Earthquake changes plans
“I saw how the Lord worked through different individuals,” Keokuk pastor says about Haiti experience
By Cindy Iutzi/Gate City Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:29 PM CST
New Testament Christian Church Pastor Bill Hauser of Keokuk had certain expectations when he participated in a two-week mission trip to Haiti. He had been there twice before and understood the conditions and the people’s needs in the tiny impoverished nation.
On this trip, Hauser and Stuart Kelly of Hamilton, Ill., and several others would fly to Haiti to help coordinate a preachers’ conference for Haitian pastors.
In addition to his official reason for the trip, Hauser had two suitcases filled with airless soccer balls and gifts that he looked forward to delivering to an orphanage in Haiti.
However, everything changed radically on his second day there. Hauser and the mission team found themselves in the middle of an overwhelming calamity that required the Lord’s work to be done in an entirely different fashion.
The mission team arrived in Christianville, a Christian mission in Gressier, Haiti, on Monday, Jan. 11, the day before a 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding area.
Christianville is located about 20 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince. The epicenter of the earthquake was halfway between the capital and Christianville, damaging the buildings and lives of all in the area.
Just before the quake, Hauser’s group had visited Val’s Orphanage, which is supported by Haitian Christian Projects of Moncks Corner, S.C. The orphanage is near Christianville.
“We were there, delivering gifts to the children and showed them the soccer balls,” Hauser said.
After the mission team aired up the soccer balls, the children and staff went outside to play with them. Hauser and his group “got in the truck and went about a half mile down the road,” he said. “That’s when the earthquake hit. We saw a house fall and ran to the house to help pull people out.”
The Haitian occupants of the house rejected the Americans’ offer of help because he and the others on the team are white, Hauser said.
The men drove back to the orphanage and could find no children, but later discovered they all were safe. Now the orphans and their staff live in a chicken house on the orphanage grounds. The building is covered with tarps to keep out the elements.
“Another 10 minutes in that orphanage and you wouldn’t be talking to me,” Hauser said. “God’s providence provided that. My heavenly Father watched over me.”
Hauser described the mission group’s first reaction to the earthquake as belief that a bomb had exploded or that someone was bombing their truck.
When they finally reached Christianville a short time later, the men joined in the effort to provide help to the injured and displaced.
Hauser’s first job was to man the gate into the compound, limiting entry.
Christianville is surrounded by a fence covered with vegetation that makes it nearly impenetrable. A metal gate slides across the road that travels into the compound. The gate has a walk-in door to facilitate entry on foot.
Fifteen minutes after the quake hit, people had lined up on the Christianville lawn for treatment at the hastily assembled portable clinic, Hauser said. The next hours were busy and distressing. Haitians came to the clinic in Christianville on foot and by motorcycle, some of the injured wrapped in sheets and carried for miles by loved ones seeking care.
“I could let the injured in – not the others – there was no room for them,” Hauser said. “People would carry people for miles, all a bloody mess.”
Hauser did whatever was needed. He washed dishes, mopped floors, cleaned toilets, hand washed syringes and needles and more. He saw scenes of desperation, fear and triumph that will never leave him.
“I saw how the Lord worked through different individuals,” he said. “How doctors worked and worked and sewed up people. They worked tirelessly to bring about healing to other people. When a man was losing too much blood to move to the portable clinic, they did surgery on a tailgate.
“There were tremors (aftershocks) all the time. We were frightened. The tremors never stopped.
“People were so distraught, wailing and crying. A man lost his house and couldn’t find his family. He was on his knees with his arms up to God crying ‘Oh Papa, Oh Papa.’ Hours later his wife and children showed up.
“But the people sang all night. In the morning I would waken by hearing the Haitians singing.”
Babies were born and a man requested baptism the Sunday after the quake. An injured man said he had not been a good Christian, knew he was dying and asked to confess his sins. Having done so, “he put his head down and died,” Hauser said.
Hauser found himself becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of the catastrophe around him, but was uplifted by contact with his family.
“There was a time when I got shook and was falling to pieces,” he said. “But I was able to talk to my wife (Connie). She said she loved me and that everyone was praying for me. That brought a peace I can’t explain.”
Hauser confessed that despite his disapproval of people spending so much time on social networking, he is thankful that FaceBook and other electronic media helped them communicate with family.
When it was his time to leave Christianville and Haiti, Hauser said that along the ride to the airport he saw thousands of people living in a space as small as the concrete median area between two lanes of traffic in the United States. Small areas of property near crumbled buildings held thousands of people living under sheets, tents or without shelter, “some not knowing where their families are.”
He left Haiti with “a great appreciation that when people get in trouble Americans will always help,” Hauser said. “I left because I was going to become part of the problem and I knew I could do more for them here. This could be the beginning of Haiti getting a new start.”
Hauser said he is impressed by the resiliency of the Haitians.
Make donations to the Christianville Foundation, P.O. Box 24598, Jacksonville, FL 32241, memo: Earth Quake Relief; or Val’s Orphanage, Haitian Christian Projects, 808 Ophir St. Box 7, Locklair’s Landing, Monck’s Corner, SC 29461.
