Feb. 15, 2010 issue
Haiti response in gear
Donors give MCC $8.3 million for earthquake relief
By Celeste Kennel-Shank Mennonite Weekly ReviewAs people in Haiti still lack basic necessities after the Jan. 12 earthquake, Mennonites continue to respond.
Medjina Morise drinks a cup of water from a filter given by MCC to provide drinking water in her camp for people displaced by Haiti’s earthquake. Morise is living with her family and 60 other people who are taking refuge in a half-built church. — Photo by Ben Depp/MCC
U.S. and Canadian donors gave an estimated $8.3 million to Mennonite Central Committee for Haiti relief as of Feb. 9. MCC, which has begun a multiyear response, has been connecting with Haitian churches in Haiti and Miami.
Pastor Hilaire Louis Jean of Church of God Prince of Peace in Miami, a congregation of Southeast Conference of Mennonite Church USA, hosted a meeting Jan. 22 with MCC and Miami-area Haitian church leaders. They heard firsthand accounts from MCC workers who had been to Haiti, he said.
“We were happy to listen to them,” Louis Jean said.
Several members of his congregation have relatives who have died or are still missing.
“We are taking it all day by day,” Louis Jean said.
He plans to take several trips to Haiti in the coming months to distribute material aid he is collecting. He hopes to travel outside Port-au-Prince to see the extent of the damage.
“It’s a very disturbing situation,” he said.
MCC has also been in contact with Pastor Lesly Bertrand of Assemblée de la Grace, a Mennonite church near Port-au-Prince. The earthquake damaged the congregation’s building beyond repair.
“The spiritual condition of Haitians is unshakeable,” Bertrand said in a Jan. 27 interview with MCC. “Spiritually we are very, very, very strong.”
Comments
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God bless all those who are working now and who continue to work in the future in Haiti. Thank you for your service to God and to the Haitian people. You are in our prayers.
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