LDS relief: LDS Haitians attend church as relief work continues

By Scott Taylor

Originally printed in the Desert News

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Sunday as a day of rest?

Hardly so in Haiti.

However, reminders of the Sabbath day were visibly apparent throughout the devastated capital city.

Men in crisp dress shirts, slacks and ties and women wearing clean dresses or skirts and blouses — with many also carrying their Bibles tucked under their arms — walked along the streets Sunday, headed to or from church services.

Petion Ville ward members Nadine Dely and her children, McElliott and Nashnaydine, 

stand in the chapel after church services in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. 

They lost their home in the quake and live on the church grounds. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

 

Too bad we couldn't make any ourselves.

Sometimes helping hands just can't catch a break.

Even on a Sunday.

Even with the best of intentions.

Petion Ville ward members and others leave church services in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. 

Many of them lost their homes and live on the church grounds. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

Deseret News photographer Jeff Allred and I continue to accompany the team of volunteer doctors and nurses sent to earthquake-ravaged Haiti by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sunday morning, all the medical volunteers rode to a warehouse property the church operates on the outskirts of the city, where LDS relief supplies are slowly being stockpiled for distribution. There, we helped unload supplies — mostly water and food — from two recently arrived trailers into the storehouse.

Petion Ville ward members and others leave church services in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. 

Many of them lost their homes and live on the church grounds. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

A smaller group of us soon was dispatched with two purposes — to deliver food to a hospital and to try to attend the day's worship services at an LDS chapel.

From there, we traveled very s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y on narrow streets cluttered with rubble, lined with trash and clogged with ever-halting traffic.

All along the way, we continued to see signs of Haiti returning to some sense of normalcy less than two weeks after the Jan. 12 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Petion Ville ward members and others leave church services in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. 

Many of them lost their homes and live on the church grounds. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

Haitians were out and about — seemingly everyone was either walking on the streets or driving their cars, trucks and motorcycles.

Those who sell the simplest of produce and products along the streets in hopes of eking out a hand-to-mouth living were setting up their stalls and spots along major roads.

Demolition efforts were beginning at sites of destroyed buildings — large tractors, trucks and front-loaders were starting to haul off the rubble, and crews were cutting through the rebar and sorting through the broken walls and ceilings to salvage whatever possible.

 A woman sits by the side of the road in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

Arriving at the Haiti Community Hospital, it was easy to understand the hospital's desperate needs — the building seemed only partially completed, with many open-air rooms lacking walls or ceilings, let alone plaster and paint.

The injured were packed throughout hospital grounds under the trees, tents, blankets and makeshift tents.

We had brought some 50 boxes and cartons of food supplies — water, milk, juice, beef chunks, turkey chunks, crackers and sardines — from the LDS supply trailers. The much-welcomed donation nearly doubled the limited rations the hospital already had.

 Haitian women sell vegetables in Port-au-Prince Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

Hospital staff reported five operating rooms are going 10 hours a day, with night shifts desperately needed.

After unloading the supplies, we continued on in hopes of catching church services.

Utah response team doctors and volunteers unload water for earthquake victims  

in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

Some streets were impassable, others were closed off because of the threat that tilting, teetering buildings could collapse.

Our driver — LDS Church member Daniel Delva, a 27-year-old accounting student whose school was completely destroyed — tried to avoid a bad traffic jam by taking a side street past the market. The street was taped off and seemed clear enough for our Land Cruiser to pass on — were it not for several stories of the collapsed market still hovering precariously above the street.

Utah response team doctors and volunteers unload water for earthquake victims 

in Port-au-Prince Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

At the LDS meetinghouse known as the Petion-ville Chapel, we arrived just as the day's final meetings were concluding. The Freres and Torcelle wards met together, but rather than just an hour-long service they held last week, the wards conducted a full, Mormon-standard, three-hour block of meetings.

 A Haitian woman carries vegetables in Port-au-Prince Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

Some 245 attended the double-ward meetings in the two-story building, including an estimated 50 who are not Mormon. But it's easy to get those not of your faith to attend when they're camped out on your meetinghouse grounds. An estimated 4,000 homeless continue to congregate day and night on the grounds of more than a half-dozen LDS chapels throughout Port-au-Prince.

 Workers search through rubble of a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

"Of course they're trying to strengthen each other," Severe Maloi, the second-year Freres Ward bishop, said through an interpreter. "It's difficult — it was a natural disaster, and the members know those things can happen. But what are you going to do but just try to live?"

 An earthquake victim waits for medical help at Haiti Community Hospital 

in Port-au-Prince Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

 

Wiping at tears in his eyes, Maloi listed what is known of his 101-member ward — two dead, two at hospitals with life-threatening injuries and four more with serious injuries. He doesn't dare begin to count the missing and those unaccounted for, and he adds other city wards suffered similar tolls.

 

Earthquake victims line up outside the Haiti Community Hospital 
in Port-au-Prince Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

"But you read the Book of Mormon," he said, "and you see that there have been a lot of people who have suffered much worse than this."

After church, members lingered a long time on the grounds to commiserate. Some were able to return to their houses, either not damaged or at least not rendered totally uninhabitable.

 An earthquake victim waits for medical help at Haiti Community Hospital 

in Port-au-Prince Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

Others joined the crowds on blankets and tents on the church grounds, where they have stayed for nearly two weeks now.

And the medical volunteers? Having missed the meetings at the Petion-ville Chapel, they immediately went back to work, welcoming the chance to see and treat patients in classrooms as members slowly emptied out of the building.

 

Utah response team doctors and volunteers Ben and Jeff Richards of Layton unload water for earthquake victims 

in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)