ATLANTA (ABP) — With nearly $350,000 raised from churches and individuals for earthquake relief in Haiti as of the end of February, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leaders said March 9 that more funds are needed for ministry that will go on for months and even years to come.
Contractor Scott Hunter is in Haiti on temporary assignment with the Atlanta-based CBF to establish an operation base for mission volunteers. The camp is southwest of Port-au-Prince, near the epicenter of the Jan. 12 earthquake, in an area where 98 percent of local structures were either destroyed or damaged.
| {youtube}Nn8JDs72Tdk{/youtube} |
"Most of the needs in Haiti that CBF volunteers can meet probably are related to reconstruction of existing facilities, particularly related to the Baptists here in Haiti," Hunter, a former CBF field worker, said in a March 8 audio interview posted on YouTube.
"In the early stages we are going to have to be clearing debris," Hunter said. "The government really hasn't decided what they're going to do with the building plan and process at the moment, so the main thing at the beginning of this is just going to be clearing debris and preparing sites for later construction."
Hunter said volunteers will likely be shocked to see so much of the country lying in rubble. He said many buildings, including churches, don't look like they were damaged much, but people are afraid to go inside of them because they don't know if they are safe.
Hunter said the first volunteers would work to establish the base camp, setting up latrines, showers, electrical supplies and other facilities for subsequent teams to use as they begin the process of rebuilding Haiti side-by-side with Haitian construction workers.
In addition to construction skills, volunteers need to be spiritually prepared, Hunter said, noting they will experience “whatever anguish any Christian experiences when they realize that their fellow human being is suffering and they're not going to able to easily comfort that person."
Hunter said the most important prayer request for the people of Haiti now is for some comfort for a populace struggling day-by-day simply to get by.
"The people here have almost all been very personally affected by the earthquake," he said. "Even if their particular homes weren't damaged, they all know somebody who was lost in this. In essence the whole country has come to a halt, because so much of the infrastructure has been damaged."
Hunter said that in Port-au-Prince most people — even those in homes that suffered relatively little damage — are now sleeping outdoors.
"This is now becoming a tent city," he said. "The other night it rained, and I'm sure it was very uncomfortable in those tents. . . . Life has all of a sudden become a very difficult struggle for everyone."
Along with construction volunteers, Nancy and Steve James, missionaries appointed jointly by CBF and American Baptist Churches USA, continue to coordinate medical work in Cap-Haitien, about 100 miles north of Port-au-Prince.
Tori Wetnz, a registered nurse who works for CBF both in Africa and Haiti, recently arrived in Haiti to assist with medical needs in the tent cities around Grand Guave, the area where Hunter is working.
-30-
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.