The quake forced St. Hillare and his family from their home and brought down
power lines, so the minister sent e-mail using a laptop computer powered by his
car's battery.
• The top two floors of the Delmas Christian Secondary School, which also serves
as the meeting place of the Delmas church, crumbled and fell into the road, said
Jeantyrard Elmera, the school’s director. A nursing class was in session in the
building when the quake hit. Reports of injuries were unavailable.
• Nicky, a 15-year-old boy at a church-supported children’s home near Port-au-
Prince, died when a wall collapsed. The boy lived with other children at Son Light
Children’s Home and Nutrition Center, overseen by Haitian Christian Roberta
Edwards. The Estes Church of Christ in Henderson, Tenn., supports the work.
Thomas Edwards, the oldest of the children living at the home, sent a brief e-mail
message to U.S. supporters Wednesday morning.
“We slept outside last night,” Thomas Edwards wrote, “and the earth was shaking
almost all night every 40 minutes.”
• Debbie Vanderbeek and other church members are attempting to reach the
worst-hit areas of Port-au-Prince to deliver supplies. Vanderbeek is Haiti program
director for Hope for Haiti’s Children, a church-supported ministry based in Sugar
Land, Texas. The ministry sponsors children in Port-au-Prince and surrounding
areas.
The ministry planned to send a medical mission team to Haiti this weekend to
conduct a clinic for children supported by the ministry.
“We have canceled this clinic and are waiting until we have a clearer picture of
the needs and how best to proceed,” according to a statement on the ministry’s
Web site. “The devastation is overwhelming.”
A mission team of 18 from the Estes church left Port-au-Prince on Monday, less
than 24 hours before the quake hit. Minister Jesse Robertson described the
poverty he saw in Haiti to The Jackson (Tenn.) Sun.
"Driving around, I thought if they ever had an earthquake, we're in trouble,"
Robertson said. "They hadn't had one like this in 200 years. I saw along the side
of a mountain shanty houses one on top of the other. They would collapse, and it
looks like that's what happened."
• Oneal Tankersley, missionary in residence at Harding University in Searcy,
Ark., was traveling between the cities of Gonaives to Port-au-Prince with his son,
Karl, and Harding student John Cannady when the quake hit. The group was in
Gonaives filming teaching videos.
They were unharmed by the quake, but their return flight to the U.S. was
canceled, said Dr. David Smith, a church member who directs the Haitian
Christian Development Project. The group traveled to the neighboring Dominican
Republic and is scheduled to fly home Thursday, Jan. 14.
"Gonaives, our development work and the communities with which we work ...
were apparently spared," Smith said.
Gueston Pacius, a church member in Gonaives and development director for the
Haitian Christian Development Project, plans to take relief supplies to Port-au-
Prince.
• Church members in northern Haiti experienced “tons of shaking and
aftershocks” but no significant damage, said Bob Valerius, who works with the
Cap Haitien Children’s Home.
• Despite the lack of damage in the north, people across Haiti will soon feel the
impact of the quake as food and fuel become scarce, said David Heath, a member
of the Littleton, Colo., Church of Christ. Heath and Ben Adkins of Louisiana-
based White’s Ferry Road Relief plan to leave Friday to assess needs and
purchase gas and food to distribute to those in need.
The church members already planned a relief trip to Haiti next week, and now are
stepping up their plans, Heath said.
A GLOBAL CALL FOR PRAYER
Haitian-born preacher Saint-Jean Jean-Pierre spent much of Tuesday night on the
phone, fielding calls and text messages of concern from the members of his
congregation in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Jean-Pierre, who moved to the U.S. from Haiti about 13 years ago, preaches for a
Church of Christ with about 75 members — all from Haiti. Many work in
restaurants or service industries in southern Florida. The church conducts services
in French-Creole.
“I’ve been receiving a bunch of calls,” the minister said. “They want to know
what happened to the houses (in Haiti). There’s a lot of crying.”
Church members had a conference call Tuesday night to pray for the people of
their homeland and plan additional prayer meetings as they wait for news.
The quake shook church buildings in Kingston, Jamaica, said Gladwyn Kiddoe,
minister and director of the Jamaica School of Preaching and Biblical Studies. No
damage was reported. Jamaican church members plan to meet Thursday, Jan. 14
at the Mona Church of Christ in St. Andrew, Jamaica, to discuss relief strategies,
Kiddoe said.
Meanwhile, emotional shockwaves from the quake have reached Christians as far
away as Africa.
“Two families from our church and school are still trying to reach relatives there,”
said Holly Hixson, a missionary in Kigali, Rwanda. “They have asked us to pray.”
Jean Balcom, a member of the West Fayetteville Church of Christ in Fayetteville,
Tenn., has traveled to Haiti multiple times to assist Roberta Edwards in her work
near Port-au-Prince. Watching news reports from her home, she’s seen markets
and buildings she’s visited — now reduced to rubble.
Even before the quake, “it’s hard to put into words the devastation you already
see over there,” Balcom said, “so to see more … it’s overwhelming.”