January 21, 2010
By Mary Frances Schjonberg

Helicopters, satellite phones, a little shared rice, prayer and the laying on of hands were all part of the Episcopal Church's continued efforts to help the country of Haiti nine days after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake decimated parts of the impoverished nation.

The hardware is coming into Haiti by way of the Dominican Republic, the Episcopal Church diocese there and Episcopal Relief & Development, and the rice and ministering prayer is coming, in part, from the three sisters of the Couvent Sainte Marguerite, adjacent to the cathedral and operated by the Sisters of Saint Margaret, who have told their Boston-based colleagues that they are staying put.

"We had some people up here ask us if the sisters were leaving and I said that's not even a question in anybody's minds," Sister Adele Marie, the order's assistant superior, told ENS in a telephone interview Jan. 21. "They have no intention of leaving. They have work to do there and they have people who are dependent upon them."

Before the quake, the nuns had what Sister Carolyn Darr, superior of the order, called "a door ministry – just people coming and ringing the bell, asking for help."

"They're doing much of the same thing out in this field – now it's tent ministry," she said.

She and Adele Marie said that sisters Marie Margaret, who is a registered nurse, and Marie Therese are living at the growing survivors' camp that Episcopal Diocese of Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin and other diocesan clergy started in the hours after the earthquake destroyed wide swaths of Port-au-Prince.

"They were ministering to them, praying with them, sharing their rice and water … just trying to soothe them [with] praying and laying on of hands," Adele Marie said of her sisters who, she added, have told her that conditions at the camp are bad.

"The stench is terrible," she said.

A third sister, Marjorie Raphael, is with Duracin's wife, Marie-Edith, who was injured when the Duracins' home collapsed. They are at Zanmi Lasante, the Partners in Health hospital in Cange, outside of Port-au-Prince.

The diocese suffered greatly with the quake. A number of the diocese's other 254 schools, ranging from pre-schools to a university and a seminary, were destroyed or heavily damaged, including the Holy Trinity complex of primary, music and trade schools adjacent to the demolished diocesan Cathédrale Sainte Trinité (Holy Trinity Cathedral) in Port-au-Prince.

The school's headmistress, the Rev. Mere Fernande Pierre-Louis, was at home at the time of the quake and trapped in rubble for a time. She was rescued and is receiving medical treatment, according to a confirmed report at http://web.me.com/merelaurens/GoIntoTheWorld/Go_Into_The_World/Entries/2010/1/20_Wednesday_night_update.html.

A portion of the St. Vincent School for Handicapped Children, also in the Haitian capital, collapsed, killing between six and 10 students and staff. Many of the students are living at the camp while arrangements are being made for them to be housed elsewhere.

More than 100 of the diocese's churches have been damaged or destroyed, Duracin has said.

Much of Couvent Sainte Marguerite was destroyed and can't be restored, Adele Marie said. "The rest of it will have to be demolished," she added.

They do also know that the front portion of the Foyer Notre Dame, the sisters' home for elderly Haitians, collapsed during the quake, she said. The nuns bring the home's seven or eight residents to the camp each night because it is not safe for them to sleep at the Foyer for fear of looting and possible additional structural collapses.

"It's a diocese that is physically nearly destroyed," Duracin told the Wall Street Journal in a Jan. 21 article.

"That's the way life is. There are moments like this, moments of sadness. There are moments of celebration. What's important is to keep the faith. We must keep the faith, knowing that God is with us in the good as well as in the bad days," he said. "We must keep the faith."

Duracin was interviewed at the survivor camp that has grown to serve as many as 3,000 who have gathered in tents and makeshift shelters on a rocky playing field next to College Ste. Pierre, a diocesan primary school in Port-au-Prince that the quake destroyed. He said in a Jan. 19 interview for the Wall Street Journal story that the school's cafeteria stores were being used to feed the camp's occupants but that only a day or two of food was left.

The Rev. Canon Oge Beauvoir, the dean of the diocese's seminary and one of four Episcopal Church missionaries assigned to Haiti, told the Wall Street Journal reporter that in the hours after the quake young people dug through the school's rubble with bare hands, rescuing 12 people and finding four bodies. A 13th person died shortly after being rescued.

The plight at the camp is a microcosm of the struggles all over Haiti. Episcopal Relief & Development said Jan. 21 that congested runways and ports have made it difficult to get materials into Haiti, and while the situation is slowly improving, lack of available fuel continues to hinder the transport of available supplies to those in need.

The agency is using helicopter support from it partner Worldwide Village to provide medical supplies and food to affected rural Haitian communities and parishes, including Gressier, Grand Colline and Trouin, according to Katie Mears, the Episcopal Church-affiliated agency's program manager for USA disaster preparedness and response. She and Kirsten Muth, Episcopal Relief & Development's Senior Program Director, are operating from the Dominican Republic, the country that shares the island of Hispaniola to the east.

"We've been working closely with the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic to get shipments into Haiti on a daily basis," said Muth said in a news release.

Mears added that the relief team in the Dominican Republic recently was able to locate vehicles which allow for the delivery of more supplies to more people. "Relief efforts are expanding daily," she said.

The two women said in the release that their work is also the way the agency is helping to establish a response mechanism that can continue to operate efficiently as the recovery process gets underway in the coming weeks and months.

They have helped arrange for the provision of satellite phones and solar power chargers to enable coordination of efforts between dioceses and increase the organization's ability to communicate with Duracin and his colleagues as they serve the thousands of survivors that have congregated in the College Ste. Pierre camp.

"The infrastructure of the church, even where damaged and wounded, represents an amazing network of people, skills and resources," said Muth. "It is important that we continue to support the people of Haiti as they take the lead in the nation's recovery."

The Rev. Lauren Stanley, another of the Episcopal Church's missionaries to Haiti, said on her blog Jan. 21 that while Duracin is thankful for "your love, your prayers, your support, your generosity and your kindness," he is discouraging mission trips at this time.

"I believe the best course of action right now is to pray, to be generous in your financial assistance and to begin praying about how you can respond in the future," Stanley wrote. "Please know that Bishop Duracin is counting on everyone here to work together, to help the people and to be faithful. Together, we will help God's beloved children in Haiti."

Stanley, 49, was at home in Virginia when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit on the outskirts of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince just before 5 p.m. local time Jan. 12. She has said that Duracin asked her to remain in the U.S. for the next few weeks in order to tell the diocese's story, and coordinate information emerging from the country and offers of help that have come flooding in.

To donate to Episcopal Relief & Development go to http://www.er-d.org/donate-select.php, or call the agency at 1-800-334-7626 ext.5129; or mail a gift to Episcopal Relief & Development, PO Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058. Please write "Haiti fund" in the memo of all checks.

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is ENS national correspondent and editor of Episcopal News Monthly.