Ohio Christian University’s Disaster Management Program Visits Post-Earthquake Haiti

By: Thad Hicks

 This past January marked the beginning of a unique program at Ohio Christian University in Circleville, Ohio.  The University began a Disaster Management bachelor’s degree program.  Disaster Management is an emerging field.  This new program seeks to prepare students to participate in and serve others through the management of disaster relief efforts following natural or man-made disasters. OCU students will be trained to serve human suffering and crises from immediate relief through community rebuilding and redevelopment.  Throughout this entire process our students will be showcasing Christ-like service to those in need.

 Students from this Disaster Management Program recently returned from a trip to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 

 The team had three main goals.  The first was to place students on the ground in order to give them international disaster work experience.  The second was to put meat onto the bones of the past semester of Disaster Management courses.  It was so valuable to be able to actually show the students a concept that they were taught in theory.  Finally, OCU wanted to put the students in situations where they were interacting with the men, women, and children of Haiti, and see how the county is dealing with this disaster.  All of the team goals were met, and the trip was a complete success.  The Disaster Management program at OCU is creating students who are quite capable of responding in Christ’s name to any type of disaster.”

 The OCU team distributed over 1000 tarps across Haiti.  With the rainy season officially underway this might be a Haitian family’s only shelter.  In addition the team was able to meet and talk with individuals across the country.  This allowed the students to get first hand accounts of situation and how different areas of Haiti experienced the events on January 12th.  This type of information is invaluable, and will be brought back to The United States and shared with whoever will listen in an attempt to keep the spotlight on Haiti.

 While the team was able to bring some relief, the battle wages on.  The situation is far from solved and without continued work and support, the upcoming rains and hurricane season may send this already broken nation over the edge.  

 The Haiti Response Team was made up of, Thad Hicks, Brett Spriggs, Elisabeth South, Ashley Irvine, Van Bolin, Travis Campbell, Jennifer Cartwright, Adam Hicks, and Tempest Norris








Church Building Reconstruction

Church building reconstruction will soon be a new major focus of the Wesleyan mission in Haiti. The earthquake left many of the Wesleyan church buildings around Port au Prince either completely destroyed or unusable. As these churches have been meeting under tarps next to crumbled building planning has been underway to organize North American churches to come down and play a major role in reconstruction. Many churches have already stepped up and agreed to partner with different sister churches across Haiti taking responsibility to see that they have a place to worship.

There is a new section on the GPCaribeAtlantic website were you can learn about the damaged churches. This section will flow the reconstruction projects as they come underway in July and provide information about how you can pray for the projects and offer assistance.

To visit the new section click on the Reconstruction link at the top of the page or go to
http://www.gpcaribeatlantic.com/reconstruction

Community Health Education Update

La Saline, which means the salt, is a hot dusty place. The land is free to use, because part of the time it is under water. So the poorest of the poor build there. A couple of weeks ago we held a clinic for the school at the church in this town. About 100 children and a few adults were seen and treated. This church also does a feeding program for the children of the Saline, so we gave them vitamins to distribute as a supplement to their diet of beans and rice. We returned with a new team, and this weekend the land was dry, as it had not rained in 4-5 days. This was a blessing, because when it rains, mud and garbage wash into the flats, making it unpleasant to walk through. A medical team from South Florida and Martin Memorial Hospital came to help with a two-day clinic for the general public. As you looked out the window of the church, across the dry, hot, dusty salt flats, you could see the ocean only 200 yards away. This gave us a nice breeze to help keep us going in the extreme heat. Advertisement was word of mouth, so we started out slow but by mid-morning, we were quite busy. We had one doctor who was a Pediatrician and another who was Internal medicine; there was also a PA, who saw mostly adults. We split the patients into two groups—children and adults—and there were three stations set up for physicals and treatment, with a fourth station set as a pharmacy. My job was crowd control and the triage of patients. No one was life or death sick, but many people came with colds, headaches, back pain, ear aches and coughing. Malnutrition, worms, high blood pressure and asthma were also common problems. We saw and treated over 450 people in the two days that we were there. If we would be charging for our care, we would have gotten a big bonus from our employer; but we are not here for the money, rather to help those in need. The needs here are real, and many times, desperate. People need jobs. In the States, we complain that our unemployment rate is 8-9%; in Haiti, unemployment is 70%. We complain that our employer doesn’t offer eye and dental coverage; but on La Gonave, two-thirds of the Island does not even have a clinic or hospital close enough to reach if their life was at risk. Many do not have clean water, or soil suitable to grow food. We have started a project fund through Global Partners to help with these basic needs, and provide training so that they can solve these life-threatening problems themselves. We have called this project, La Gonave Community Health Evangelism. How can you help these people? You can come to give of your time and your skills. We need many different skills taught to help train the Haitians to help themselves. We also need financial help to be able to do this work in Haiti. We would like to introduce to you the new project number, WM06-1337. This is the project fund to help pay the expenses of our emerging community health and development mission. This is the venture that we have started in Fantina, and hope to develop across the Island. It is a training program that teaches community leaders to identify the local needs, and to identify local resources to solve those needs. It then teaches local Community Health Agents the needed skills to teach and help the community to put the identified solution to the local needs into practice.

Caleb’s Final Update: End of Food Relief

On Friday, May 28th, I carried the last bag of food out of our depot and into distribution. Our mission is finished and by God’s grace we succeeded – 350,000 lbs of food delivered to churches, schools, and towns all over La Gonave along with many other acts of ministry. We sent 2300 tarps to Port au Prince, medicines to the clinic in Petite Guave, 2750 Gallons of Diesel to WISH, tools for WISH, tools for Ywam St Marc, and many acts of individual kindness. I say none of this for us to boast, God forbid. I want to point to what God has done because many people chose to obey Him together.

I could spend a long time writing about all of the different places we’ve taken food to. I could write about all the different schools I’ve seen giving out our food, the children that clapped for you and all sang “thank you” in unison in Creole, the parents who want me to pass their thanks to kind strangers in America. I could write pages of detail about the need I saw, both numbers and accounts. I could tell you how much what we did was needed, how much the earthquake magnified an already grave need and the ways we met that need. However, let it suffice to say that God asked us to feed His children and we did.

And now I believe He says stop. The reasons you already know. We can’t continue relief feeding for too long or we’ll create dependency, we’ll ruin the food economy, we’ll take the will out of agriculture. A few weeks into the rainy season is a very good time, just as many fruits are beginning to ripen. Again, though, I am stopping because I believe this is God’s time for us to stop.

Haiti is different now. Some people say we’ve entered the new normal. In Port au Prince today, as I get ready to leave the country, I saw that the tents now longer look life refugee hovels, they look like people making the best of things, making a life where they are. That’s a very Haitian way of being – “degage” in Creole, make do. The bedsheet homes are all but gone. Now tents and tarps have rugs on the floor, Christmas lights hung inside, and goods for sale out front. Are things where they should be? No, tents are not houses and churches lie in ruins. But, there is an economy again, and there is feeling that the crisis has passed. What I saw in Port au Prince is true on La Gonave, the emergency is over.

And perhaps, now the real work begins? God knows who He will call. Our faithful friends, the Wesleyan Missionaries, who I have labored beside, are beginning their great rebuilding of so many ruined churches. Ywam Montana, who’s given so much in money and people, is looking to further study and work toward long term development on La Gonave. They’ll probably even send a team in late June. Our friends in Calvary Chapel Spokane who have also spent so much to help their brethren are considering how they can help in church rebuilding, to include sending a project manager, and possibly partnering with the same churches in the future. My prayer is that this is by no means all. Time is short and the laborers are few. Let’s pray for more. Let’s pray for those who do labor, let’s support them.

The Earthquake of January 12th was a terrible thing but out of it we have seen great beauty in God’s people answering His call. If there is any one thing I have learned in this, it is that you CAN do something about it. God must open the doors and He must do the work but if a few people stand up together in Him, they CAN do something. I say this as a regular person and nothing more. I, we, have done nothing more than be obedient, but God has done something here worthy of praise. I want to give Him all glory for that.

Since this is the end of this mission, the very end, I also want to say one more thank you to all of my friends and team mates. We all did this together. For my part, I could never have done this without your prayers. Those who pray may be unknown on Earth but I do not think they are in heaven. I believe, in the end, that this entire mission is a result of people praying in accordance with God’s will. This is His Kingdom. All Glory to Him.

HS.
Caleb Thompson