While traveling through Haiti, Cross Catholic Projects Officers Mike Wilson and Claudio Merisio visited the camps where our mission partners are continuing to provide medical care for earthquake victims. They got to see firsthand the incredible work that so many doctors, nurses, and volunteers are providing on a daily basis in tent facilities or even outside.  

Now that more than three weeks have passed since the quake, our partners are beginning to transition from trauma to general health care for the many displaced men, women, and children who are trying to rebuild their lives in the aftermath; and Cross Catholic is working alongside them to ensure success.

For instance, our Cross Catholic partner Arc en Ciel is providing care for about 4,000 people, including 1,600 children, in five refugee camps. They plan to send health workers to fifty additional camps to train their peers on general health issues such as hydration, nutrition, vaccination, and psycho-social support.

Another Cross Catholic partner, Project Medishare, is increasing the number of women and children receiving care, and plans to double the number of mobile clinics from one to two per week.

Gladys Thomas, who runs Hopital Espoir and Village Espoir, is shifting her focus to rehabilitative care for people needing physical and occupational therapy and post-traumatic support.

To help our mission partners provided the best possible health care under the strained conditions of disaster-stricken Haiti, Cross Catholic has given food, medicine, medical supplies, and in one case even a container to be converted into a clinic. To learn more about what Cross Catholic is doing in Haiti, check out our latest updates at www.crosscatholic.org/relief.

Between serving as a guide and translator for an NBC news crew and personally delivering pillows for all the beds at the main Project Medishare hospital in Haiti (as he put it, “My vehicle looks like a giant cotton ball!”), Cross Catholic Projects Officer Michael Wilson has successfully established a food distribution network in the greater Port-au-Prince area and the badly damaged cities of Leogane and Jacmel.

The food recipients include long-term Cross Catholic partners such as the Bethsaide short-term shelter in Jacmel, as well as internally displaced persons (IDP) camps where many earthquake refugees are now living. These groups will benefit from a $1.3 million shipment of emergency supplies that Cross Catholic arranged to be airlifted to Port-au-Prince in two C737 cargo planes over the weekend. The shipment includes 50,000 lbs. of fortified rice/soy casserole, bagged corn, water, an electrolyte replacement drink, tarps, and diapers, and is now being stored in a partner’s warehouse near the airport, where the goods are already being picked up for distribution.

Michael also reported that one of the orphanages Cross Catholic is supporting has now relocated from Leogane to an open field in Tabarre, where the children are living in tents. On Monday, Michael visited a school in the Port-au-Prince area that was severely damaged by the earthquake and he assured the widow of the deceased headmaster that we will help them recover from their loss. Even as schools have reopened in unaffected areas of Haiti, there is much work to be done before children in Port-au-Prince will be able to return to school again.

Get more of the latest Haiti updates at www.crosscatholic.org/relief.

In an email update from Port-au-Prince to our Florida headquarters, Cross International Catholic Outreach Projects Officer Michael Wilson describes a nation picking itself up by its bootstraps. His observation—a testament to the incredible resilience of the Haitian people—is excerpted here:

Michael Wilson, Cross International Projects Officer

There are signs of normalcy, whatever that means in a Haiti that is forever changed.  We saw a few banks open.  Gas stations.  A grocery store.  Haiti-grown staples seem to be abundant on the streets and in the markets.  Claudio bought a mamit of beans at the same price paid prior to the quake. Tap taps are running.  People are in the streets.  We have seen no looting, rioting, or anarchy that some have portrayed.  We have seen IDP camps in all sorts of places.  Water trucks giving out water.  Restaurants serving as soup kitchens.  And a spirit, while certainly battered and bruised, equally most certainly not broken.

Read more latest updates on www.crosscatholic.org/relief

We received some good news from Mike Henry, our projects officer who has been coordinating relief in Haiti since the earthquake. He and one of our partner organizations were able to get medical supplies to a hospital we support near Port-au-Prince. Below is an excerpt from his field notes a few days ago:

With the road cleared, I was able to get further into the field to do some more work — work that will have a true positive impact on people’s lives.

The staff and volunteers at Hospital Espoir offer a prayer of thanks as the medical supplies from Cross International Catholic Outreach arrive.

I got started early by heading over to the office of a ministry we’ve partnered with during this crisis to pick up some medical supplies to deliver to Hospital Espoir, which is run by one of our long-time ministry partners.

As I drove through Delmas and down Rue Freres, I couldn’t believe how many down homes and buildings were out there. There were only a limited number of cars on the road, but people were walking in every direction, many carrying their belongings.

Dr. Antoine Fadoul, one of my contacts on Haiti, had agreed to provide us with enough supplies to keep Hospital Espoir functioning while we worked on getting supplies to them through the Dominican Republic. By 8:30 a.m., we were able to supply the hospital with a truck-load of items such as gloves, syringes, antibiotics, and pain killers.

Gladys Thomas, the director of the hospital Espoir, was on her way home from India, so her daughter, Natalie, had been left to coordinate activities. Natalie had been overwhelmed by emotions for the past couple of days. I could see it in her eyes. The hospital had all but shut down a few days after the earthquake as they had quickly run out of supplies needed to care for trauma patients.

I was happy to be able to deliver the supplies, and she was relieved to receive the help. Her eyes lit up a bit. Hospital Espoir would now have enough materials to open back up to the public. More importantly, Cross International Catholic Outreach had a lot more help on the way.

Cross Catholic has since provided Gladys with funds to buy more medicines and supplies from the Dominican Republic to keep Hospital Espoir up and running. Please continue to pray for them and all of our other ministry partners in Haiti as we continue to support them in this time of crisis.

Two more staff members will be traveling to Port-au-Prince Wednesday to help with our relief efforts being coordinated from our office in Haiti. They will meet up with Project Officer Mike Henry, who has been working diligently from the devastated country since the earthquake hit Tuesday.

The victims of Haiti's massive 7.2-magnitude earthquake are still desperate for help.

“We will be doing whatever we can to help our partners. We plan to visit some of them as long as we have access to fuel,” said Claudio Merisio, our Latin America projects officer who just returned from Guatemala and postponed his trip to visit partners in Peru in order to go to Haiti.

Mike Wilson, our International Projects Director who several years of experience living and working in Haiti, is flying back early from visiting our partners in the Philippines to travel with Claudio. Both plan to stay in Haiti at least a week.

Since the airport in Port-au-Prince is still closed to commercial traffic, Mike Wilson and Claudio plan to fly into the Dominican Republic and take a bus across the boarder and on to Port-au-Prince. From there they will meet up with Mike Henry at our Haiti office.

Please pray for Mike Wilson and Claudio as they make their way to Haiti, and continue to pray for Mike Henry as he works from our office in Port-au-Prince! We covet your prayers and support.

Our Projects Officer Mike Henry, who has been updating us from the field since the earthquake shook Haiti Tuesday, sent us more news this afternoon. Below is an excerpt from his notes from the day after the earthquake:

Mike Henry, Cross International Catholic Outreach projects officer

I woke up at dawn on Wednesday morning to the sound of helicopters flying over and thought, “My God, it wasn’t only a bad dream.” I was in disbelief. The aftershocks began early, typically just a slight shake.

I decided that I needed to get busy trying to help. I figured that the search and rescue teams were on the way, so maybe I could help expedite the situation by doing an assessment of our neighborhood and documenting areas that held trapped survivors. I had already seen and heard many, so I thought that I would do another walk-through of the areas of Cineas and Augustin to put together a more thorough report.

As I walked through the neighborhood and interviewed different members of the community, I had to fight back the tears. There was so much damage that you couldn’t distinguish one house from the next. Every other house seemed to have missing people inside. Some folks had found and saved one or two family members who had been stuck, but were still missing others.

Mike interviewing earthquake victims in the streets of Leogane, where 90 percent of the buildings collapsed. (Photo courtesy of Kathryn Bolles, Save the Children)

I drew up a small map in my notebook and began charting where people were missing, trying to distinguish between the difference of “missing” and “alive and trapped.” It was bad out there, but I managed to get together a pretty accurate map for the search and rescue teams.

When I got back to our office, I found that the number of community members staying at our unofficial camp had increased a bit.  I realized that logistics would soon become a major issue as we would need food, water, latrines, and either tents or some other shelter for each of them. We were able to get several cases of Vitafood meals from a partner we shipped to recently. We also gave some of the cases to a nearby orphanage that had run out of food.

With all the destruction everywhere, it’s good to be able to start helping people. I am hopeful for tomorrow.

Please pray for Mike as he continues to work with our ministry partners in the field to help the devastated earthquake victims of Haiti. Also, visit our disaster relief page to see how you can help.

Our Haiti Projects Officer Mike Henry was in our office in Port-au-Prince during the massive earthquake that shook Haiti Tuesday. Below is his first-hand account of the quake and the destruction it left behind:

Mike Henry, Haiti projects officer

It started off as kind of soft shaking then really intensified. There was no way I could have gotten out of the building. It was shaking too hard. I stood in a doorway to try and protect myself. Everything that was standing fell over. Computers fell off desks and pipes burst everywhere.

Once the earthquake stopped, I ran to the window that looks down over the city. It’s usually a nice view. This time it wasn’t so nice. A huge cloud of dust and smoke hung over the city. I have never seen anything like it in my life. There was screaming, crying, yelling and sheer panic coming from the city. Many of our neighbors’ houses collapsed.  About every other house had gone down the hill. They literally just fell off the mountain. It was quickly getting dark outside — it was really scary. Yelling and crying was coming from every direction.

The street just outside Cross International Catholic Outreach's office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

A few hours after the earthquake, I left our office compound and ventured into the streets to assess the damage. That’s when I realized the extent of the destruction. The streets were a maze of rubble and broken houses. They stretched in every direction. All the roads were littered with debris. Hundreds of people were stumbling around in the dark, stunned and begging for help. Most of the houses around our office had totally collapsed.

A bit later, I went with two guys from the U.S. Embassy to check on the road to see if we could get some of the critically-injured people to a medical outpost. We had only gone about 200 to 300 yards down the street when a woman came running toward us, screaming, “Please, come help me. My daughter is stuck — my baby is trapped. Please, you have to help me!”

We followed the woman, and about every 10 steps another person came up to us, asking for help to get trapped people out of the rubble. We freed one woman on the way, but there wasn’t much we could do for anyone because we didn’t have the tools to get them out. I felt so helpless. I hated having to leave them behind, knowing it would be a while until help would come. Those people are still stuck in that rubble, probably in dire need of water and air.

As I sat in the compound later, feeling helpless and overwhelmed, I heard people in the streets singing and praising God. It really touched me. The people’s faith is all they have. It is more real to them than anything around them. Their homes are gone, their children are gone; all that they have is their faith.

Mike is working with our partners in the country to channel our aid to those who need it most. The need is still very desperate. Click here to see how you can help, and please continue to pray for the people of Haiti.

To listen to an audio recording of Mike sharing his story, visit our disaster relief website. Also, see photos he took just hours after the earthquake here.

Haiti is still reeling from the devastating earthquake that shook much of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas to their foundations on Tuesday, but there is hope. People continued to gather in the streets of the capital today, singing hymns and offering prayers to God, as help began to arrive.

A father and child wait in the streets for help to arrive in Port-au-Prince. (Photo courtesy of Matt Marek, IFRC.)

We are distributing millions of meals to the victims of the 7.2 scale earthquake that demolished much of Port-au-Prince. The meals are part of a 10-container shipment that we have on the ground in Haiti today.

The shipments include, nutrient-packed Vitafood meals, shoes, canned foods, and nutrition drinks. We have established a staging post on the ground and are now able to receive outside aid through the airport in Port-au-Prince.

Cross International Catholic Outreach President Jim Cavnar said that cash donations continue to be the greatest need. These will allow us to wire much-needed funds to our partners in Haiti for the purchase of food, clean water, and fuel for rescue efforts.

“As we continue our emergency response, we are also planning for the long-term needs of our partners,” Jim said. “A lot of rebuilding will need to take place once the dust settles. Cross International Catholic Outreach will be there to meet that need and help the vital ministries we support rebuild.”

Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti and join us in the relief efforts. Click here to donate. Also, visit our disaster relief page for updates from our staff in Haiti.

Reports have been trickling in all day from our staff and mission partners in Haiti. The devastation from yesterday’s 7.2-scale earthquake has been profound.

Photo courtesy of AP

“It looks like Dante’s Inferno. There are dead bodies everywhere,” said Mike Henry, our Haiti projects officer who is on the ground in Port-au-Prince today, working with our partners to bring aid to the people.

The most immediate needs are medical aid, food and water, and shelter. We’ve created a disaster relief fund to help provide urgent aid to Haiti’s desperate earthquake victims. The money we raise will help provide cash grants to our ministry partners to meet their most immediate needs.

You can donate by visiting our disaster relief page, sending a check to Cross International Catholic Outreach at 600 SW 3rd Street, Suite 2201, Pompano Beach, Florida 33060, or calling in a donation by phone at 800-391-8545.

The earthquake is the worst Haiti has seen in two centuries. The major quake sent 33 aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 4.2 to 5.9. Officials are estimating that about 3 million people — a third of Haiti’s population — were affected by the quake. Haiti’s prime minister announced today that he believes more than 100,000 have died in the disaster. Among those reported dead was Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot of Port-au-Prince.

One of our project officers received an email from a friend doing relief work in Port-au-Prince today who said, “Much of the capital is in ruins. Having spent the last 12 hours in the streets, I assure you — you won’t have a hard time finding someone to help.”

Even our mission partners in Jacmel, a city three hours away from the quake’s epicenter in Port-au-Prince, felt the shock. Below is an excerpt from their email:

“Though it felt like hours, I think the earthquake lasted for about one minute. After it stopped, we went outside and heard people everywhere yelling and screaming and running all over the place. I was thankful to the Lord that we were safe. We went out to the people in the neighborhood to find out if anybody was hurt or needed help. We were told of several people whose homes had collapsed….All that we can do in this moment is pray. We thank the Lord who holds our lives in His hands. And we pray that lives are preserved all throughout Haiti during this time of crisis.”

Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti and for protection over our staff and other aid workers in the country, and join us in helping the disaster victims. We need your support!