The following article is the text of an email from Sylvia Raulo, head of the Lutheran team in Haiti, sent to Australian Lutheran World Service on 4 February, 2010. It underlines very clearly why we need to continue praying and giving in support of the people of Haiti.
The Lutheran team – LWF, Lutheran World Federation - is coordinating the aid of churches worldwide through the ACT Alliance (ACT: Action of Churches Together).
In Australia, act for peace has organized an emergency appeal to support the work of ACT Alliance and its partners on the ground in Haiti.
Sent: Wednesday, 3 February 2010 4:04 PM
Subject: Greetings from Haiti
Dear friends,
Let me just first apologize for the long delay in responding to so many wonderful heartwarming wishes, about collections, contributions, prayers or just signs of solidarity in the aftermath of an event that we still find difficult to comprehend.
Grieving women. Photo by ALWS
If you live in Haiti, you are used to difficulties in the everyday life, sudden events, natural disasters, but what happened 3 weeks ago was beyond anything any of us could imagine in our worst dreams. I will not go into describing the first days when all of us were desperately looking for colleagues, family members, friends, to discover ruined houses or offices, but also many people who had been saved. From our sister organisations ICCO [Dutch interchurch aid organization] and Christian Aid [British ecumenical aid agency] lost their offices and people managed to get out of the ruins alive. Many others didn't, and this loss is heavy on all of us as we have all lost people we loved.
Life in temporary shelters.
Photo by ALWS
Most of the LWF staff also has lost their houses or have badly damaged houses and live presently in the street or in spontaneous settlements of thousands of people in squares and parks, some in our office. In this we share the fate of more than 1 million other people in the capital area and the areas west, where the epicenters of the two larger earthquakes were.
In addition many ministries and government entities collapsed, as did churches, NGOs, schools, universities, UN HQs and so much human potential went with them. It has been difficult to organise aid efforts also when the leadership of the country has been as destitute as everyone else and around 50 % of the already weak police force was killed.
Searching for buried remains.
Photo by ALWS
The first days
After the first initial days of helping neighbors and family to get people out of the rubbles, nearly all of our staff has been working relentlessly. We were of course first faced with many difficulties - sharing the food and water we all had at home, no fuel, no money as all the shops and banks were closed for the first 7 days. But we contacted people to start working immediately, first little by little in the settlements with mobilizing the people and when we were able to get funds to start handing out water and later hygiene kits, food and tents.
Lutheran team give out water.
Photo by ALWS
The situation is very hard, because people are so destitute in many areas. Our young staff has been faced several times with desperate people to whom LWF was the first helping hand and they had to face anguished people and racketeers and police demanding their share. Some organisations have decided not to work anymore in some areas but we have always gone back.
We need to continue
After the discussion on how to do things differently, how to deal with the great need and our resources to respond, the answer is clear. We have a humanitarian imperative, we need to continue, even if the work is not easy and will probably only get more difficult in the near future.
I have been asked by many outsiders about what this means for Haiti and have only come with a few pictures in my mind. A man, hitting with a small hammer to get down a huge concrete wall little by little. A house that has collapsed like a cake, only the third floor remaining, now in the level of the first, from the open wall you can see inside a dinner table, a bowl of soup with a spoon inside, a life that stopped. Dusty music instruments, drums, violins, notes that were salvaged from the famous Holy Trinity Episcopal Music school that collapsed with the cathedral and all the schools, but musicians now starting the lessons in other locations. People carrying injured people in their backs to the mountains to a famous Baptist hospital 15 km from PauP. The first night of the earthquake the singing everywhere when people were just trying to get through those first hours of darkness and chaos. Utter disaster and an amazing resilience of the Haitians.
Uncertain future
None of us knows what will happen to us. Yes, we participate in discussions on high level for shelter solutions taking into account the approaching rain and hurricane season, we are working in putting together water and sanitation, educational and other more medium and long term projects, we coordinate, purchase, plan and assess. But at the end we all know that the solution will depend on something else - if people will have faith in the future, will be able to demonstrate a will to rebuild, a perseverance to overcome the very hard months and years come.
Faith and hope
Around two years ago we chose as the LWF Haiti motto the verse from Hebrew 11 that says "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”
Some of you might remember that I have reflected on this in other difficult times of these past two years here. But never has it felt as pertinent as now. We do not know, we do not see, or if we see, it is rather more problems in the months ahead. All that is left is a deep conviction that this is not the end, but the beginning.
A deep sense of purpose
Two weeks ago, one week after the earthquake, we had a first all staff meeting, where everyone told their story of where they were and what they did at 16.53 that Tuesday afternoon January 12th. The overwhelming feeling was that of gratitude, of grace, of wonder of the fact that we sat all there, together, alive. But also for many a deep sense of purpose - we were left alive, so that we could help others and rebuild this country, because not only we had our lives, but we have a mission, our work and the worldwide family of LWF and ACT, who are now coming to help us to do this work. Combined with the incredible resilience, courage and initiative of the Haitians, we will be able to make a difference in so many lives, accompany the people in this country when it will slowly recover from this disaster that ended one world and now is recovering to build another one.
So thank you, because with your support you have sustained us through some of the longest hours, days and weeks of our lives. We are only at the beginning of a very long journey, but we know that we are not alone, we are linked with these deep bonds of solidarity and love to you and to so many other people in the world. You have sent us Tomas, Nanny, David, Hannu, Louis, Manfred, Bjorn and Luke and others to help us in the very difficult moments, and they have come with commitment and tact, and have provided the support we have needed to get plans done, meetings attended, budgets drafted, areas assessed and relations forged and most importantly, encouraging us to go on, making visible this chain of solidarity that links us all in the same LWF and ACT family. It really means being supported at the hour of greatest need.
The cameras are already gone, but we know that your attention will not disappear - so please continue to keep us in your prayers and thoughts as we keep you and please share our best wishes to your staff and colleagues.
With my warmest wishes on behalf of the whole LWF Haiti staff
Sylvia
For images, resources, power-points, and a Day 22 Update, click here.
This email was made available by Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) – QCT thanks ALWS and Jonathan Krause, ALWS Communications Manager
