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Presiding Bishop's Wife Gets a First-Hand Look at Central America's Recovery from Mitch

Episcopal News Service. December 21, 1998 [98-2274]

(ENS) With the help of many friends, Central America continues its recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Mitch. Much of the work is still focused on the emergency needs in an area where nearly a million people are homeless, but at the same time, plans are emerging for the long term.

And others are seeing the need for comfort, now and for years to come.

In her first solo journey abroad representing her husband, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, Phoebe Griswold, joined by Ann Vest, interim director of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief; the Rev. Canon Ricardo Potter-Norman, of the Episcopal Church's Office for Anglican and Global Relations, and Nan Cobbey, features editor for Episcopal Life newspaper, visited a number of sites in Honduras and Nicaragua to see how people were responding to the devastation caused by the hurricane last October.

As she walked through the rubble-strewn streets and makeshift shacks in hurricane-battered Honduras on December 11, Griswold tried to deliver a simple message: "We are one family."

She delivered it in many ways -- in hugs that she gave mothers who had lost children, in listening as strangers recounted painful stories of loss, in acts of spontaneous generosity, and even in the simple gifts she gave those who had shown courage or leadership during the crisis that has taken more than 10,000 lives and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

With a smile, she gave "One Earth, One Family, One God" pins to those she met, reciting the words -- "Una tierra, una familia, una Dios" -- in increasingly confident Spanish during her four-day visit.

Griswold went to Central America, which has just experienced what international government agencies are calling the worst natural disaster in 200 years, to learn how the Presiding Bishop's Fund could help -- beyond the timely contribution it has already made. As of December 18, the Fund had wired a total of $146,000 in emergency grants to the five dioceses in Central America that were hit by Hurricane Mitch. Another $260,000 in donations earmarked for disaster aid in Central America is in the Fund's Hurricane Relief account, awaiting further decisions on how best to use the money, according to Claudette Malcolm of the Fund.

In addition, the Episcopal Church is a longtime supporter of Church World Service, the emergency relief arm of the National Council of Churches, which not only has sent supplies to Central America but has sponsored several volunteer medical teams seeking to treat injuries and prevent outbreaks of cholera, skin ailments and other afflictions that arrive after every natural disaster.

Center of disaster

But Griswold had a deeper agenda than just meeting immediate need. As she and the group with her traveled with a video crew taping on behalf of the Fund, she articulated her hope that the church would be able to focus more on long-term efforts and sustainable development in the future

What she saw of the Fund's work impressed her.

"I was so proud of the Episcopal Church," she recalled in an interview after her return home to New York City. She and Vest had traveled with Bishop Leo Frade of Honduras and Bishop Sturdie Downs of Nicaragua and their wives, she said, "and there they were, at the center of the disaster, being the church, being right there where the suffering was."

She and Vest followed Frade into areas where families had lost their homes, possessions, crops, a whole way of life. In Honduras' Sula Valley -- a major agricultural area where thousands have died and where 90 percent of the banana crop was lost, taking livelihoods with it -- they joined Frade's youth brigades and distributed truckloads of grains, beans, flour, oil, water, salt and clothing that had been donated by churches in Florida and Mississippi.

To date, 30 U.S. dioceses and half a dozen other countries around the Anglican Communion have sent or pledged support to the Diocese of Honduras as it rebuilds its churches and the communities they serve.

The church is responsible for maintaining 10 shelters in the San Pedro Sula area and more around Tegucigalpa, the country's capital. Thousands are living in these shelters and probably will be for months to come.

Vest and Griswold visited one in Puerto Cortes, near San Pedro Sula, that they aren't likely to soon forget. In a cavernous, concrete-floored gymnasium, live 342 people -- 90 of them children under 5 -- their few remaining pieces of clothing, enameled pans and plastic bowls, their kerosene burners and salvaged toys neatly arranged on bleachers.

When Vest and Griswold walked into that scene, they heard from men, members of the "committee of administration," how all residents -- elderly and infants included -- had to sleep directly on the concrete floor that at that moment was wet with puddles from a flash shower that had leaked through the roof.

They had no pads or blankets for cushioning. Saddened, Vest and Griswold listened to Frade's translation of the men's account. Then he told them: "We need about $4,400 just to buy mats." Their response was instant. "Is there a place we can buy the mats?"

"Yes," he said. "In San Pedro Sula."

"I have a credit card," said Vest.

"So have I," said Griswold.

"And they can be here by truck tomorrow," said Frade.

"Do it," said Griswold. And Frade pulled out his cell phone and called in the order. Earlier that same day, the group visited a tent city along a main highway. "This is the only place they have, their island city surrounded by muck," said Frade, indicating the cardboard, tin, plastic and wooden shacks that had been assembled on high ground at the road's edge. Their former neighborhood, at the foot of the embankment, rested under 3½ feet of mud. They had wanted to stay near what had been home.

Standing with the suffering

The roadside, however, posed a danger. The night before one of their community -- Valeriano Martinez -- was killed by a speeding truck as he crossed the highway. He was killed instantly. The truck did not stop.

When Griswold, Vest and Frade arrived, Martinez was laid out on pieces of cardboard atop a plastic table, a sheet covering his body. As his sister wept and the community gathered around, Frade blessed the body and began to pray. Griswold embraced the weeping sister. Then the bishop used his cell phone to arrange for a casket and funeral for that afternoon.

As the travelers said goodbye, Griswold told the camera: "This is exactly where the church needs to be … with the people in their suffering, standing with them."

Meanwhile, as her visit to Central America continued, officials for the United States, several European countries and the World Bank promised Honduras and Nicaragua a massive new package of debt relief and financial aid.

The assistance includes more than $1.5 billion in new development grants, a three-year respite from repayment of bilateral debt, additional money to cover payments due to international banks and an eventual write-off of large chunks of their foreign debts.

The actions came even as debt relief, a key issue at the Lambeth Conference last summer, also appeared on the agenda of the World Council of Churches Eighth Assembly, held in early December in Zimbabwe. In Central America, debt relief is a key to long-term recovery from Hurricane Mitch. According to Oxfam International, Honduras' foreign debt totals $4.1 billion, with interest payments consuming a third of the country's revenues before the storm; Nicaragua's total foreign debt totals about $6.1 billion, with debt service payments accounting for more than half of government revenue.

U.S. officials said that the assistance was necessary, not only for long-term recovery but "to prepare the countries of Central America for the competitive global economy of the 21st century."

Inter-American Development Bank President Enrique Iglesias cautioned, however, that the objective should be not only reconstruction but also transformation, avoiding the mistakes of the past.

For now, Central America's hands are full with the problems of the present and the specter of huge problems in the future.

For example, the loss of most of the area's agricultural production means that countries will lose export revenue to pay their bills, but the situation also has officials fearing that farm workers who no longer have work or even land will migrate to cities where overdevelopment has already caused significant urban problems.

These problems, such as haphazard development, poor basic-service delivery and hillside deforestation, contributed to the destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch.

Contributions to the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief may be designated for particular areas and may be sent to the Fund, c/o Bankers Trust, Box 12043, Newark, New Jersey 07101.