Haiti Quake Kills 70K

In the wake of an earthquake which leveled much of its capital, Covenant students and professors urge support for what was already one of the world’s most impoverished nations.

A few days before she boarded a plane and returned to Covenant for her final semester, senior Alex Amicy visited the National Palace of Haiti in Port-au-Prince with her family. They admired the building, taking pictures as they walked around the surrounding parks. Less then a week later, the palace would lie in heap of rubble, alongside innumerable structures and shanties in the earthquake-devastated capital.

“I would have never thought it would be my last time looking at it,” said Amicy, who was born and raised in Port-au-Prince. “I can’t believe that I was there last Saturday.” When the news of last Thursday’s catastrophe first broke, Amicy immediately tried to get in touch with her family, who resides in a compound about thirty minutes outside the capital. Somehow, she was able to get a hold of them, and soon learned that though they were hit hard, her family had survived.

“My eleven year old brother was in Port-au-Prince, and he saw a lot of bodies,” said Amicy. “I still haven’t talked to him, but I know he’s OK.” As of last week, Amicy still had yet to hear from many of her friends who were living near the capital. “There’s hardly any communication down there,” she said.

The Haitian earthquake on January 12th was one of the deadliest on record. Though cataclysmic damage was relatively limited to the capital, personal connections between rural Haiti and the nation’s only major city run deep. “We don’t have the same connectedness here to rural and city life that they do in Haiti,” said Steve Corbett, Professor of Community Development. “There’s nothing in comparison. Most people in Haiti knows someone in Port-au-Prince.”

Among those living in rural Haiti is Gabi Van Schoyk, a 2008 graduate of Covenant College. Van Schoyk grew up as a missionary in the Haitian village of Bohoc, which is about 80 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince. She was in the village last Thursday. “This earthquake is personally affecting everyone in the country,” she said in an email interview. “It’s incredibly devastating for me and my family. Everyone is shocked and grieving.”

As soon as they realized what had happened, members of Van Schoyk’s family left for Port-au-Prince to look for some of their close friends who had been caught under collapsed buildings. Van Schoyk stayed behind, to take care of family communications. After three days of digging, her family recovered the bodies. “It’s been hard for me to be here at home while the rest of my family is down there, going through the hardest thing they’ve ever had to go through,” she said. “I wish that I was there to hug and support them. But I felt God was calling me to stay at home and help coordinate all the communications that have been coming through.”

As Port-au-Prince digs out, the nation of Haiti will emerge to find itself with an inconceivable reconstructive task ahead of it. The country has lost its center of government, commerce, trade, and education—an unimaginable blow to a nation already regarded as one of the poorest and most unstable countries in the Western Hemisphere. “The situation isn’t going to be resolved for a really, really long time,” said Van Schoyk. “It’s going to be so important for people stay involved. I really want the Covenant community, and the world in general, to not forget about Haiti once the media stops discussing it 24/7.”

But before Haiti can begin to rehabilitate, Port-au-Prince needs relief—and that’s something the Covenant community can help administer. “The key thing that they need now is money,” said Professor Corbett, who oversaw relief operations in Mexico City after a massive 8.1 earthquake leveled the city in 1985. While there, he witnessed firsthand the immediate effects that a disaster of that magnitude can have on a population, as access to basic commodities vanishes. “They need to get their clinics to be back up and running,” said Corbett. “They need their shelter, their food, and their water.” He suggests donating money towards agencies that have experience in doing large-scale relief as well as long-term experience in Haiti. “Even better if the organization has Haitian contacts on the ground, and is willing to engage the Haitian church as an institution,” said Corbett. “The agencies that immediately come to mind are World Relief, World Concern, and World Vision. Give them your money, and turn them loose.”

While money will be an essential tool for the relief and rehabilitation in Port-au-Prince, those at Covenant with connections to Haiti are coveting prayers most for the long road ahead.  “The first thing we need to do is PRAY,” said Rachael Olivier, a Covenant senior who grew up in Haiti (Olivier’s family was OK, but had also lost friends in the disaster). “Prayer is huge,” emphasized Van Schoyk. “There are a lot of people hurting, both physically and emotionally. It’s a nightmare down here.” “We need prayers,” added Amicy. “Definitely prayers. Lots of prayers. I am asking the Lord to give everybody strength.”