The second event, a triathlon called “Tri the Farm,” will be held on May 7 to support various projects in Mole St. Nicholas and surrounding areas, including clean water projects and efforts to repair fishing boats that were destroyed during tropical storms in 2010.

All events will be held at The Farm at Morgan Lakes, a community in Pooler, GA, near Savannah. This will be the second “Tri the Farm” event organized by Savannah FCA Endurance. In May 2010, the group raised funds to help build a cistern for clean drinking water in the fishing village of Karenage, near Mole St. Nicholas.

Learn more by visiting the FCA Endurance website, www.fcasave.com.

By Andy Olsen, NWHCM Media Director

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 — American Marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen descended on Port-de-Paix and Saint-Louis du Nord in July during a large-scale humanitarian effort in partnership with Northwest Haiti Christian Mission.

As part of the military’s Operation Continuing Promise relief campaign, servicemen, civilian workers and NWHCM staff worked to treat more than 4,000 Haitians for medical problems between July 24 and August 3. Workers set up medical treatment sites in both Saint-Louis du Nord and Port-de-Paix.

NWHCM missionary Grant Roszkowiak stands at NWHCM's campus in Saint-Louis du Nord with a group of military servicemen from multiple countries, all participation in the U.S. military's Operation Continuing Promise campaign.

“The intent of this mission is to bring (Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines) from all over the region to provide fundamental medical, optometry and dental care to the folks in this region,” Navy Cmdr. Cyrus Rad said in a Marines press release. “We bring patients in and they choose which service they want whether its eyes, dental or medical, and we take care of them to the best of our ability.”

The mission also provided veterinarian service, with Army vets traveling throughout the streets of Port-de-Paix to screen and treat more than 440 animals.

At Northwest Haiti Christian Mission’s main campus in Saint-Louis du Nord, servicemen installed bathrooms in NWHCM’s surgery wing, wired portions of the baby orphanage, donated building supplies and assisted with other construction projects. They also donated pallets of medicines, school supplies, patient care packages and other supplies.

“The military loved it so much here they decided to stay! They came for two nights and were even at devotions,” said NWHCM Executive Director Janeil Owen. “They said they never have had an NGO of this caliber that welcomed them with such open arms and was ready to assist them at every corner. Anything they needed — from interpreters to junction boxes — we had it ready for them.”

Owen, along with NWHCM Lab and Pharmacy Director Maureen Moore and missionary Grant Roszkowiak, were flown by helicopter to visit the USS Iwo Jima, the aircraft carrier that was the staging ground for the civil-military operation. While there, they toured the ship and met with the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten.

Military members said they hope to return to the Northwest soon, possibly as early as December.

By Andy Olsen, NWHCM media director

Monday, May 10, 2010

Saint-Louis du Nord, Haiti — Sherly Pétion almost doesn’t have words to talk about it.

The 24-year-old from Carrefour, a sprawling city south of Port-au-Prince, stole glances at the floor as she described the days following the earthquake. Fear. Sadness. Weeping.

“You could not sleep and you could not eat, even if you had food,” said Pétion, who lost her fiance in the disaster. “Everywhere you saw people crying and dead people.”

At a camp for internally displaced people in the Boudon neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, women and children prayed and sang hymns under a tarp in a nightly ad-hoc worship service before going to bed. Andy Olsen / NWHCM staff

Like many earthquake survivors who lost everything, Pétion took a couple of numbing weeks to pull herself together and then headed out of town to live with a relative. She came to Magdala Remy, her cousin and Northwest Haiti Christian Mission’s campus manager in Saint-Louis du Nord.

Pétion began attending church and a women’s ministry group with Remy. One day, she was worshipping with the group and felt an overwhelming need to change something. That was the day she gave her life to Christ.

Pétion is one of thousands of people across Haiti who are reported to have become Christians since January 12, finding renewed strength and joy in the wake of the impoverished nation’s darkest hour. From Port-au-Prince to the rural towns of Northwest Haiti, church leaders say an atmosphere of revival is clearly evident.

“The earthquake did not cause me to become a Christian, but it made me become a Christian faster,” Pétion said. “God was calling to me long before the earthquake, but I was rebelling.”

Whether in the earthquake zone or miles removed, millions of Haitians were forced to confront death and pain in unprecedented proximity. And while many churches collapsed and pastors were killed, many others were there to provide comfort and support, reminding a grieving people that God loves them even in such times.

On February 12, the one-month anniversary of the quake, Haitian President René Préval called for a three-day period of prayer, fasting and mourning. While international news outlets showed dramatic scenes of song and prayer in front of the collapsed National Palace, churches across the country were also praying and fasting, with worshippers spilling out church doors.

At the Citadel Church in Saint-Louis du Nord, 35 people became Christians during those days, according to Remy. At a women’s ministry event at the church a month later, another 82 people came to Christ.

In rural areas of Haiti such as many of the communities NWHCM serves, churches also represent a place to find community and fresh opportunities. Remy, who helps lead worship at the Citadel Church, said her women’s ministry has grown. Pétion, who was studying to be a nurse before the quake, has not only found a home at the church but is also helping NWHCM’s staff nurses at the mission’s maternity center across the street.

“Many people who had left the church have come back,” Remy said. “It’s not the same anymore after the quake. People now want to be active in the church, forming singing groups and participating more.”

Other NWHCM staff have reported groups of Haitian evangelists marching through towns, stopping at churches to pray with worshippers there.

NWHCM Executive Director Janeil Owen said that despite the tragedy of the quake, it has served to break down social barriers in churches between poor Haitians and privileged Haitians.

“Before the earthquake, we were all fighting each other amongst our classes, and (one person) was lording authority over you. Since the earthquake, we are all citizens together now, heavenly citizens,” Owen said.

“Church is packed out now,” he said. “Revival has come to Haiti.”

To read more about NWHCM’s church planting and evangelism ministries, click here.

Click here to make a gift to NWHCM’s church planting and evangelism efforts.

By Andy Olsen, NWHCM Media Director

Port Canaveral, FL — David Bates’ friends say he made things stink here. Bates thought it smelled like money.

The local seafood baron in his heyday, Bates owned a small fleet of shrimp- and scallop-laden boats that once dotted this bay. His company’s property was visible from almost any spot along the water in Port Canaveral. The shells spit out by his processing plant piled up so high that today they form part of the city’s coastline.

That was before plummeting seafood prices, soaring energy costs, and real estate-hungry cruise lines pushed Bates and his wife, Lisa, to retire. They sold most of their shrimp boats, trusty white workhorses that had literally fished the world.

“It got to the point where we could buy shrimp from Asia, ship it here, package it, and resell it for cheaper than we could sell our shrimp,” said Lisa, who is was also Bates’ business partner. “We said we would never do that.”

Instead, they found themselves looking for something to do with the shrimp boats they could not sell. When a devastating earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12, and damaged the Caribbean nation’s main seaport, David felt led to load one of his boats with relief supplies and sail it to Haiti.

And so began a partnership with Northwest Haiti Christian Mission to deliver food and other badly needed supplies to Haiti’s northern coast. Through a series of connections at his church, First Christian Church of Merritt Island, Bates was put in touch with NWHCM and began retrofitting one of his ships, the Capt. Scott B., to haul cargo to Haiti.

Donated goods from across the country started rolling into a NWHCM warehouse in Port Canaveral. On February 22, Bates and his crew began a two-week process of loading the ship. On March 9, it sailed into Port-de-Paix and crews unloaded more than half a million meals of relief food, generators, barrels full of medicine and medical supplies, and hundreds of water filtration systems.

“I’ve always thought God has blessed me and my family beyond my dreams,” David told Florida Today, a local newspaper. “I figure we could give something back. It thrills me to be able to do it.”

A special thanks to NWHCM staff and missionaries Cameron Mayhill and Mike and Teresa Grant for helping coordinate the effort.

At a bus stop in Port-au-Prince for buses departing to Northwest Haiti, passengers arrive well before sunrise to claim their seats. Though the flow of earthquake survivors leaving the capital has slowed to a trickle, the displaced are still leaving the capital in search of opportunities elsewhere. Andy Olsen / NWHCM staff

Text and Photos by Andy Olsen

April 3, 2010

Port-de-Paix, Haiti — Almaide Joseph remembers when she was the breadwinner, a source of hope for her family. The 38-year-old was an urban entrepreneur, buying and selling goods across the border with the Dominican Republic while mothering her family in their comfortable Port-au-Prince home — a place with lights and electricity, perpetually wrapped in street noise and big-city bustle.

With the help of her husband, a schoolteacher, Joseph regularly sent money to her less-fortunate relatives in Port-de-Paix. They counted on Joseph’s support to help pay their rent and feed their families.

That was before the earthquake, 60 seconds of hell that robbed Joseph of her house, her husband, and nearly everything else. It forced her to move back to her hometown, Port-de-Paix. Now she sits restlessly in the dark home she once helped to pay for, dependent for food on the same relatives her income once fed. She has no job, no goods to trade, no money to spend.

“Things are bad in Port-de-Paix now,” Joseph said, balancing her 3-year-old daughter, Fabi, on her lap. “There are no jobs, and everything is very expensive.”

Joseph is part of a massive return of Haitians from Port-au-Prince to the countryside, a reversal of a three-decade trend where small towns bled their populations into the nation’s sprawling capital city in search of education and jobs. Since the Jan. 12 earthquake, more than 600,000 people fled Port-au-Prince to return to rural towns and cities across Haiti, according to government and United Nations figures.

A survey of displaced individuals in Port-de-Paix revealed little eagerness to return to the capital anytime soon. For most, the reasons were the same — being destitute among family is easier than being destitute among strangers.

The Strain of Providing

About a mile from where Joseph is staying, Solange hobbled up the steep, rocky hillside where her rented two-room house is perched. Left nearly paralyzed in an accident as a child, Solange walks with great effort on her half-folded legs.

The middle-aged woman from Port-de-Paix is no stranger to begging — she cares care for herself and her six children, and work does not come easily to disabled women in Haiti. Still, when four nieces from Port-au-Prince showed up at her door, looking for a place to stay in the city where they grew up, Solange welcomed them warmly.

The girls, who lost their parents in the earthquake, sleep packed like sardines on the dirt floor of the cramped home. Three of them, in their twenties, were college students before their university collapsed. The fourth was in high school but has been shut out of local schools because she cannot pay the tuition.

Each day, Solange and the girls fan out across the city and outlying areas to beg for food. It is full-time labor for the family. What each one gets, they bring back to the house to share with the rest.

“I have to do what I have to do,” Solange said, gesturing in the rehearsed manner of a woman who has lived most of her life hand-to-mouth. “Only God knows how long I can do this.”

The majority of the displaced settling into Northwest Haiti are dependent on government assistance and the charity of a few good samaritans and NGOs. The mayors of Port-de-Paix and nearby Saint-Louis du Nord, in partnership with Northwest Haiti Christian Mission, have provided food and petty cash to hundreds of displaced families in the area.

UN reports say roughly 50,000 internally displaced Haitians have landed in Northwest Haiti. Roughly 90 miles north of Port-au-Prince, Port-de-Paix has about 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Haitian government. As the largest city in the Northwest Department, the city’s population has swelled by as much as a third since the earthquake, by some estimates.

Those numbers are difficult to verify. But step into the street and ask someone to point to a household sheltering displaced people, and they are likely to point somewhere just a few steps away.

The influx has strained the city and the region. Relief food and supplies are in far scarcer supply here than in Port-au-Prince, which has prompted some families to return to the city. The cost of living in the northwest is also higher than in the capital, because goods must arrive here by way of long, expensive journeys over some of the worst roads in the country. Of the dozen households surveyed by NWHCM staff in Port-de-Paix, only two claimed to have any food in the house.

Others have already returned to Port-au-Prince in search of opportunities that just don’t seem to exist in the Northwest Department, especially in the small towns west of Port-de-Paix. If too many displaced Haitians return to Port-au-Prince, however, it may make the nation’s problems even worse and undermine the goal of the international community to revitalize Haiti’s rural towns.

Many relief organizations and policy experts argue that focusing on economic development and assistance in rural areas like the northwest is more important than ever. Many of the roots of Haiti’s economic woes, they say, lie in the disproportionate concentration of government services and infrastructure in Port-au-Prince. “Decentralization,” the idea of focusing a large part of rebuilding efforts on improving opportunities and agriculture in the countryside, has been touted widely by President René Préval as a top priority for his government.

“If we can give these people a reason to stay in the Northwest, a.k.a. ways to make income, then we can change the dynamic of Haiti,” said NWHCM Community Development Coordinator Curtis Rogers. “Job creation, agricultural development, and economic development can all play a large role in giving rural Haiti its voice back.”

Signs of Hope

In many ways, the displaced in Northwest Haiti are hidden. There are no sweeping tent cities here, no rows of public latrines, no long food lines outside military compounds. Many of them stay indoors most of the day, having little else to do.

Yet there is no mistaking the signs of change. Community members say they see find faces everywhere. On a sunny afternoon, a woman stood alone at the bus station in Port-de-Paix, waiting to meet a niece who was arriving from the capital, one of the few people still trickling into town each week.

In Gris Gris, a poor neighborhood in Port-de-Paix, Melota Timothee sits behind a counter at a small store she’s set up in the living room of a home she’s renting. She lost her store in the capital when her house collapsed, but the family has scrapped together some money with the help of relatives in Miami. A young girl walked into the store to buy a piece of candy, which Timothee sells alongside a humble assortment of drinks, crackers and lye soap.

“It’s too soon to say how much we’ll earn from the store,” said Timothee, 44. “We’ve only been open a few days.”

A few blocks away, in a home on the main road through town, 13-year-old Christ Armelle Davis studied notes from class that she wrote two months earlier, before the quake. She copies them nearly every day to another page, even though she cannot get into a school in Port-de-Paix because her family has no money.

She will still have to take the national exams someday, Davis explained, so she wants to be prepared. She is a teenage portrait of the resolve of many of the displaced. They say they are willing to work and study hard to get back on their feet, if they could just get a chance.

“Hopefully, this disaster will cause supporting agencies and other NGOs to turn their focus to the farmers and workers of rural Haiti, without whom Haiti cannot survive,” Rogers said. “When this happens, NWHCM will be there to help.”

Displacement of People from Port-au-Prince

Source: UN, SNGRD

How NWHCM is Helping

To date, NWHCM has:

• Distributed more than 150 tents to displaced earthquake victims in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.
• Begun distributing more than 200 water filters to communities in Northwest Haiti and in the Port-au-Prince area.
• Dispersed more than $30,000 and thousands of meals through local churches to help families in the Northwest that are caring for and lodging displaced Haitians.
• Initiated a plan to nearly double the number of meals NWHCM will provide this year to needy families and children in Northwest Haiti.
• Provided medical assistance by sharing supplies, medicines and personnel with hospitals in the region, treating patients in our Saint-Louis du Nord hospital, and sending medical personnel to the Port-au-Prince area.
• Assisted various partner ministries in Port-au-Prince with shipping, receiving, and transporting relief goods.

Sawyer Products, a Florida-based water filter manufacturer, has donated 269 water filters to Northwest Haiti Christian Mission’s earthquake relief efforts. The filters will provide vital clean water to communities in Northwest Haiti and in the Port-au-Prince area.

Children at NWHCM's orphanage in Saline Mayette use a Sawyer pointONE water filter. Courtesy Amy Reed / Sawyer Products

Thanks to a special matching program by Sawyer, the filters were provided through a combination of individual gifts, and generous donations from Messiah College students and the congregation of First Church of Christ in Burlington, Kentucky.

After the earthquake struck Haiti, Amy Reed, a Sawyer employee and Messiah College alumna, got in touch with Messiah’s women’s basketball team to raise funds for filters. Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams made appeals at four home games and raised over $3,800 for filters.

“Clean water is of critical importance after a natural disaster because existing water sources can very easily become contaminated and an epidemic of waterborne diseases can be just as deadly as the natural disaster itself,” Reed said. “The Sawyer filters that were donated to NWHCM take literally minutes to install, are easy to maintain, require no chemicals and are powered by gravity. They are not just a short-term solution, they will be providing clean water to the Haitians weeks, months and years down the road.”

The Sawyer pointONE filter is the official water filter for NWHCM development projects. The filters will be distributed through NWHCM’s partners in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas to help those who were affected by the earthquake, as well as in communities in Northwest Haiti to provide badly needed clean water for poor families and refugees.

Learn more about pointONE filters by clicking here.

To donate to NWHCM’s earthquake relief efforts, click here.

NWHCM medical teams continue their work at the hospital in Saint-Louis du Nord, particularly performing orthopedic surgeries. NWHCM is blessed to have a gifted hand surgeon on-site to focus on hand injuries, as well. The hospital remains in full swing and bustling with activity.

NWHCM staff met recently with local pastors who are experiencing high demand for relief food within their congregations. The mission is now distributing corn and fortified meals to needy families through more than a dozen churches, in addition to its already established food distributions sites across Northwest Haiti.

Wednesday, January 27 – 8:50 a.m.

NWHCM is shifting some attention to badly needed long-term rehab and therapy services. In coming months, NWHCM will be asking for the services of physical therapists and prothesis professionals. Qualified volunteers may contact us to inquire about serving on a therapy/prothesis trip later this year. Note: NWHCM is unable to bring in additional medical teams for the next few weeks.

Other medical teams are continuing to run clinics in outlying areas of Northwest Haiti

Tuesday, January 26 – 10:25 a.m.

NWHCM medical teams are spreading out across the northwest region this week to run clinics at the mission’s campuses in La Baie des Moustiques and Beauchamp, focusing on general and pediatric care. Haiti’s entire medical system is strained and as such, health care nationwide is in a fragile state. NWHCM’s medical response strategy is to triage and assist all patients needing care, regardless of whether or not they are earthquake victims.

NWHCM Assistant Medical Director Melissa Curtice and orthopedic surgeon Del Worthington, of Arizona, have been assessing patients at nearby hospitals in La Pointe and Port-de-Paix. Earthquake victims with fractured bones have arrived at the mission’s main medical facility in Saint-Louis du Nord and are being treated.

A special thanks to G.O. Ministries for providing chartered flights to transport NWHCM medical teams within Haiti.

Sunday, January 24 – 5:15 p.m.
A 22-member medical team has arrived in Northwest Haiti and is developing a plan to respond to medical needs in the area. NWHCM is also working closely with the government in Saint-Louis du Nord to provide financial and food assistance for refugees arriving in the city.

Wednesday, January 20 – 10:15 a.m.

A magnitude 6.1 aftershock struck Haiti early this morning near Port-au-Prince, the strongest yet since the devastating earthquake that ravaged the capital city eight days ago. Though nerves were rattled, little to no additional damage has been reported. In Northwest Haiti, the quake was felt strongly and many were woken from their sleep, but all NWHCM staff and travelers are safe. NWHCM’s main campus in Saint-Louis du Nord is roughly 100 miles from where the aftershock was centered.

Tuesday, January 19 – 9:00 p.m.

NWHCM medical staff traveled to the main hospital in Port-de-Paix today to assess the situation there. The hospital is full, having taken on many patients from Port-au-Prince in addition to their normally heavy load. Lack of basic medicines and medical supplies, along with challenges in coordinating medical care for so many people, are serious problems.

NWHCM has been providing supplies and medicines to the hospital in Port-de-Paix and in La Pointe, and will continue to do so as we’re able. We will provide increasing support with medical personnel over the coming weeks.

Monday, January 18 – 7:55 p.m.

All of NWHCM’s regular ministries are running normally today, though our generators are being run limited hours to conserve diesel fuel, a commodity which is becoming difficult to find in Haiti. To date, NWHCM has secured enough diesel fuel to meet our basic water needs and provide electricity for our clinic through February, and we are expecting to receive more.

NWHCM medical staff will travel to the primary hospital in Port-de-Paix tomorrow to assist the hospital staff there, which have been stretched to their limits treating patients.

Sunday, January 17 – 10:20 p.m.

NWHCM’s medical team returned safely to the mission’s main campus in Saint-Louis du Nord, along with missionary Jose Castillo and staff member Andy Olsen. Some family members of NWHCM’s Haitian medical staff also arrived with them from Port-au-Prince. Other mission staff and missionaries attended church this morning at their respective campuses.

Saturday, January 16 – 8:05 p.m.

NWHCM lab and pharmacy director Maureen Moore treats a dehydrated baby at a clinic in Port-au-Prince on Saturday.Andy Olsen / NWHCM staff

NWHCM doctor Simon Marc treats a girl with a broken arm at makeshift clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Saturday. Mission staff established the outdoor clinic along with medical staff from Mission of Hope at a church in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince.Andy Olsen / NWHCM staff

Along with missionaries from Mission of Hope in southern Haiti, NWHCM medical staff set up a clinic today at a church in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince. They treated patients there throughout the day and also assisted at an emergency orthopedic care center nearby. Staff involved included Assistant Medical Director Melissa Curtice, Dr. Simon Marc, Magdala Remy, Lab and Pharmacy Director Maureen Moore and Miss Sylveste.

Most NWHC staff plan to return Sunday to Saint-Louis du Nord, where NWHCM has been notified it will be a treatment center for overflow patients being brought from Port-au-Prince.

Friday, January 15 – 9:35 p.m.

A street in downtown Port-au-Prince on Friday, January 15.Andy Olsen / NWHCM staff

NWHCM medical staff continue to assist at Mission of Hope, one of our partner missions about 10 miles north of Port-au-Prince. Some national NWHCM doctors have continued on to Port-au-Prince to assist with medical work there.

All but a few short-term missionaries who were visiting NWHCM campuses are on their way to catch flights out of Haiti via alternate cities. Jose Castillo, Andy Olsen, and a few other NWHCM staff are still in Port-au-Prince assessing the situation.

Thursday, January 14 – 10:50pm

We did hear that our team arrived safely to Mission of Hope and are looking to provide mobile medical treatment from there.  By the time they arrived, the hospital had completely run out of supplies.  We’ve also heard several times from our staff, Andy and Jose, in Port-au-Prince, and are relieved to know they are well.

Wednesday, January 13 – 11:11pm
Our day was spent loading and unloading trucks. We were blessed with the arrival of the contents of our recent container, including food and other supplies. The driver agreed for us to rent the same truck to load with I.V. fluids, bandages, sutures, antibiotics and other medical supplies.

Early in the morning, we will send a team to assist the disaster relief and provide medical care. Please pray for the group as they travel and serve: Melissa Curtice (NWHCM Assistant Medical Director) Maureen Moore (Pharmacy/Lab Director), Sylveste Rogella (nurse), Magdala Remy (nurse), Dr. Simon, Innocent (security), Benna (security). Especially pray for the driver, that he would have wisdom and that they would be protected in their travels.

They will head for Mission of Hope, one of our partner organizations located about 10 miles north of Port au Prince. Mission of Hope requested help, as earthquake victims have been dying at their gates due to limited medical personnel and insufficient supplies. We just heard from the Mission of Hope medical director, saying they’ve worked 33 hours straight, their supplies are dwindling and they have to close their doors for the night. Pray for strength for our staff as they step into this overwhelming tragedy.

We are also thankful to report that we’ve heard word this afternoon from Jose Castillo, NWHCM staff, who was in Port au Prince during the earthquake. He still does not have phone service, but was able to send a message along to us that he is still fine.

We also have a small group who traveled to Port au Prince this morning. Please pray for Andy Olsen (NWHCM media director), Dr. Joseph, Junior, Edril, Imano and their driver as they look for family and as Andy documents the relief efforts. Pray for safety, wisdom and their safe return.

More than anything, please pray for our national staff and friends. It is heart-breaking to talk with person after person, all aching to know about their family and friends who may be trapped under the rubble. It is hard to find someone on campus who does not have family missing – a son, a wife, parents, aunts, cousins… Pray that God would work miracles in the midst of this tragedy.

Wednesday, January 13 – 10:39 a.m.

Northwest Haiti Christian Mission is responding in the quickest ways possible to respond to the earthquakes that have shaken Haiti.

Currently, NWHCM staff are assessing the situation on the ground to identify the areas of greatest need. By working closely with our Haiti One ministry partners across the country, NWHCM plans to assist in every way it can.

To donate to NWHCM’s earthquake relief efforts, please click here.

Your support will go directly toward relief of the immediate needs in Port-au-Prince and Northwest Haiti, and will go to fund ongoing aid efforts as Haitians struggle to recover and provide for their families in the aftermath.

The destruction left by the earthquakes will most likely affect all of Haiti and its economy for months to come. NWHCM plans for its response to be strategic, responsible and ongoing.  We will first be sending a team of medical personnel along with desperately needed medical supplies.  We will give more information on our next steps as we talk with our partners throughout the country and further assess the situation.

Saturday, January 16, 2010 – St. Louis du Nord, Haiti

By Erika Olsen, NWHCM staff

Gesner Charles, January 16, 2009

Gesner Charles is a second-year medical student in Port-au-Prince and longtime friend and employee of Northwest Haiti Christian Mission. On Tuesday afternoon, he had left school early with a classmate to make copies of some materials he needed for a lecture. A couple of hours later, he was sitting at home when the earthquake hit. “Many of the people who have died were students, because they were in class,” Gesner said.  He was one of the fortunate.

Gesner stayed in his yard for the next three nights. Although his house survived the original quakes, on the radio they are warning everyone not to go in buildings since there was no way to know if they were safe or if another aftershock would bring them down.

Gesner described people walking from hospital to hospital. “You can’t even get inside the hospitals because there are so many people looking for their family members,” he said.  Everyone walks the streets by day and sleeps in the streets by night. “It’s not raining, but it’s cold” this time of year, and no one has blankets, he said.

People are leaving the city to return to the countryside. “They’ve even sent buses to get some people, because they know what will happen in Port-au-Prince — all the people will get sick. There is no good water to drink…It smells bad in the city…People have to put something on their face” like masks or rags.

“There are bodies in the street everywhere. As they bring them out of buildings they put them there because there is nowhere to put them. Then a tractor comes and puts them in a dump truck and takes them away…Even if someone finds their family, where would they put (the body)?  There is nowhere to put them.”

Gesner shrugged as he described the heartbreak of families trying to search for their missing loved ones. “Nobody can know if they are alive or not…they can’t see them before they are buried.” As people walk through the streets, they hear the cries of those still trapped. “Some people are crying up there and no one can do anything.”

At 5 a.m. on Friday, Gesner began the long journey home to Saint-Louis du Nord — first in a dump truck with more than 300 people “packed like sardines” in the back. The truck went as far as Gonaives, then he hopped from tap tap to tap tap, from motorcycle to motorcycle, tirelessly working to get the rest of the way home. “I paid a lot of money to finally get home. I didn’t eat anything from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. because I didn’t have enough money.”

His wife and young son have still been living in Saint-Louis du Nord while Gesner attends medical school.

When I got home “they jumped on me! And my son, I had to wake him up…he’d been asking his mom ‘where’s dad, where’s dad?’ He didn’t know where I was…he’s just two years old. But he knew there was something wrong.”

Gesner arrived home late on Friday evening and came to visit friends at Northwest Haiti Christian Mission on Saturday morning. Phyllis Van Es, an NWHCM short-term missionary, had been anxiously awaiting Gesner’s return along with his wife, Yvrose.  “I met him several years ago in the ‘dungeon’ depot where they kept donations.  We were sorting clothes.  That’s when I knew I respected him – he was working when he didn’t have to,” Van Es said.

When Gesner walked up and hugged her, she screamed and hugged him tightly. A small group sat at the breakfast table and listened over cold cups of coffee as Gesner showed photos and talked about his experience.

“It’s so hard to describe,” Gesner said. “I don’t feel like I’m in my right skin yet. I only know that I’m very, very glad that I’m home now, that I’m out of Port-au-Prince.  No one wants to stay there.”

As he began the task of finally contacting the many friends and family who’ve been waiting to hear from him, Gesner smiled. “Thanks for all your prayers, for everyone who was worried about me.  Thank you so much.”

Click here for a photo gallery of images Gesner took in Port-au-Prince. Note: Some images contain content that may not be suitable for young children.

The NWHCM T-shirt design by SpendYourself features the word "Hope" in Creole. Available in men's and women's sizes. Graphic courtesy SpendYourself.

Two apparel companies have teamed up with NWHCM to sell T-shirts benefitting the mission and its earthquake relief efforts.

Both companies, SpendYourself and Yellow Black & White, are offering hand-screened shirts with custom designs that draw attention to Northwest Haiti in an artistic and beautiful way. Available for order online, all shirts are made in the U.S.A.

Louisville, Kentucky-based SpendYourself is an all-volunteer organization committed to producing shirts to support reputable Christian ministries around the world. Their shirt design focuses on communicating a message of hope for Haiti. Proceeds from shirt sales will support NWHCM relief efforts with a special focus on clean water projects.

The T-shirt design by Yellow Black & White features the Haitian saying, "Everything's already OK." Available in red and black, men's/unisex sizes. Photo courtesy Yellow Black & White.

Los Angeles-based Yellow Black & White has partnered with NWHCM in the past as a corporate sponsor for a benefit concert featuring music artist Judith Hill. Their T-shirt features the message, “Tout Bagay Deja Byen,” a Creole phrase that means “Everything is already OK.” All proceeds from shirt sales will go toward NWHCM earthquake relief.

To order shirts, please visit the companies’ respective websites:

Click here to order a T-shirt from Yellow Black & White.

Click here to order a T-shirt from SpendYourself.