Missionary View: News from Haiti

Missionaries Rodney and Sharyn Babe tell of devastating mud

Friday, September 26, 2008, the church received an e-mail from Sharyn Babe about what the conditions of Haiti are like. Below are parts of that e-mail which best describes the conditions.

Dear friends at Westminster,

Last Saturday we were talking to a man who was jarred awake by the sound of the water roaring into his house. He instantly got his wife and children up onto the flat roof of the house. Then he heard his mother-in-law screaming from her adjoining home. He jumped into the water again and swam under her submerged doorway to where she was trapped. He grabbed her, kicked down the side of the house from the inside where they were trapped and managed to swim across to his roof where his family pulled them to safety. The whole family spent the next 4 days on the rooftop. They had escaped in their nightclothes and by the time the water receded, nothing was left but mud a few feet deep. He had managed to swim/wade nearly a mile to find a couple bottles of water for them. After two more days they were able to get to higher ground.

Monday (9/22) Rodney was finally able to visit Gonaives, where the flooding was worse. The area is still deep in water and mud and movement around the town is difficult. He returned overwhelmed at the amount of human suffering he witnessed. Even with the aid/supplies arriving daily, it all seems like a drop in a bottomless bucket. The damage was so widespread and so total that there aren’t many "pieces to pick up". However, in the midst of it people are trying to get their lives together.

The IOM office is already creating a back to work project – cleaning up mostly. He is shipping supplies in a dump truck that has a high exhaust and air intake that he leased from someone. A United Nations convoy made one trip (with a bulldozer to help them) and once Rodney heard, he has gotten his trucker lined up and made three trips (no bulldozer, either.) Getting the wheelbarrows and shovels to the city were otherwise impossible because they were not considered priority items. The man who normally oversees the Gonaives office needed a break and had to leave for a week (or drop over from exhaustion and stress.) Rodney has been filling in and returns again today by helicopter, which is still considered the only safe way to access the city. By the end of the day, he said there will be 500 people on several work details being paid about $3 a day to clean up to two feet of mud off the streets and away from shelter entrances. They keep the tools overnight and clean out the inside of their homes. Most of these people have lost everything.

He spoke to several families living in one room with 24 inches of mud cleaned out of most of it and water seeping through the mud into the cleared area. They slept on their concrete roof with nothing except a few objects (2 soggy mattresses, 2 broken chairs, and half a set of dishware plus one wheel-less child’s fire truck). The family of 8 slept on the bare concrete using the sheet as a cover for all 8 people. During the day it was tied to iron rods to make shade.

There are so many similar stories that it’s impossible to recount. Please know that many will be blessed through your support.

Thank you for helping us help others.

Rodney & Sharyn