'There is hope' in Haiti, bishop's aide says
Episcopal News Service. January 27, 2010 [012710-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti faces at least three to six months of emergency response to survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake that left a large portion of the diocese and the nation in ruins, according to a priest at the heart of the diocese's response.
In the midst of the challenges of aiding nearly 23,000 Haitians who are living in roughly 20 camps run by the diocese, Episcopalians are assessing the damage to their diocese and beginning to decide their rebuilding priorities, said the Rev. Canon Oge Beauvoir.
Beauvoir, a Haitian native and one of four Episcopal Church missionaries assigned to work with the diocese in the impoverished country, spoke to ENS Jan. 27 from a makeshift camp of earthquake survivors that began the night of the quake on a rocky field next to the College St. Pierre, a wrecked diocesan school. He, Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin and other diocesan members are living at the camp that he said contains 3,000 survivors.
"Right now we are dealing with the emergency, how to take care of those people who are in our camps for displaced people," he said, adding that "you don't need to be Episcopalian to be assisted."
"The challenge is to feed them, to provide them water and medicine" and shelter, Beauvoir said.
"We think that's something we're gong to be doing for between three to six months," he said. "We don't think people would leave the camps before that because they have no place to go. They have lost everything they had."
There have been conflicting reports about the eventual outcome of plans to relocate in much larger camps the thousands of Haitian made homeless by the quake.
Beauvoir said that Episcopal Relief & Development and the Montreal-based Center for International Studies and Cooperation have each arranged food shipments to the College Ste. Pierre camp. The Episcopal agency is helping the diocese find tents, he added.
"We need tents because people are still sleeping outside," Beauvoir said. "Every night we are praying that there will be no rain. If it starts raining, then we will be in trouble."
Haiti's rainy season normally starts in February and June is the acknowledged start of hurricane season. When the quake hit, the country had not yet fully recovered from four storms that battered it between mid-August and mid-September 2008.
"The diocese is on its knees," Beauvoir said. "Out of that situation, there is hope because of our partners: the Episcopal Church, ERD [Episcopal Relief & Development] and all the Episcopal churches in the states. ERD is doing a very good job to help with what we are doing and to provide the support we need to do the work."
Beauvoir, who is dean of the diocese's seminary, said that most of the damage to the diocese occurred in Port-au-Prince and in and around Léogâne, about 19 miles from the capital and closer to the quake's epicenter.
"We have lost every single church in Léogâne and many schools," he said, explaining that each of the seven parishes in the area had many mission congregations as well.
The diocese's nursing school, Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de l'Université Episcopale d'Haïti in Léogâne (FSIL) (Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti), was relatively undamaged and its dean and students, joined by various other medical professionals, have been caring for quake survivors.
While the full extent of damage is still being assessed, it is clear, Beauvoir said, that many of the diocese's churches and 254 schools, ranging from preschools to a university and a seminary, were destroyed or heavily damaged. The lost schools include 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 university and the seminary. A portion of the St. Vincent School for Handicapped Children, also in the Haitian capital, collapsed, killing between six and 10 students and staff.
One of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church's 12 overseas dioceses, Haiti is numerically the largest diocese in the church with more than 83,000 Episcopalians in 169 congregations served by just 32 active priests, nine retired priests, six deacons, three nuns and 17 seminarians.
Beauvoir said he believes "all the clergy are safe" but many have lost parishioners. "For instance, in one parish in Léogâne, 15 people were killed," he said.
Helping people find shelter, food, water and medicine is just a beginning, he said.
"We're also looking to the psychological side of it," Beauvoir said. "People have been affected not only in terms of what they have lost, but also as a human being. When you have been through that experience, you have been destroyed somewhere or another and you need psychological help to put yourself back together as one piece."
He said that Episcopal Relief & Development has also offered the diocese help in counseling clergy who "are so busy thinking of other people."
The diocese is looking beyond the emergency phase of the quake's aftermath, and Duracin has appointed a 15-member special commission to help him in that response. The commission, made up of clergy, laity and one of the Sisters of St. Margaret whose convent was destroyed during the quake, is assessing emergency, health care and education issues, taking "an inventory of what we have lost" and is beginning to look ahead to the rebuilding period, according to Beauvoir, who is coordinating the group.
While the members have not set specific priorities and are meeting Jan. 28 to continue that discussion, Beauvoir said "we're going to start looking toward re-building the church properties we have lost."
"It's going to be a very long process of rebuilding the diocese," he said.
Beauvoir asked Episcopalians across the church to "pray for us so we can help the strength and courage to carry on" and lend their financial support by way of Episcopal Relief & Development.
And, he add, people should only come to Haiti now if they have professional disaster-response or medical training. "It is too early" for anyone else, he said, noting that, among other challenges, "we have no way to give them accommodations."
Beauvoir said the diocese has been buoyed by the support it has received. "We are very grateful to partners all over the Anglican Communion in general, especially for our partners in the U.S., all the dioceses and Trinity Wall Street and ERD and the church center and the presiding bishop," he said, adding that members of the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic have been with their neighbors in Haiti beginning almost immediately after the initial earthquake.
"You know who your friends are when you are in trouble," he said. "We are not alone; you are with us, the Episcopal Church. We feel supported here, so that like Paul said to the Corinthians: we are troubled but not destroyed."
To donate to Episcopal Relief & Development, click here; 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.