January 13, 2010
By Matthew Davies and Mary Frances Schjonberg

Episcopal Church leaders are urging prayers and support for Haiti as the largest earthquake ever to hit the island nation has caused widespread devastation amid fears that thousands may have perished in the disaster.

Four people were killed by the earthquake during an Episcopal church service in Trouin, about 23 miles southwest of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, the Rev. Lauren Stanley, an Episcopal Church missionary in Haiti who was home in Virginia at the time of the earthquake, told ENS. The earthquake destroyed Cathédrale Sainte Trinité (Holy Trinity Cathedral), the diocesan cathedral in Port-au-Prince.

Lisa, the daughter of General Convention Deputy Helena Mbele-Mbong and her husband Samuel, was killed in the earthquake. Lisa did not survive the collapse of the human-rights section of the building that housed the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) in Port-au-Prince where she worked as a human rights officer. Mbele-Mbong, a member of Emmanuel Church in Geneva, Switzerland, in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, said in an emailed statement that Nady, their daughter's son, was safe and with her U.N. colleagues.

The magnitude 7 earthquake, whose epicenter struck 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince at 4:53 p.m. local time on Jan. 12, was immediately followed by two aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.5 magnitude. About a third of Haiti's approximately 9 million people live in Port-au-Prince. With power outages and phone lines down, communication is proving difficult and the full extent of the disaster has yet to be determined.

Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin's home was destroyed in the earthquake and his wife injured her foot, according to news received mid-morning on Jan. 13 by the Rev. Christopher A. Johnson, the U.S.-based Episcopal Church's officer for social and economic justice. Duracin was not injured in the earthquake. The Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot of Port-au-Prince died in the earthquake, according to the Associated Press. The Roman Catholic Cathedral was badly damaged.

The Episcopal Church has four U.S.-based missionaries working in Haiti, three of whom were in-country when the earthquake hit: the Rev. Oge Beauvoir, 53, dean of the theological seminary in Port-au-Prince, and Young Adult Service Corps volunteers Mallory Holding, 23, of Chicago and Jude Harmon, 28, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Rev. David Copley, the Episcopal Church's mission personnel director, began attempting to contact the three in-country missionaries Jan.12. Copley's associate Yanick Fourcand spoke with Beauvoir's brother in Ottawa on Jan. 13. He said he had spoken with Beauvoir's wife Serrette, who confirmed that both she and her husband were alive. Fourcand, a native Haiti who works at the church center in New York, said Jan. 13 that she has not been able to contact her relatives in Haiti.

After spending hours trying to contact Harmon and Holding, Copley received word on the evening of Jan. 13 that both are alive. Holding finally was able to call her mother, the Rev. Canon Suzi Holding of San Diego, Copley said. the younger Holding reported that she was camping out near the diocese's seminary in Port-au-Prince and that Harmon was well but not with her. The phone connection between mother and daughter failed after only a short time, according to Copley.

A few hours later, Copley said, he heard from Harmon's grandfather who said that his grandson was camped out on a soccer field near the seminary. Harmon told his grandfather that he had been teaching at the time of the quake but escaped with his students before the building they had been in collapsed, according to Copley.

Both Harmon, a member of Christ Church in Cambridge, and Holding, a member of St. Mark's, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, work with Beauvoir. Holding also does development work for the diocese, Copley said. Both began their placements in September 2009.

Holding lives next door to the seminary in an apartment building and Harmon lives a short distance away at the diocese's University of Haiti. Both locations were near the country's heavily damaged presidential palace.

Earlier in the day, the elder Holding, who recently moved from the Chicago area to the Diocese of San Diego to become the canon to the ordinary, told ENS that she had been heartened by prayers, notes, and other expressions of support from Chicago to California and even from Haiti, where a nun from the Sisters of St. Margaret said she'd get the word out via the social-networking site Twitter to try to find Mallory.

Her daughter is a recent graduate of Miami University in Ohio, with degrees in political science and international studies. She was also an intern with the church's Office of Government Relations in Washington, D.C.

She said she suspected that if her daughter was not hurt "she's out there helping people because that's just what she would do."

She described Holding as being dedicated to the church. "She's gone to three General Conventions, and she's 23."

Holding has also spent time in the Sudan and Uganda. She is blogging about her time in Haiti at Holding Haiti. Harmon also maintains a blog from Haiti at Eighth Day Dawning.

Sending her daughter off to Haiti was hard, Holding said, "but you come to learn this is just what she's going to do and it certainly enhances your prayer life."

"When you think about what might be the things to worry about while she was there, an earthquake wasn't one of them. But, she's my daughter, and she's an amazing woman and I'm very proud of her. So, I trust God that where God sends her is where she needs to be."

Episcopal churches were also destroyed in Grand Colline (a mountainous region between Leogane and Grand-Goave) and St. Etienne (another mountainous region about 45 miles from Port-au-Prince), according to Stanley.

The Rev. Kesner Ajax, head of the diocese's Bishop Tharp Institute of Business and Technology (BTI) in Les Cayes, and others reported Jan. 13 via e-mail that in addition to those losses the entire Holy Trinity school complex adjacent to the cathedral was destroyed as was the diocese's Couvent Sainte Marguerite and College Saint Pierre. An apartment owned by St. Pierre was reportedly still standing. The sisters at the convent were not hurt, Ajax reported.

Stanley said that some people were injured while attempting to evacuate the BTI complex during the earthquake but that the buildings there were not heavily damaged. The rectory in Les Cayes is reportedly intact.

Diocese of Maine Bishop Steve Lane, told ENS late on Jan. 12, that he had received word that the quake did little damage to the Haitian diocese's Maison de naissance, a ministry that provides pre- and post-natal education and care as well as nursing training. The Maison de naissance is located about 100 miles west of Port-au-Prince.

Phillip Mantle, Diocese of Chicago jubilee officer and liaison to Haiti, told Johnson that Ecole Le Bon Samaritan, a Jubilee Center in Carrefour, was destroyed. The schoolchildren were not at the school when the quake hit.

Jean Millien, husband of the principal (Marie "Mona" Millien) of the school and Duracin's brother-in-law, told Mantle that he had not yet made contact with his wife. He had come to Bridgeport, Connecticut, last week for medical procedures.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in a Jan. 13 statement, said: "Even under ‘normal' circumstances, Haiti struggles to care for her 9 million people. The nation is the poorest in the western hemisphere, and this latest disaster will set back many recent efforts at development."

Jefferts Schori called for prayers "for those who have died, been injured, and are searching for loved ones – and I urge your concrete and immediate prayers in the form of contributions to Episcopal Relief and Development."

Rob Radtke, president of ERD, said: "Our prayers are with the bishop, his staff and people of the Episcopal Church of Haiti. ERD will support them as they rebuild their ministries in the coming months and years. To the extent that a diocese can be prepared for a disaster like this, Episcopal Relief and Development had partnered with the diocese to train volunteers in disaster preparedness and mitigation."

Radtke said that ERD has already disbursed emergency funding to the Diocese of Haiti to help them meet immediate needs such as providing shelter, food and water. ERD "stands ready to support their ongoing recovery as they rebuild their ministries," he said.

Interim Director for International Programs Kirsten Muth said, "We are committed to a long-term response and recovery effort with our partners in the Diocese of Haiti, which is the largest and perhaps one of the most socially engaged dioceses of the Episcopal Church with an extensive network of schools and health services."

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was due to meet with the U.K. development secretary the evening of Jan. 13 to discuss the situation in Haiti, according to Alexander Baumgarten, the Episcopal Church's director of government relations, who spoke earlier in the day with staff at Lambeth Palace.

Stanley said that there had been at least 30 aftershocks and feared that the hospitals would be running out of medical supplies.

"Unless you're a professional relief worker don't even think about going. Instead, give money to ERD," Stanley told ENS in a telephone interview. "We need money to get the professionals in."

Stanley moved to Haiti in August 2009 to begin a three-year placement as an Episcopal Church missionary. "I have friends in every area where this hit," she said. "I have my parishioners, the children on the street, my street artist friends. I haven't been there long but I have an incredible group of people who take care of me and I take care of them. The most important thing to do now is to pray and share resources."

News reports are saying that almost every building including the Citi Bank on the Rue de Delmas – one of the city's major conduits – had collapsed. Many of those buildings were constructed to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, Stanley said. "If they have collapsed, God knows what has happened to the other buildings."

Stanley also said the disaster would take years from which to recover and fears that, with no clean water, there is the danger of devastating diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

"Every time Haiti takes one half step forward, something like this happens," said Stanley. "It is the least prepared country in the world to handle something like this. In the best of times our infrastructure is crumbling. The people who live on less than two dollars a day don't have the means to live. It's so unfair. Why does this happen to Haiti over and over again?"

Natural disasters often sweep Haiti. Four storms battered the country between mid-August and mid-September 2008, causing destruction from which the country had not yet fully recovered. In all, nearly 800 Haitians died and more than 151,000 were displaced, according to a report to the U.S. Congress.

One of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church's 12 overseas dioceses, the Episcopal Church in Haiti is part of Province II. It has partnerships with many U.S. Episcopal Church dioceses and congregations. Many of those partners have been trying to reach their colleagues in Haiti.

The diocese serves between 100,000 and 150,000 people in 168 congregations. There are less than 40 active clergy, most of whom serve multiple congregations in urban and rural areas.

In addition to the churches, the diocese's ministry includes 254 schools; medical clinics; a renowned philharmonic orchestra and children's choir based at the cathedral; agricultural, reforestation and other development projects and micro-financing efforts run in part with help from ERD; peace and reconciliation work, including the Desmond Tutu Center for Reconciliation and Peace and non-violence training provided by Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF).

The diocese funds its ministry by way of the rental income from a 12-unit apartment building in Port-au-Prince, grants from the Episcopal Church and investment from ERD, along with some income from its schools and congregations. In addition, many Episcopal Church congregations and dioceses outside of Haiti are engaged in various relationships which bring money, materials and people into the diocese. The United Thank Offering also makes grants to Haiti ministries.

Haiti is by far the poorest and least-developed country in the western hemisphere, with more than half of its people living on less than $1 per day, and 80% living on less than $2 per day. One-third of its children are malnourished and 500,000 cannot go to school. The unemployment rate is estimated to be 60 percent.

Episcopal News Service
Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of Episcopal News Service. The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent of Episcopal News Service and editor of Episcopal News Monthly. The Rev. Pat McCaughan contributed to this story.