VIMs are "energized to go back"
Ten members of Pilgrim UMC in St. John's were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake. Arriving on Jan. 4 to build a church at Croix-de-Bouquets, a week later the team saw buildings collapsing around them. On night of Jan. 12 they slept on the streets among throngs of homeless Haitians. The group arrived back in the U.S. on January 17. "It was a fend-for-yourself kind of thing," noted team member Doug Haviland. "God put his hands around us and made us safe." Click here for an account of their experience and return as reported in The Lansing State Journal.
A Michigan Area Haiti Task Force Volunteers in Mission team led by the Rev. Don Gotham, pastor at St. Clair: First UMC, was serving in Jeremie, Haiti, 120 miles west of the epicenter of the 7.0 magnitude quake that struck on Tuesday, Jan. 12. The 17-person team, which consisted of members of the Detroit and West Michigan Conferences, was in Haiti from January 1-18 and returned home on January 19 after being airlifted from Jeremie. The team was originally scheduled to return on January 16.
For the past seven years the team has been rebuilding a church that had been destroyed by a hurricane. West Michigan Conference participants included Terrie Eisenmann and Nick Main from Blanchard UMC; Ann Barclay, Gail Nehilla and Joanne Parker from Eagle UMC; and Bob Pena, a member at Lansing Central UMC.
Here are comments shared upon their return, as reported on the web site of the Detroit Annual Conference:
Terri...
" I now understand why I was led so strongly to ask all my Christian brothers and sisters to pray for our trip to Haiti this year. Although I had requested prayer from my church family in previous trips, I had never before felt that we needed to be bathed in prayer. I wondered before I left if maybe there was something coming. Those prayers made it up to the throne room of God because the quake hit on Tuesday at 5 p.m. as we were packing to leave Jeremie for Port-au-Prince the very next morning."
Nick...
"All of a sudden the house started to shake, the ground started to shake. We jumped up, we started saying, 'Is this an earthquake? What should we do?' It felt like you were on a pontoon boat and it was kind of rolling."
Bob...
"The Haitians that we have been in contact with are extremely gracious and hospitable. And even with the language barriers we work together. Just being here is like living in scripture. You can see the characters and stories of the bible being played out over and over. Usually I don’t realize it until the end of the day. I have seen Jesus washing feet, I have seen the Woman at the well, I have seen the Loaves and Fishes, I have seen people understanding the Love of God in many Languages simultaneously like at Pentecost. Most importantly, I have seen the baby Jesus in a manger here."
Gail...
"I was reading in the book, Praying God’s Words, by Beth Moore, shortly after the earthquake hit. This was the quote that I would like to share with you: 'Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief. Faith is believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles and quakes.'How wonderful it is to have the peace that only God can give in times like this. The team has had a wonderful spirit of cooperation and oneness as we have gone through this experience together."
The Daily News of Greenville, Belding and Montcalm County shared an interview with Terrie Eisenmann and Nick Main. Main said this of his experience in Haiti: "It definitely energized me to go back."