Canadian woman chronicles Haiti experience

Just hours after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti on January 12, Rachel Montgomery—a member of the Falls View BIC Church (Niagara Falls, ON), who lives and works in a suburb of the Haitian capitol Port-au-Prince—was already reporting on the situation.

“Never in all my life have I felt more terrified,” wrote the young missionary who serves under the auspices of Mission of Hope Haiti, a non-profit agency that operates a school, church, hospital, and orphanage outside Port-au-Prince. “Never have I felt so powerless and helpless. There is nothing I could do to stop the earth from shaking. Nothing. It came without notice, it lasted as long as it wanted, and [it] continues to remind us of its dangerous threat through continued tremors.”

Since that first day, Rachel has kept friends and family members updated via periodic e-mail updates. Her messages capture an individual, an organization, and a community in a period of uncertainty, loss, and perseverance. Moving from fear and anger to hope for the future, her writings capture a range of emotions grounded in the reality of the present situation.

One message, penned just a week after the first quake, introduced readers to Rose Milaine, a young girl who had come to the Mission of Hope campus after surviving the destruction of her school. With no way to contact her parents (or even know if they had survived), Rachel did one of the only things she could: she helped the girl, covered in the dust and debris of the collapsed building, get cleaned up.

Rose Milaine came out of the bathroom a different person. It was almost as though the warm water had washed away some of her pain. There was a little life in her eyes. I gave her some rice and bean sauce which she ate quickly and quietly. Her answers to my questions became two and three word answers instead of the mumbled yes or no she had been giving me earlier.

I put a movie on for her. At first she watched quietly laying on the couch, but then about half way through I heard her giggle. Then to my surprise she started talking. I turned the movie off and listened as she told me about her Aunt and cousins, about sneaking out to watch TV when she was supposed to be washing the dishes. She laughed as she told her stories.  A little later still she started talking about the earthquake. She talked about the other children who were trapped with her, she told me lots of the children died. She didn’t tell me how she got to the hospital, or what she did in those in-between days, but that’s ok. When she’s ready, I’ll be here.

Shortly after another aftershock rocked the already ravaged countryside, Rachel wrote to express her anger and indignation: “I hate this earthquake, I hate it with passion. I was just shaken out of bed yet AGAIN. I thought the daily fear was over with, I thought we were past this. Since the 4.7 quake yesterday morning, everyone is on edge all over again. I hate this. I hate being tired all day because I’m too scared to sleep. I hate constantly feeling the earth shake even when it’s not. . . . My reaction changes with each tremor. I’m moving from fear to anger, or somewhere in between. At first the only thing we could feel was terror but now that terror is marinated in pure rage.”

Yet she still finds time to reflect on the many miracles coming out of the rubble. A recent note, sent on February 26, includes her reflections on what children have taught her about perseverance and courage in the midst of adversity, fear, and tragedy:

The Hope House kids have been so amazing since the earthquake. The boys have been working in the warehouse everyday, loading vehicles with food for distribution, unloading containers and helping sort items. The girls have been washing sheets for the clinic, feeding all the pre and post op patients daily and we have both girls and boys working as interpreters at the clinic and hospital. It’s amazing to see their willingness and eagerness to help. I am so proud of them, they are really blossoming into beautiful people.

The Brethren in Christ Communications Office will continue to post updates from Rachel Montgomery as they come. In the mean time, you can read more about how the BIC Church—through its World Hunger Fund and through the efforts of BIC individuals and congregations throughout North America—is responding to the devastation in Haiti.

UPDATE: 26 March 2010—Read an update from Rachel Montgomery, a member of the Falls View BIC Church (Niagara Falls, ON), serving in Haiti with Mission of Hope.