More on Haiti
Yesterday’s blog was an attempt to get something, anything down about the frustration of being in the eye of the storm, while journalists yammer, often wrongly, and aid groups hustle most effectively to keep the dollars rolling in, less effectively on the ground when the need is most severe.
The picture of that is the mountain of used clothing that sat in the parking lot of one of our local shopping centers…donations by kind, empathetic people around the country. They sat there, were picked over and eventually moved with a dump truck or two to landfills brimming with the material remains of our lives. Dead clothes from up north mingled with dead drywalling, soggy carpeting, warped flooring, tree debris, and symbolic of the fact that ill directed attempts to help make the giver feel good about having done something, but they are somewhere between mildly ineffective, and downright couterproductive.
However, the churches, now that’s another story. Not the huge church in a box deal so much or maybe they just didn’t have the branding to make their work known… but aid funnelled through Presbyterian disaster assistance, UMICOR, United Methodist something something, Baptist relief… and countless others… they were on the ground providing food, temporary shelter, running crews to help people rebuild, regroup.
So when Ina May sent out a letter from her hectic life yesterday, I asked to pass it on. She’s not yet given permission, so I may have to pull it. But if you’ve not gotten anything to Haiti yet, this is the way to do it. Through your own denominational relief, The Salvation Army or Missions who already have people on the ground ahead of the disaster.
From Ina May, my mother’s sister:
Things have been interesting around here lately. We found out our friends who are missionaries to Haiti were to be at a Mission Conference by Wichita with the Kansas Baptists. They were to be in the KCK area by the middle of the week, so we called them. It turned out they were able to come here Wednesday noon and be here for the Wednesday night church dinner.
The missionaries are Kihomi and Nzunga, originally from the Congo. They have been working in Haiti for about 10 years now. Kihomi is great working with the women in the churches. She has them organized into areas with leaders to watch over the needs of the people in their churches. Another friend of mine in St. Louis has always been close to Kihomi and is forever gathering up stuff to send to Kihomi to distribute in Haiti. Kihomi has been speaker at our region conference a couple times and has been at our church before, so our women especially know her.
They arrived Wednesday noon, and I was able to pull out a bunch of “Sara soup” from the freezer for lunch. Just as we were ready to eat, Kihomi got a call from one of the Baptist women in Haiti who was finally able to get a call through. They had not heard directly from anyone, so they were anxious to get word about them. Several pastors had died, one woman survived but all four of her children were killed (Nzunga’s comment was “She will die, she has nothing to live for now”), on and on. It is TERRIBLE destruction, and when you know the people, it is worse. Both Kihomi and Nzunga had not been able to sleep since the earthquake. Wed night Don gave them a sleeping pill, and they finally got some rest.
Wednesday evening we went to church for the church dinner. Some came from First Baptist and a church in KCK because they knew they would be there. After dinner they spoke and showed a video of their work in Haiti. They work in Limbe where there wasn’t that much damage. Nzunga is administrator of the Haitian Eye Clinic which does great work in that area of Haiti. The good thing about it is that he has direct access to get funds into the Eye Clinic and people there who can get money out. Kihomi’s network of women who are going around to the different churches assessing needs etc can get aid right to the people who need it. We had an offering that night of $830 for them to send right away. Money can also go through International Ministries, but it will be awhile getting there.
Thursday morning they slept late, had a leisurely breakfast, and were on their way by 10:30 toward their next speaking assignment in Louisburg, KS. There was a couple from Chanute driving them around all the time and staying with us too.
Anyway, I don’t think Ina May will mind my extracting from her letter… Give and give generously, but think about how where it’s going how effectively it will be used.
January 24th, 2010 at 10:46 am
A second offering will be taken at St Mark’s for ERD to use in Haiti. The Episcopal bishop there has had a converstation with Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori. The walls of the Cathedral have been destroyed but the cross on the roof remains standing. Amazing!