Bill Blaney - Global Aid Network (GAiN)
Email dated January 17, 2010
We finally arrived Port Au Prince about 9:30 am Staurday. Once we dropped our bags at Esperandieu's house we went out to survey the damage.
What we experienced through sight, sound and smell will forever be burned into my memory.
There is a great sense of loss wherever you turn. People are severally traumatized by what they have experienced.
We visited two hospitals and as one U. S. Military guard put it "they are stacking them up like cord wood (bodies)." The suffering in these over-taxed hospitals tear out your heart.
Everywhere you look you see collapsed buildings, bodies and people stunned. They stand as if on guard over their loved ones waiting for someone to rescue those they knew and loved. The evidence that they are there is found by the odour or visibly by their bodies, twisted and broken in the collapsed pile of concrete, steel and wood.
It us easy to become numb at the sight, forgetting that these were people living out theirs lives until suddenly the impact of the quake took their lives from them. We must now turn our attention to the living, demonstrating the love of God in Christ to them, in word and deed.
Water is a big issue, because there is not any. People stand in line for blocks to get one small bottle of water. Sometimes there is violence.
Our response to them may change their lives forever. We need to be there for them, to let them know that their is hope in the midst of hopelessness, a sure hope in the valley of the shadow of death. We need to provide this hope through the local church to these needy, hurting people. We will empower the Church by providing the basic needs of the people so that they can help themselves and those around then, many who do not know Christ.
We will work in small communities that will not receive aid from the larger NGO's and Government but are suffering and in great need also.
We will do this through the providing of food, water, shelter, personal hygiene kits, medicines and Christ-based trauma counsellor training.
It is the local Church that will be seen as reaching out to the community and their own members in the love and compassion of Christ through the distribution of these basic physical needs.
Our Christ-based trauma counsellor training teams will arrive by Wednesday and begin training Pastors and Lay Leaders how to do psychological first aid.
Can you help us? Together we can make a difference, together we can restore hope to them.
Please pray for us.
Bill
William (Bill) Blaney
Director and CEO
GAiN Canada