One year ago catastrophe struck Haiti in the form of a 7.0-magnitude earthquake that killed nearly a quarter of a million people and left another million displaced, provoking an incredible response from the United Methodist Church, internationally and locally.
A succession of horrors continues to set the country back, but it’s not due to a lack of assistance or shortage of heart.
80 United Methodist Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM) teams totaling 712 volunteers arrived with help for Haitians from May through December, the continuation of a long-standing covenant between the Michigan Area UMC and Haitian UMC. The North Central Jurisdiction, which includes the Michigan Area, sent 18 VIM teams to “earthquake priority projects” in 2010 and 20 more teams worked on other projects in Haiti.
VIM estimates its volunteers have had an economic impact of $1.25 million dollars in Haiti since the earthquake and more money is on the way. After an initial $565,000 investment, the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) and United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) Board of Directors recently approved a three-year plan for continuation, funded at $3,094,500.
Still, North Central Jurisdiction VIM Coordinator Lorna Jost said the last year has “been a rollercoaster of emotions” and the earthquake deflated a population that seemed to be on the cusp of moving forward.
“I’m watching as the hope gets restored and as the people go down there to help. But I’m very worried,” she said. “This could have been a time where the government, the church, everything…could have really grown from this experience and that’s still a great possibility, but there’s also the possibility they’re just going to be turned into a state and country that is just going to require our donations.”
Rev. David Morton, a VIM coordinator out of Chapel Hill UMC in Battle Creek, was a member of one of the first emergency response teams to visit Haiti and he said Americans should consider the Haitians’ resiliency.
Rev. Don Gotham, pastor at St. Clair FUMC, was leading a VIM team in Jeremie, Haiti when the earthquake struck on Jan. 12. He echoes Morton’s sentiments, noting his experience with the Haitian people is vastly different than the video footage of riots and political upheaval shown on national television.
“I think what’s important for folks to realize is that while (the Haitian people) are faced with un-imaginable stresses and hardships in their lives, for the most part the people of Haiti — aside from some political unrest you will see — are gentle, loving people,” he said. “Just like in the U.S., the people who end up being the splash on the news are not representative of most of our people. It’s the same in Haiti.”
Making a Difference
The losses of Rev. Clint Rabb and Rev. Sam Dixon, who were in Port Au Prince at the time of the earthquake, forced UMC leadership to re-organize itself quickly and efficiently.
Rabb was head of the office of Mission Volunteers of the GBGM and Dixon was in charge of UMCOR.
Jost said VIM jurisdictional coordinators carried some of the load, but a strengthened relationship with Rev. Paul Gesner, the president of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas, has been vital.
She said Gesner helps determine what projects are deemed “earthquake priority” ones and VIM teams attempt to send workers to the places of most dire need.
Jost maintains regular contact with conference VIM coordinators and she said networking and open lines of communication from her level all the way down to local churches continues to improve as action plans for Haiti are put into place.
Jost also said the number of leaders who are qualified to take teams to Haiti has increased as people come back from trips eager to undertake official training measures.
In 2010 10 VIM teams from the West Michigan Conference visited Haiti and four from the Detroit Conference made the trip. Jost said four teams from the WMC have already committed to work in 2011 and two from the DAC have done the same.
Live and Learn
Unfortunately with foreign aid there are always a few missteps and plenty of opportunities for learning.
Jost said people need to rely heavily on UMC direct lines like VIM and UMCOR because some people “expect to just go down there and find places to live, transportation, food and people to take care of them.” Those expectations are far fetched and can be very limiting, she said.
Morton said it’s important to consider what kinds of aid churches are sending down, because not every good intention has an equally good impact.
“Say we sent out rice, then what happened is the market price on rice went down to where a lot of the Haitian farmers couldn’t sell their rice,” he said. “We would’ve been better off and got more for our buck if we bought the rice from the Haitian farmer.”
Morton and Gotham also insist mission efforts be directed all over Haiti, not just in Port Au Prince.
Morton said Jeremie has gone from being home to roughly 17,000 people to catering to the needs of more than 80,000.
Gotham said there are plenty of on-going UMC projects at churches, schools and medical facilities in the “suburbs” of Port Au Prince that are just as important to revitalizing Haiti as the “earthquake priority” ones.
The role of the Michigan Area Haiti Task Force
Jost said it was smart for the Disaster Response ministry teams of the West Michigan and Detroit
Conferences to join hands 14 years ago to create the Michigan Area Haiti Task Force.
The task force was dealt a blow with the unexpected death of one its primary leaders Rev. Paul Doherty in July, but other clergy members have stepped up to try and pick up where Doherty left off.
“I just think as a task force we’re re-organizing and I think that we’re going to see instead of one person kind of overseeing everything, different people will become the champions for housing, health, the Methodist Children’s Home, etc.,” Morton said.
Morton said working closely with UMCOR and VIM are advantageous for the task force because it provides opportunities for matching fund grants, as well as communication with people who are actually on the ground in Haiti.
The task force utilizes a web site at www.stovern.net/haiti to keep Michigan Area Methodist’s apprised of what’s going on with the area’s response in Haiti.
The Haiti School Hot Lunch Program and Bio-Sand Water Filter Projects have been ongoing missions of the task force for a long time, and those are as important as ever Gotham said.
“Because of UMCOR’s stronger involvement on the ground in Haiti, things have shifted. Paul had been the UMCOR consultant for the Haiti Hot Lunch program,” he said, “But now because UMCOR has staff on the ground they are giving oversight to that program in Haiti, which is tremendous because it takes the burden off the (United) Methodist Church of Haiti and also frees us up back here to continue to beat the drum of supporting the program without people having quite as much on our end.”
Gotham said once task force members are plugged into more official roles, communications about mission opportunities, supplies needed and donation efforts will funnel through the communications offices of both conferences.
People can also find out the latest needs for UMCOR kits by going to www.umc.org and putting together boxes to send to one of the UMCOR Sager Brown Depots.
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