Haitian Episcopalians struggle in the present, look to the future
Episcopal News Service. February 4, 2010 [020410-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
There may not be a single Episcopal church standing in Port-au-Prince today but that lack of walls and roofs does not mean that the church in the Haitian capital is dead.
"As the largest diocese of the Episcopal Church until now, we are physically destroyed but the church is there because the church is the people," Episcopal Diocese of Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin told Episcopal News Service Feb. 4. "Even though we have lost our buildings, the people continue to gather. The communities are there."
Duracin spoke to ENS in both English and French as he described life in Haiti and the work of the diocese in caring for survivors of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit just outside of Port-au-Prince in the later afternoon of Jan. 12.
The quake left an estimated 200,000 dead and made homeless hundreds of thousands of people. About a third of Haiti's approximately 9 million people lived in Port-au-Prince before the quake.
The Episcopal Church of Haiti, known locally as L'Eglise Episcopale d'Haiti, is caring for about 25,000 Haitians in roughly 20 makeshift camps. Since the quake, many people have left the capital for the countryside. While the exodus could eventually improve the country's economy and its ability to sustain itself, the out-migration is reportedly straining the meager resources of rural communities.
Duracin said almost all Episcopal Church buildings -- schools as well as churches and the Sisters of St. Margaret Convent -- in Port-au-Prince "are gone," but "every Sunday there are services, even at the cathedral … everything has been lost but … our communities are alive." For instance, the bishop said, a group gathers behind the ruins of Cathédrale Sainte Trinité (Holy Trinity Cathedral) "to continue to pray and to receive communion."
"In spite of everything that happened to Haiti -- that happened in Port-au-Prince -- the church is alive and strong," Duracin said, through translator Margareth Crosnier de Bellaistre, Episcopal Church Center director of investment management and banking.
"They look at the future and they see hope, and they are optimistic about the future," Duracin said. "They invite all their brothers and sisters in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion to help them physically to re-build the church."
However, Duracin warned that the diocese is not now prepared to welcome people. He said he understands that many people would like to come to Haiti and help in that work, but "there is no way for the church to receive any visitors right now."
Everyone, including himself, sleeps outside, the bishop said. Even at the few hotels that are still standing, guests must sleep outside for fear of aftershocks and the unknown condition of those buildings that are still standing, he added.
Thus, he said, the best way for Episcopalians to aid the diocese right now is to contribute to Episcopal Relief & Development.
"We are grateful to ERD. They are really helping," Duracin said. "They have come here. They have started working with us in this emergency, but now we have to think about the future."
Since shortly after the quake, Katie Mears, Episcopal Relief & Development's program manager for USA disaster preparedness and response, and Kirsten Muth, the agency's senior program director, have been operating out of the church center in New York and the Dominican Republic, the country that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. They have been assisting the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic's efforts to aid its neighbors to the west, as well as the Haitian diocese itself.
"It is very difficult for us to plan for the future now because we have so many people who have been injured so we have to take care of them," Duracin said. "So many have died, so many people have no houses so we are taking care of them to see how we can provide tents for them. We need a lot of things now in Haiti."
Duracin has begun to steer at least part of the diocese's focus toward the future. He appointed a 15-member special commission to help him in that response. The commission is made up of clergy, laity and one of the Sisters of St. Margaret -- "people who reflect the whole diocese," the bishop said.
One of the commission's subcommittees is looking specifically at building reconstruction, Duracin said. "We have to wait before beginning reconstruction because I suspect we have to re-think the type of construction in Haiti now," he said.
Meanwhile, many people, including Duracin, are living in tents or makeshift shelters. The bishop said he splits his days between the survivors' camp on a rocky field at College Ste. Pierre, a diocesan school destroyed by the quake, and a room at the diocesan offices. The building that housed the diocesan offices is the only Episcopal Church building in Port-au-Prince that survives relatively intact, according to Duracin.
At night, he said, he sleeps in a tent in the yard of a house that before the quake was being built for the Duracin family in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. When the quake hit, the house in which the bishop and his family were living collapsed, trapping and injuring his wife, Marie-Edithe.
Within a few days of the earthquake, the Rev. Kesner Ajax, head of the diocese's Bishop Tharp Institute of Business and Technology (BTI) in Les Cayes, managed to take the bishop's wife, their children and two diocesan employees to Zanmi Lasante, the Partners in Health hospital at Cange on the central plateau outside of the Haitian capital.
Mme. Duracin, whose leg was severely injured, was later transferred to the USNS Comfort hospital ship. The Rev. Lauren Stanley, an Episcopal Church-appointed missionary to Haiti and Duracin's liaison in the U.S., told ENS that George Packard, bishop suffragan for federal ministries, and others helped the Haitian bishop and his wife relay messages to each other. An Evangelical Lutheran Church in America chaplain, Commander David Oravec, has been visiting Mme. Duracin on the ship.
"Here in Haiti, we are not well," Duracin told ENS. "If someone is alive in Haiti now, it is a miracle."
"I would like the church at large to know we are in a very, very difficult situation," Duracin said, adding that relief workers have told him that they have never seen such devastation or such a complicated relief effort, even after the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia.
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, P.O. Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058. Please write "Haiti fund" in the memo line of all checks.