disasters | Ain't Complicated

Haiti: God’s Miracle for Darlene Etienne

Praise God! And bless the rescuers!

French rescuers pulled a teenage girl — very dehydrated, with a broken left leg and moments from death — from the rubble of a home near the destroyed St. Gerard University on Wednesday, a stunning recovery 15 days after an earthquake devastated the city.

Darlene Etienne was rushed to a French military field hospital and then to the French military hospital ship Sirroco, groaning through an oxygen mask with her eyes open in a lost stare.

“She’s alive!” said paramedic Paul Francois-Valette, who accompanied her into the hospital.

Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water, little alone more than two weeks.

Source: Stunning recovery: Haitian girl pulled from debris

Bless God for this wonderful miracle!

And kudos to the French rescue team who hadn’t quit yet.

Haiti: More Updates

Young survivor in Haiti enjoys a meal

First, I want you to know that Christian Aid Ministries has updated their Haiti quake page.

Now, what follow are excerpts from and links to two news stories featuring CAM’s relief efforts in Haiti.

From Assist News, this:

The following accounts are all told from the first-hand experience of Christian Aid Mission (CAM) staff member, Joanna Seibel.

A dazed young survivor enjoys a meal With all of the atrocities that have been reported since the fateful 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Tuesday afternoon, January 12, 2010, so many personal stories have gone unheard. Joanna Seibel’s first-hand dramatic account gives a more detailed picture of the tragedy that has taken place within the last three and a half days.

In Titanyen, Haiti, a village not far from the Haitian capital, Christian Aid Mission staff members found themselves suddenly startled by massive and violent shakings. Joanna Seibel was among them. As she instantly realizes that this was to be a dangerous earthquake, she runs to the next room to grab the baby Kiana, before escaping from the crumbling house.

Source: This Is My Story

And from the News Democrat, this:

A local man is helping coordinate aid efforts in Haiti through the national Mennonite organization, Christian Aid Ministries. Paul Weaver, CAM assistant director, has been organizing response teams and fund raising efforts since the 7.0 earthquake struck the poverty stricken nation in the afternoon of Monday, Jan. 12.

Weaver, who has been to Haiti himself more than 30 times, attends the Mennonite church on West Fork Road outside of Georgetown and has been involved with CAM since it’s founding in 1985. The local church has sent missionaries to Haiti as recently as last year.

CAM has been doing mission work in Titanyen, a village north of the capital Port-Au-Prince, since 1991. When the earthquake struck, Weaver said the mission buildings suffered minor damage in comparison to surrounding structures and no workers were injured. The mission had been providing school children with food and ministering to the largely voodoo worshiping population. They had also been working on several reforestation projects.

Once the shaking stopped Weaver organized a rapid response team of 24 doctors, paramedics, and nurses who were sent in Thursday. The mission workers already on the ground began digging people out of the rubble and organizing shelter. Some were out until 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning trying to free the thousands of trapped people.

The CAM buildings quickly became a triage center the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 12 as hundreds of people began arriving with broken bones and cuts. CAM operates the only health clinic in Titanyen and they have become overwhelmed. Burn victims from a local mill which had caught fire during the quake were some of the first to be treated. Wounds were treated without anesthesia as more and more people lined up for aid.

Source: Chaos in Haiti

In closing, I remind you of the Haiti page I set up for CAM before they got their official page online. 🙂

Haiti: To the Least of These

Excerpts from two news stories I scanned/read this morning:

Haitians flee in fear as big aftershock hits

The most powerful aftershock yet struck Haiti on Wednesday, shaking more rubble from damaged buildings and sending screaming people running into the streets eight days after the country’s capital was devastated by an apocalyptic quake.

The extent of additional damage or injuries caused by the magnitude-6.1 temblor was not immediately clear….

[…]

And near midnight Tuesday, a smiling and singing 26-year-old Lozama Hotteline was carried to safety from a collapsed store in the Petionville neighborhood by the French aid group Rescuers Without Borders.

It’s great to read a little good news amid all the dreary!

Christian Aid Ministries staffing a mobile clinic

A week after a 7.0 earthquake decimated Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a local medical relief program continues to treat the injured and works to stop the spread of infections and diseases.

Since the initial quake, medical personnel from Christian Aid Ministries, a Berlin-based missionary organization, have been treating the wounded, said Gloria Miller, a spokeswoman for CAM.

“It has been an intense week, but also rewarding to be able to help others,” said Holmes County nurse and CAM staff member Joanna Miller.

After the quake, Miller, along with Bethanie Burkholder, a nurse practitioner from New York, loaded medical supplies and traveled from CAM’s permanent clinic located at La Source, to Titanyen outside of Port-au-Prince, where they established a mobile clinic.

“We have staff on the ground, and daily receive e-mail updates and pictures from them,” Gloria Miller said. “The news they share is heart-wrenching.”

A mass grave has been dug across from the mobile clinic. On Thursday, Joanna Seibel, one of CAM’s staff members, watched as six dump trucks filled with bodies come to the grave.

[…]

On Sunday, the clinic had 74 patients, many of them children, some whose parents were killed in the quake, according to Seibel.

“A mother was there with three of her children, all four of them needing attention. The worst was her small daughter with a deep hole in her forehead,” Seibel wrote.

When the disaster struck, CAM had medical supplies stored for the mission’s Haiti clinic, Gloria Miller said. But, in the future, more medical personnel and supplies are needed.

“We’re talking about airlifting meds into Haiti and we have different doctors going in,” Gloria Miller said.

In addition to medical aid, CAM supports 40 Haitian schools and provides food aid.

Donate to CAM?

Haiti: Christian Aid Ministries

The folks of Christian Aid Ministries are active in Haiti and in the States as they work hard getting aid to those affected by the earthquake a week ago today.

I encourage you to contribute to their earthquake relief efforts at the page I have set: Haiti 2010 Earthquake Aid. (You can do so with a check via snail mail or online using the PayPal donate button there.)

It is my understanding that over all among all their aid programs, almost 99 cents of every donated dollar goes to their programs. That’s amazing efficiency and stewardship, folks!

Here are two photos from their people on the ground in Haiti:

BethanyB of Christian Aid Ministries
administering aid at a mobile clinic in Haiti

An injured Haitian being transported in a wheelbarrow

Haiti: “It will be up to baby Jesus.”

Jacqueline Thermiti (71) is one of 85 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home (barely a mile from the airport, staging ground for the massive international aid effort).

“Of all the wars and revolutions and hurricanes, this quake is the worst thing God has ever sent us,” Thermiti said.

[…]

She predicted that unlike other pensioners, she could still hold out for at least another day.

“Then if the foreigners don’t come (with aid),” she said, “it will be up to baby Jesus.”

Source: Elderly and abandoned, 85 Haitians await death

With limited resources and overwhelming needs all around, will old people like Jacqueline be overlooked in favor of those much younger and with better long-term chances and options?

Or will the aged be honored?

What tough decisions must be made by those “on the ground” over there!

Haiti: Did He Recognize Any?

Steve Yoder of Christian Aid Ministries views heaps of bodies of Haiti's earthquake dead. --

As I understand this, Steve Yoder lives in Titanyen. I wonder how many people — some of them friends, perhaps — he recognized in the heaps.

Titanyen, Haiti—Down a rocky dirt road in a valley tucked inside green, soft-rolling hills, Haiti is disposing of its dead.

[…]

Steve Yoder, who is an administrator at the Menonite mission called Christian Aid Ministries in Titanyen, choked back tears as he viewed the heaps of bodies.

“This is heart-breaking,” he said. “It’s very grim. It’s very sad. But in this situation that’s the best that can be done.”

Source: No Burials for Haiti’s Dead (Warning: article includes a graphic photo or two)

This is a good reminder to pray for the people who know those being rescued as well as those who are being dumped. If the foreign teams that go to Haiti in response to the disaster are traumatized by what they see, imagine how this impacts those who live there — nationals as well as aid workers and missionaries. Wow!

Read a little more from Christian Aid Ministries’ people in Titanyen.

Christian Aid Ministries in Haiti

From CNN:

Christian Aid Ministries, an Amish-Mennonite organization, has had staff and a distribution network in Haiti for over 20 years. To help earthquake survivors, they are providing search and rescue operations, emergency supplies such as medicines and food, and later on rebuilding of houses.

From CAM themselves:

CAM-Haiti staff members spent much of the night helping dig people out of concrete rubble. They were traumatized by what they saw and heard — dead bodies strewn around, sounds of tapping from those still alive but trapped deep under the debris, dead and injured pushed in wheelbarrows, and much more. It is so scary digging people out; one wrong move could kill them, says Darvin Seibel, CAM’s staff member in Haiti. One lady’s head was pinched so tight, any shifting would instantly kill her!

[…]

Our Titanyen facility has been turned into a relief center and mini-hospital to feed and care for homeless mothers with young children. A USA CAM rescue team, including some EMTs, flew to Haiti to help look for survivors and do cleanup. Our staff in Haiti, including the La Source medical clinic team, is doing everything they can to provide emergency aid. Later there will be a lot of rebuilding to do as well.

As I recall, over 98% of donations to Christian Aid Ministries goes directly into their programs. That’s really good!! So please visit the Haiti page I set up for them and donate to their relief efforts.