Update from Rick Ireland

Phases 1 and 2 of the recovery plan (which have been completed) included the following:

• More than 1,000 people were vaccinated and more than 2,000 people were seen in free clinics. These clinics were staffed by Haitian medical people volunteering their time to serve their churches and communities.
• We (the steering committee) have worked extensively with the local churches to develop programming for children prior to the restart of school.
• We conducted distributions at every church in the West and South Districts. Some of these churches are hours from Port-au-Prince, and this was the only help these people received. We have also distributed relief supplies to school staffs.
• We have given grants to 29 pastors to provide for provisional shelter and to an additional 19 pastors to assist in repairing their homes.
• We have assisted a number of churches in demolition. The typical pattern is that local church people provide the labor to take down the buildings and we provide money to have the rubble hauled away.
• We have been identifying and funding projects that can be accomplished with Haitian labor.
• We have made major progress in rebuilding the financial system and hope to be done in the next week or so.
• The Bible school has restarted.

Looking ahead

• Nearly a dozen sites have lost both their church and school. We are working hard to get at least one usable structure at every site.
• New building materials are being tested: a new (to us) steel frame building structure and a new (to Haiti) type of foam core building.
• We are expecting a major shipment of tents.
• We are looking at the possibility of a second pastors’ retreat. The first retreat was limited to only West and South District pastors. We would like to do something for all pastors and wives. The earthquake has had an impact far beyond Port-au-Prince. Superintendent Charite reports that in his region alone the population has swelled by 156,000 people and the schools are serving 20,000 additional students.
• We are planning major subsidies to all FM schools to assist them in paying for staff.
• We need to continue to rebuild the administrative structure of the mission in Haiti. This begins with finances but there are a number of other things, such as government reports and permits that need to be brought up to date as the government structure gets back to normal.

VISA Need in Haiti:

The FM recovery program in Haiti requires a geotechnical engineer to join a small team of structural engineers departing soon.
DUTIES: Help in the ongoing assessments of selected FM churches and schools which remain standing following the January earthquake. Help prepare a brief report on findings and conclusions.
ELIGIBILITY: A qualified geotechnical engineer experienced in time-efficient field assessments. A team player who understands and is in full sympathy with the Christian basis for this work is needed for this mission.
MISSION DURATION: approximately one week.
TIMING: soon – to be arranged in consultation with the team leader. Interested individuals should e-mail: conniek@fmcna.org.

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Excerpts from Fri., May 7, 2010 Update

Rick Ireland

More than ever before I am struck by the contrasts of life in the U.S. and life here in Haiti. A noticeable number of buildings are being demolished. I remember watching a house be demolished in the States – a giant machine came in and the house was gone in an afternoon. Here they are being demolished by crews of men with sledgehammers. It is a lot slower but things are just as demolished in the end. If there is an underlying lesson it is just this, life is a lot harder here.

This was driven home in a more personal way as I talked with my friend Jean Marc. Jean Marc is a pastor and a very able administrator, and we work very closely together for the relief effort. Last night my head hit the pillow about 9 p.m. and I slept like a log until about 4:30 or so. Jean Marc didn’t get much sleep. He sleeps in a tent in a school courtyard. It rained a good part of last night, and he had to get up and empty the rain that pooled up in the canvas tarps that overhung the courtyard. He was also awakened several times to help his elderly father to the bathroom. But today he was cheerful and full of hope. He went on and on about how God was at work and that we were entering good days for Haiti.

I see that all around me. People are in difficult circumstances but they are approaching life with peace and contentment. I think one of the reasons the Haitian people have been so resilient in their difficult times is that they are not as focused on the treasures of earth which they no longer have.

Other Haiti news

Edwani, wife of Erlin Blot the FOHO (Friends of Haiti Organization) caretaker who was killed in the earthquake, recently gave birth to a baby girl. The baby’s name is Jeanne after Pastor Jeanne Acheson-Munos who also lost her life in the quake.

The Miraj, India, FM Church is made up of members disabled by the ravages of Hansen’s disease (leprosy). Some make their living by begging and some by weaving. Out of their meager earnings, they contributed more than $100 to the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund.

Workers with Clear Blue Global Water Project have provided 22 working wells in Haiti since mid-January. They plan to return to Haiti in July and August, as funds are available. To learn more about Clear Blue’s efforts to bring safe drinking water to Haiti and how you can be involved, click here.

VISA Need in Haiti:

The FM recovery program in Haiti requires a geotechnical engineer to join a small team of structural engineers departing soon.
DUTIES: Help in the ongoing assessments of selected FM churches and schools which remain standing following the January earthquake. Help prepare a brief report on findings and conclusions.
ELIGIBILITY: A qualified geotechnical engineer experienced in time-efficient field assessments. A team player who understands and is in full sympathy with the Christian basis for this work is needed for this mission.
MISSION DURATION: approximately one week.
TIMING: soon – to be arranged in consultation with the team leader. Interested individuals should e-mail: conniek@fmcna.org.

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• 3.5 million people die each year from water-related disease.
• 84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0-14.
• 98% of water-related deaths occur in the developing world.
• 884 million people, lack access to safe water supplies, approximately one in eight people.
• The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.
• Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use
• An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.
• About a third of people without access to an improved water source live on less than $1 a day. More than two thirds of people without an improved water source live on less than $2 a day.
• Without food a person can live for weeks, but without water you can expect to live only a few days.
• The daily requirement for sanitation, bathing, and cooking needs, as well as for assuring survival, is about 13.2 gallons per person.

More wells are desperately needed, will you please help.

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The rain and hurricane season is almost upon Haiti. Join with other North American Free Methodist churches for the common goal of providing bulk shipments of tents, offering immediate shelter for people in Haiti. Go to www.giveatent.org for information to:

• buy a tent online
• donate cash
• donate tents (Give a Tent will cover 100% of the shipping costs)

Give now

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As of March 24, $1,445,618 has been given through the Bishops Famine and Relief Fund, Help Haiti Heal, Operation Hope and International Child Care Ministries for Haiti relief, recovery and development needs.

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Recently the pastors of the West and South Districts impacted by the earthquake met to review progress to date and to look ahead. A lot is going on. Over the past couple of weeks, 6,500 food packs were passed out through the pastors at 27 church locations. Each food pack contained enough food for a person for a week.

Most of the pastors there had benefited from a grant program initiated by the Haitian Relief Steering Committee. Pastors who lost homes they owned were eligible for a grant to assist in taking down the homes and clearing rubble. All pastors with homes in the earthquake were eligible for a grant to assist in building temporary structures until more permanent solutions can be implemented. The temporary homes are already going up. Money has also been authorized to assist Mission staff and Child Care staff. The money not only helps the pastors and other staff, it provides much-needed jobs as people are hired to assist. Following the meeting each pastor received lunch, a bag of food, a case of water and other items.

Another popular program has been a series of health and immunization clinics run by Haitian doctors and nurses volunteering their time. More than 600 have been immunized, and hundreds have been treated in these free clinics.

A major challenge on the horizon is the rebuilding of damaged or destroyed churches and schools. In some locations one or the other building is repairable but in many locations all buildings have been ruined. We are looking for ways to provide temporary structures until buildings can be replaced. So far three damaged churches have been repaired. In two of those locations the schools had minimal damage, but in one, it was totally destroyed. The schools will be able to use the church buildings on a temporary basis.

Keep Haiti in your prayers. The hard work has only just begun. It is going to take years to fully recover.

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These nine International Child Care Ministries sponsored children are the first to be confirmed as having perished in the January 12 earthquake in Haiti. ICCM Director Linda Adams writes, “Our deepest hope is that all these children and teens whose lives have been touched by a sponsor have received Jesus Christ and are enjoying their eternal home with Him. Our hearts go out to their families, to our field staff in Haiti, and to the sponsors. May God comfort and bless each one.” Read Linda’s full memorial reflection as an online PDF document

The sponsors of these children have been directly contacted. Their responses have been heartwarming. To all sponsors of Haitian children: Only children with sponsor numbers beginning with “HA5…” are within the quake-affected area. If we learn that a sponsored child has perished or was seriously injured in the earthquake, we will contact their sponsor directly. Please continue to support your sponsored child unless you hear directly from us. Our Haitian ICCM team continues to try to account for children. We hope the reopening of schools across Haiti on March 12 will bring reportable information on more of our sponsored children.

For more information about International Child Care Ministries or to sponsor a child please visit ChildCareMinistries.org

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Dr. Delia Nuesch-Olver, Area Director of Latin America, and Dr. Dale Woods, Director of Mobilization, report what is happening to the Haitian Free Methodist Church just 10 days after being devastated by the earthquake.  Check out what they are doing to help and find out the ways you can help your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Port-au-Prince
Reported by Delia Nüesch-Olver on behalf of the second response team
Sunday, January 24, 2010

Standing in rubble Sunday morning, I had the honor of preaching at one of our Free Methodist churches. The church and school buildings were unsafe so we met under a tarp in the school’s patio. Surrounded by unbelievable pain and destruction and odor and bugs and thirst and hunger, it was very moving to join with our Haitian sisters and brothers in singing, “For I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able …”

We attempted to bring words of comfort and hope and arranged to have water delivered. A team from the Dominican Republic will continue to deliver water and food to people from the church and neighborhood we visited for the foreseeable future.

Some reflections from members of the team after visiting downtown Port-au-Prince this afternoon:

Flattened … It looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off … Total, breathtaking destruction beyond any kind of description. Overwhelming … People burned, still alive. Sorrow …Visible decaying bodies. Smell … Hard to process the suffering. And finally: “The pictures you’ve seen in TV are not true; it is much worse.”

There was an aftershock this afternoon. We fear unstable buildings may no longer be standing.
Alice Judy had asked her husband, Larry, (one of our team members) to find out whether their friend Bill was alive. Larry asked around to anyone he thought might know. No one had heard from Bill since the earthquake, and Larry was increasingly concerned. Today as we returned from church Larry was sitting in the back of an open pick-up truck. Suddenly, Larry heard his name called out and saw his friend Bill waving at him animatedly. Bill and Larry hope to connect again tomorrow. In the midst of so much sadness, devastation and masses of people in this capital city, this felt like a wonderful moment to all of us.

On Monday the team will divide in three. We will start work again at 6 a.m. Ken LaBelle will continue doing building inspections. Dr. Dale Woods and I will meet for a third strategy meeting with the Haitian leaders, after which I will visit schools and pastors with Andy Yardy. Meanwhile Dale will fix generators to make it possible for the ICCM central office to start functioning again.

Be wise in your giving toward Haiti. We have seen people from international organizations jumping out of cars for a quick photo shoot, and then speeding away with their media material. I recommend the Bishops Famine and Relief Fund and the Help Haiti Heal fund.

Thank you for your prayers for Haiti and the Haitian people.

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Tonight members of the Haiti Earthquake Response Team A arrived Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

The five persons team includes FMWM’s Director of Mobilization, Area Director for Latin American Ministries, FMCNA’s videographer, a structural engineer, and a long-time FOHO (Friends of Haiti Organization) leader. The “A” team will be on the ground in Port-au-Prince until the Tuesday (26 Jan 10).

Priority will be given to:

• evaluating the structural integrity of the standing schools because they can serve as temporary housing and relief centers.
• connecting with aid and government distribution points for water, medicine, food and temporary shelter.
• creating a plan for effective deployment of relief teams.

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