Local Mission’s Prayers Answered

Garden City Group Operates Mission Group In Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

GARDEN CITY, Mich. — A Garden City Church that operates a small school in Port-au-Prince Haiti said they got text message early Thursday that answered their prayers.

POSTED: Wednesday, January 13, 2010  in The Detroit News
UPDATED: 2:50 pm EST January 14, 2010
PHOTO CREDITS: Elisabeth Conely

“We are all Ok,” read a text message sent to John Hearn Jr. of The Friends of Caring & Sharing Mission. Christian Faith Ministries in Garden City has been operating The Friends of C&S Mission, which has built a small school in the capital and works to educate, feed and clothe Haitian children, for more than 20 years.

The Friends of C&S Mission members anxiously waited for word from someone that the 35 children at the school and volunteers from Michigan were OK.

“This came at 6:13 a.m. this morning and it said, “We are all OK.’ “That’s truly a blessing from God. It lets me know he truly had his arms around each and everyone of them,” said Hearn. Jr.

The message came from a 25-year-old woman who was a teacher at the school the mission built. Five children who were students at the school are now teachers there.

Nobody had heard from Herbert Studsteel, the last volunteer who left metro Detroit last week for Haiti, until he contacted his wife, Amy Thursday morning.

Studsteel was one of several volunteers who rotate in and out of the mission, and he went to the school to try to improve the cement infrastructure. “He’s a strong man so if he could pull out from under a brick wall he will, so I kept faith,” said Amy Studsteel.

The mission still has not heard whether the school they built withstood the magnitude-7.0 earthquake. “I really don’t know what we are going to find. If it did go down, it would be very difficult to rebuild there again,” said The Friends of Caring & Sharing founder John Hearn Sr.

No calls or text messages to people in Haiti are going through again said Hearn Sr.

Hearn Sr. said that it’s comforting to know that the building can be replaced, but people cannot and he will continue to pray for the people that have died. “Your heart aches for those who are not named, and will not even have a decent burial with all the devastation,” said Hearn Sr.

The group is waiting for Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to put together a delegation to fly to Haiti and help rebuild. If you would like to help the mission group, send money to:

The Friends of C&S Mission:
26300 Ford Road
Dearborn Heights, MI 48127-2854
For more information on The Friends of C&S Mission, call 734-525-0022.