Help Haiti

By Ruth Schenk | rschenk@secc.org  

Bowin Tichenor will never forget the little girl wearing pink shoes.

He watched as rescuers loaded her body onto a shovel and took her away—still in her pink shoes.

In Port-au-Prince, he evacuated an orphanage, taking 131 children to a safer location with food and water. There is no formula for 20 of the smallest babies.

Bowin said the media has not exaggerated suffering and grief in Haiti. Families continue to dig in the rubble driven by a thin thread of hope that they’ll find a mom, a dad, a child still alive. There is nowhere to buy food or get water. Banks and stores are closed. The smell of death is so strong that Haitians cover their noses as they walk through the streets. Bowin has heard gunfire in the near distance, and logistics of getting relief to those who need it most are complicated.

The latest death toll hovers around 200,000.

But amid unspeakable loss, there is hope. Bowin saw the reunion between a mother and her son. The mother fell to her knees and screamed her praises to God. He distributed food to 10,000 Haitians in two hours. "The people were so happy and thankful to have food for the first time in six days," Bowin wrote on Facebook.  

Organizations, churches and missions have mobilized to help, and people around the world are praying for Haiti.

It is no accident that Bowin is there as the regional director for Edge Outreach, a mission organization based in Louisville that teaches missionaries, mission teams, relief workers and students how to implement community health programs through water purification.

Southeast Vision Leader Greg Allen and Teaching Minister Kyle Idleman and his family were in Dominican Republic when the earthquake hit on Jan. 12. Allen was helping with a conference on leading worship and Kyle, DesiRae and their four children were on a mission trip in Dominican Republic.

Bowin has been in Port-au-Prince with a team of Dominicans and Haitians since last week, scouting for locations to install purifiers and setting up a base of operations where volunteers and equipment can be organized. His first project is to provide water for a hospital being operated by CURE International, a mission organization that cares for children with special needs.

Mark Hogg, founder and president of Edge Outreach, said the original plan was to put a "fistful of systems in to relieve the water issues." Now they are considering setting up a bigger training and development center where nationals can be trained to install and sustain water purifiers.

The first support teams are ready. Additional water purification systems will be purchased with donations.

Hogg said Southeast’s gift of $80,000 will provide clean water for 90,000 Haitians.  

"This is a huge opportunity," Hogg said. "It’s also a huge responsibility. Though we worked with relief in Costa Rica, we are not a relief organization. The scope of the need there is so huge that we need constant prayer support."

While Bowin went into Port-au-Prince via truck, Kyle and his family helped move supplies with G.O. Ministries (Great Opportunities in Global Outreach) in Dominican Republic.

A boat nicknamed the "Southeast Blimp" is shuttling food, water, those who are injured and mission workers who are stranded and must get to an airport. They were able to take 77,000 pounds of supplies into Jacmel, an area south of Port-au-Prince that was devastated by the earthquake but had not received aid. Kyle said that funds from Southeast made it possible to meet needs quickly.

"If you had all the money in the world, you could not buy water in Jacmel," said Vicki Rogers, Administrator of Ministry at G.O. "There were no supplies left."

Two orphanages in Jacmel have become the staging areas for outreach. With a supply chain in place, from Louisville to Miami to Santiago to Jacmel, supplies are getting to Haiti quickly.

Everywhere they go, members of the mission team are hearing remarkable stories of survival and faith. Kyle met Isaac, a chemistry teacher from Haiti. He and his 4-year-old daughter, Isadora, left the school about five minutes before the earthquake struck, killing 60 students. They had been living on the streets four nights and were out of water when they met Kyle in Dominican Republic.

National pastors with G.O. Ministries help in spite of their own loss. Wilbert Romain, a pastor with G.O., had a son in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit. That morning, the aunt called Romain. She needed 1,000 pesos. When the money arrived, she and the 7-year-old went to Western Union to pick it up. They were on their way back to her house when the earthquake it. The community was destroyed. If they’d been in the house, they, too, might have perished.

Greg Allen and members of his team have been loading supplies and leading worship at night for weary rescue workers.

For more information about G.O. Ministries, go to www.go-ministries.org.

For more information about Edge Outreach, go to www.edgeoutreach.com.