East Ave Community Church

By General Superintendent J. K. Warrick

I want to keep you updated on the crisis in Haiti. Information is flowing in a number of directions, and with the Internet, this will only increase. However, I made a personal commitment to the Haitian Nazarenes to build awareness for their plight, and I will do so through a series of letters to the Church of the Nazarene over the next few weeks.

Earthquake Damage Assessment

The plight of Haitians is affected by day-to-day developments. Aftershocks continue, with one measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale striking Wednesday morning, 20 January 2010, with the epicenter located west of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

• In the South Central District, the district superintendent reports that 17 churches are down and many pastors’ houses have been destroyed.
• In the Central District, the Nazarene church in Boutin is reported to be down.
• The Tabarre church reports that eight people were injured and many members have lost their houses.
• The Nazarene church of Bel-Air has many of their members missing. There is still no report on the total number of people who have died, but three have been confirmed dead.
• The Nazarene church of Lastic knows of one member who is still missing. All that is known is that her house is down and they have not been able to find her.
• The Petionville Church of the Nazarene has reported that the church has lost members and 75% of the members of the church have lost their homes.
• People are sleeping outside their houses for fear that they may collapse on them. Many homes are still standing but damaged. After the first earthquake there was a damaged house that later collapsed and killed six people.
• Food is becoming scarce, and water is hard to get. Diesel is also running out.
• While it is difficult to tell at this time how many members the Church of the Nazarene in Haiti has lost, there is hope from reports that people are still being pulled out of the rubble alive.

Nazarene Response

The need in Haiti is for search and rescue first and then recovery and medical teams. They need money for food, water, living supplies, etc. It is inadvisable for teams to go into Haiti on their own at this time. The country is simply overrun right now with the tragedy, and officials need time to restore law and order. The Caribbean regional office is asking that this request be honored. Our updates will continue to provide information on further opportunities to be of assistance.

• We have two medical teams now functioning on the campus of our Nazarene seminary, and several hundred Haitians are camped on the grounds. Our people there are working hard to accommodate all of this.
• Bill (French field strategy coordinator) and Martha Dawson and Beth Luthye (regional Nazarene Compassionate Ministries coordinator) are now surveying Haiti for six days to get a firsthand idea of where we stand. Larry Bollinger (Nazarene Compassionate Ministries director for the Church of the Nazarene) will fly there on Thursday (21 January 2010). John Smee, the Caribbean regional director, and I will be returning to Haiti in March.
• We have been working hard to put a strategy in place for the greater response of our people through Work & Witness teams. A web site will soon be up and running where folks can track the availability of space for work teams.
• Those wanting to give may go to www.ncm.org/HaitiEarthquake for information.
• Pray for the people of Haiti, the emergency responders, and medical teams now onsite. It will make a difference.

In and for Him,

J. K. Warrick
General Superintendent

bgs@nazarene.org

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