Haiti Crisis

Earthquake
January 12, 2010

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Update: February, 2011

Over a year has passed since the massive earthquake collapsed much of Port au Prince.  Yet in that year very little, it seems, has been done to rebuild, or even clean up, the debris.    It is estimated that less than 10% of the rubble has been removed and that was done largely by hand.   As I drove through the city, buildings still lay in discouraging piles of concrete blocks,   Are victims still entombed in them?  No one knows for sure because accurate accounting is almost impossible with over a million people still homeless.

Tents are everywhere, in every open field and in the medians between busy highways.  Children play beside the fading, tattered tents as trucks and buses hurry past just inches away.

Clean water is a luxury, temporary toilets are overflowing and the conditions are ripe for the continued spread of cholera which has already claimed the lives of over 4,000.

Has anything been accomplished?

Despite the obstacles, AG World Missions and Convoy of Hope have not been prevented from progressing from emergency relief, into recovery and now into rebuilding.  For years the AG has had missionaries in Haiti working in partnership with the AG churches of Haiti, and using those facilities and relationships, we have been able to make progress where other agencies have been delayed.

As part of the relief effort, millions of meals, tens of thousands of sanitation kits, thousands of water filters were distributed.  When cholera threatened, 80,000 doses of cholera medicine were provided.  Several HealthCare Ministries teams treated hundreds of patients, and I had the thrill of talking to some of the scores of patients who made decisions to serve the Lord in those HCM clinics.  Our relief efforts have been successful in very difficult circumstances.

The Arkansas district has been directly involved in Haiti.  I was thrilled to be able to lead a team of nine pastors from Arkansas to Haiti and, with the help of Builders International, the construction coordinators of AGWM, we witnessed churches under construction, saw the work being done on the national office of the Haitian AG, and walked on the prospective property of a new Bible school that will potentially serve hundreds of young pastors.  Following that, the Arkansas district office chose to fund a generous part of that new Bible School to help it reach its potential in the Kingdom.

Plans are being made for more pastors to go to work in Haiti in 2011.

Yes, help is reaching Haiti!  And, your generosity is making it possible.

Thank you, my friends!

Larry and Kathi Hall