The Newberg Graphic Online

Dispatches from a ravaged land

Newberg resident, a former missionary in the Caribbean, is on the ground in Haiti aiding in relief effort

• Published: 2/5/2010 2:39:06 PM
• Last Updated: 2/5/2010 2:40:35 PM

Relief —
Port-Au-Prince residents stand in line awaiting food, water and medical treatment last week.

By John Marvin, as told to Don Loving


   JIMANI, Dominican Republic — The first thing I stress to people about the situation in Haiti is no matter how many pictures you’ve seen on the news from the earthquake, they don’t begin to tell the story of the true devastation here. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I can tell you in just a handful of words that things are much worse here than you can possibly imagine. It simply isn’t imaginable unless you’re seeing it with your own eyes.
   I am based at a compound here in Jimani, just a few miles from Port-au-Prince but on the Dominican side of the border. The “patients” at the compound are all Haitian earthquake survivors.
We travel into Port-au-Prince each day but return to Jimani before dark each evening; it isn’t safe to be in Port-au-Prince after dark. Indeed, I am aware of some other missionaries who were robbed here since I arrived. They weren’t harmed, but everything they had was taken.
   There are days that I ride into Port-au-Prince sitting in the back of a pickup truck, on top of the supplies we are to distribute that day, to keep people from running up and stealing them. People are desperate and we have been in a couple of scary situations in the city that could have turned ugly. But God has protected us.
   The worst of the earthquake damage was right in the heart of Port-au-Prince, where the population density was the highest. We see small signs of people trying to get back to normal; some buses and taxis running, vendors on corners selling soft drinks. Yet right behind them are remnants of buildings that are now nothing but rubble, and we know there are dead bodies buried underneath. You can smell them — the stench in downtown Port-au-Prince is indescribable.
   You’ve likely heard the news reports about Haiti’s complete lack of building codes, and that’s evident on every block. We see building after building that once were five or six or seven stories tall completely pancaked down to the ground. Yet, occasionally, there will be a newer building still standing virtually undamaged.
   It’s more like the images we see in the United States of tornados in the Midwest where one house is completely gone and a neighbor’s house is untouched; you don’t typically see that pattern with earthquakes, but we do see it here in Port-au-Prince.
   It is rough emotionally. I go from laughing with children one minute (“There is that crazy American, Pastor John, trying to speak to us in Creole!”), to having to put on my sunglasses moments later to simply hide the tears as I see some new tragedy that tears at my heart.
   During my years as an Assemblies of God missionary based in Antigua, I was trained in disaster relief; we dealt with four hurricanes and one volcanic eruption in our area. On a typical day here we travel to Port-au-Prince and spend from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. providing food and water to the tent cities that have sprung up all over town.
   We return to the Jimani compound for a quick dinner around 6, then I spend my evenings working my way through the compound ministering to people. I encourage people, I pray with people and then we have a mini-service where we sing and have a brief Gospel message.
   This routine is repeated three times each evening within the three distinct areas of the compound: a general tent area, a chapel area and an orphanage area. The orphanage area comprises at least 60 percent of the compound’s population.
   Everyone here just does what needs to be done. One day five of us went to a local airport and unloaded 48,000 pounds of supplies. Let me tell you that’s a lot of lifting for five people. There is a medical facility at the compound complete with a small operating room, and one day they were short-staffed so I donned gloves and collected urine and blood samples for several hours. It is 85 to 90 degrees each day here with very high humidity; we work 15-16 hour days and we are drained.
   But the spirit of the Haitian people buoys me. I came here to minister to the people of Haiti, but they are ministering to me. We have many new amputees here at the compound, yet they sing with such enthusiasm during our worship services, and I’ve seen countless of them lift one full arm and hand in worship, then struggle to lift the stump of what’s left of the other arm as well. My faith feels infinitesimally small in comparison; I am blessed by these people.
   On Jan. 31 we had a welcome break from death as two women in the compound delivered healthy babies.
Haiti will move forward, but it will take many years and millions of dollars in aid. I’ll return to Newberg Feb. 8 and have to plunge back into my regular routine, but the images here will never leave me and I’ll be anxious to return and offer more help. I encourage you to do what you can by supporting the many legitimate relief agencies that are trying to make a difference here.

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