Michigan mission helps Haitians rebuild lives!

Supplies Dangerously Low!

Garden City church group provides water, food to quake victims

Catherine Jun / The Detroit News

Port-au-Prince, Haiti — With so many hungry for food and water, a missionary school backed by a Garden City church has become a lifeline for hundreds of Haitians who have nothing and no place to go.

The stone courtyard has become home to as many as 200 people from the Delmas 33 section of Port-au-Prince.

They were displaced by last week’s earthquake, their homes reduced to rubble or too damaged to inhabit.

Herbert Studstill, a volunteer from Romulus who flew to the mission before the earthquake, a bricklayer by trade, has become an expert in rationing. He said that the neighborhood has not seen much food from international relief missions.

He has been shaken by the immensity of it all.

“I’ve seen more people dead than I’ve seen on TV in my life,” he said. “I don’t think I can ever switch back to my normal.”

He’s among a small group of Michigan residents who are in Haiti helping this school, 1,700 miles from Metro Detroit. They are there helping to feed, clothe and comfort hundreds of people who now count on the school for their very existence.

As many as 200,000 are believed to have died in the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan 12. Thousands more are in need of medical care, food and water.

A six-person mission led by the Rev. John Hearn of Christian Faith Ministries of Garden City arrived Wednesday with supplies and thousands of dollars, but it still is not enough.

On Thursday, Hearn managed to secure bottles of water and food from American aid agencies. That was gained with the help of a staffer from the office of U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Detroit, who is part of the mission. But that food and water is expected to only last a few days.

Nigel Snoad of the United Nations Disaster Assessment & Coordination team told the delegation on Thursday that relief aid would soon be distributed on a larger scale.

Meanwhile back in Michigan, Hearn’s church is organizing a drive to collect items for the Caring and Sharing Mission that they’ve supported for decades.

Soon, they hope to send back a cargo plane of supplies: rice and beans, baby formula, air mattresses, clothing and shoes for men, women and children.

“That’s imperative to get those items down,” Hearn said.

Nowhere else to go

Myriam Moise, 23, has slept two nights under a tent at the mission, along with her 2-month-old baby and nephews. She has nowhere else to go.

The quake left several rooms of her three-level home in Delmar 33 exposed. Her husband sleeps outside the door of the house to scare away thieves, she said.

“We don’t know where else to go,” Moise said about why she came to the mission.

Moise said she hasn’t thought about what they will do next week, or next month. She is concerned only with today.

“We’re waiting. We’re waiting on God to do something.”

Life inside the compound is a microcosm of life outside. Those who survived the devastating earthquake last week struggle to endure with very little.

On Thursday morning, shelves were nearly bare and some were empty. All that was left to feed the hundreds that flock to the mission were three bags of rice, and bags of pinto beans and burgher wheat.

With gas scarce, cooking on the stove is unwise. Families are fed from a large iron pot cooked over hot coals in the center of the courtyard.

Each morning, neighbors trickle into the compound to fetch water from the mission’s well.

Too many hands drawing up the bucket could contaminate the entire pool, said Yonel Ismael, the mission’s director. In recent days, he has assigned just a few of the boys from the school to do the task.

“If they want to eat, we feed them,” volunteer Studstill said.

Outside the compound and down the road is a grassy expanse. Once used for soccer games, its fenced grounds are now overrun with makeshift tents, made of rope, plastic sheeting and bed sheets stretched from trees.

It is home to thousands of displaced Haitians.

Monley Kevins is 5 years old. His naked body was pulled from the wreckage of his home Wednesday. He was alive. His mother and father, found earlier, were dead.

That night, Monley slept beside his grandfather on a dusty mattress, shielded from the nighttime chill by a blanket.

His uncle, Gary Elyssee, is the one who found the child after days of relentless digging. He was ecstatic to find the boy, Elyssee said, but now he must feed and care for him.

“I still don’t know what I’m going to do,” Elyssee said in French.

A family atmosphere

Perhaps one of the deepest comforts, some said, comes from the prayers and family atmosphere at the mission.

“They have done a lot for me,” said 19-year-old Donna Jusce, who was raised at the mission since the age of 9.

“I can’t be scared because if I die, I know where I am going,” he said, while emphasizing his faith and how it has grown at the mission. Jusce now is a volunteer.

“I like looking out for people,” he said.

After nightfall, Hearn gathered many in the courtyard for prayers: “Please know even in what you’ve been through, God has not forsaken you.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100122/NATION/1220377/1020/Mich.-mission-helps-Haitians-rebuild-lives#ixzz0e7hDUalQ

2 Responses to “Michigan mission helps Haitians rebuild lives!”

1. Cloud VPS Hosting says:

   February 5, 2010 at 4:30 am

   Fantastic Job by Garden City church group. Keep it up!!! And I would also like to do the request to all of you to provide help whatever and however possible.
2. ElMyers Peres says:

   March 5, 2010 at 3:29 pm

   The Haitian people has my condoloences. The recent earthquake was a tragedy.