Some dodge the stones and bottles thrown at their tents in the dead of night, others watch helplessly as their tarpaulin shelters, huddled in camps sprawled across the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, are destroyed with knives and sticks.

Rights group Amnesty International has collected dozens of such testimonies from Haitians who have been kicked out of makeshift camps set up by those left homeless by the January 2010 earthquake. Many camp residents have moved out, but just over 320,000 Haitians still live in them.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Poverty • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Almost three years after an earthquake toppled the Roman Catholic and Episcopal cathedrals in Haiti's capital, visions for their resurrection have started to take shape as officials from both churches begin considering proposals to rebuild them.

A six-member panel led by the dean of the University of Miami's School of Architecture met this week in South Florida to choose the winner of a design competition that sought ideas for rebuilding the Notre Dame de l'Assomption Cathedral.

Meanwhile, Episcopal Church officials have selected a Virginia-based architectural firm to design a new Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

School teacher Darlene Derosier lost her home in the 2010 earthquake that devastated her country. Her husband died a month later after suffering what she said was emotional trauma from the quake. She and her two daughters now live in tents outside Haiti's capital, surrounded by thousands of others made homeless and desperate by the disaster.

What has helped pull her through all the grief, she said, has been her faith, but not of the Catholic, Protestant or even Voodoo variety that have predominated in this island country. Instead, she has converted to a new religion here, Islam, and built a small neighborhood mosque out of cinderblocks and plywood, where about 60 Muslims pray daily.

Islam has won a growing number of followers in this impoverished country, especially after the catastrophe two years ago that killed about 300,000 people and left millions more homeless.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

In the two years since the quake, $4 billion has been spent on reconstruction.

So what did the world get for its money? The answer is, not enough.

Half a million Haitians still live in the large makeshift camps that people fled to when their homes fell down.

The camps are fetid messes of humanity where rapes are common, murders not infrequent and sanitation seriously lacking. These camps aid in the spread of cholera, which still infects about 9,000 people a month.

Read it all.

Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Church leaders from ecumenical councils in the U.S. and Cuba wrapped up a five-day meeting in Havana on Friday (Dec. 2) with a call for “normalized relations” between the two countries.

“We declare the following shared conviction: that the half century of animosity between our countries must end,” said a joint statement issued by the National Council of Churches and the Council of Churches of Cuba.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Orthodox Church

As the slow recovery continues in Haiti after last year’s earthquake, there’s a new book out called Haiti after the Earthquake. It’s by the much-admired Paul Farmer, a medical doctor, a professor at the Harvard Medical School, and a cofounder of the humanitarian aid group Partners in Health. For a quarter of a century, Farmer has worked, primarily in Haiti but in other countries, too, to provide good medical care to the poorest of the poor.

Farmer was in Washington this week signing books and talking about what he says are the two big challenges of relief and reconstruction: helping individuals in need, as so many faith-based groups do, and at the same time building up public health, public education, and other systems that help everyone. Farmer spoke as the head of one of the hundreds of aid organizations in Haiti.

Read or watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Cathédrale St. Trinité, Port-au-Prince, has been a central place of sanctity, sanctuary, and justice since the 1920s. With a seating capacity of about 700, the cathedral was the home of regular worship services, special events, and meetings of national import and refuge for countless Haitians. Just after the earthquake, its grounds were used as a makeshift clinic and temporary residence for hundreds of displaced and wounded Haitians. Located at the corner of Ave. Mgr. Guilloux and Rue Pavée in the center of Port-au-Prince, minutes from some of Haiti’s most important national monuments and historic and governmental buildings, the cathedral invited a widespread Haitian following and regular visits by international travelers.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

The sudden arrival of Mr. Duvalier, who ruled Haiti from the time he was 19 until he was forced to flee by mass protests in 1986, threatened to further convulse a country that is struggling to recover from the earthquake, a lingering cholera epidemic, the political uncertainty stemming from last year’s contested presidential election and an epidemic of violent crime.

Mr. Sterlin said he did not know how long Mr. Duvalier, who has been living in exile near Paris, planned to stay in Haiti, or if he planned to meet with Haiti’s president, René Préval. An aide said Mr. Préval was among those surprised by Mr. Duvalier’s arrival.

A friend said that Mr. Duvalier would stay for three or four days, but that he would eventually like to resettle in Haiti. The friend spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not Mr. Duvalier’s official representative.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Caught this one on the morning run--I thought it was fair. Watch it all--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Health & Medicine • Poverty • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

With shops closed and traffic light, Haitians streamed down the streets in spontaneous processions, women wearing white, holding their children's hands, men in crisp shirts and ties, the clothes they would wear to church or a funeral.

They went to the ruins of the National Cathedral, to pray the rosary at its front steps. The building is now a gutted, roofless shell. Some worshipers began to weep and shout out as they approached.

At Saint Antoine de Padoue, they held Mass in an alley. "A day nobody can forget, no matter how young, even my son," said Carline Amazan, who held a young boy's hand and recalled how people ran naked through streets.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

A year after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake reduced Port-au-Prince to rubble, leaving more than 200,000 dead and 1.5 million displaced, questions remain about whether or not recovery is possible, and if so, what that would look like.

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

There's rubble in the streets, cholera in the water, anger among the voters - and glimmers of hope in surprising places in Haiti, say Episcopal volunteers.

A team of physicians, nurses and others will be returning to Haiti for the 10th trip this year organized by Episcopalians. The week-long mission, which starts Saturday, will fall on the anniversary of the deadly earthquake that razed much of Port au Prince.

"Haiti is probably in one of the darkest times in its entire history," said the Rev. Deacon Dave Drachlis of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, who will be returning for his eighth mission this year. "But, believe it or not, there is hope. Hope comes in the presence of people who support our ministries there."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Much has been damaged by the earthquake that struck Haiti last January. Much has changed for so many people.

But some things remain constant. Joel Sainton will get up each morning prepared to walk for miles, visiting people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He will sit with those who are not feeling well, sing, pray and counsel. If he has money or food to give them, he will. If he needs to refer them to a clinic, he does.

Sainton calls these people his "congregation," but he has no actual church. Instead, he leads a group called APIA (Association of People Infected and Affected by HIV/AIDS) that serves people who are HIV-positive and those with family members who are living with or have died from the disease. More than 200 of them have registered with his non-governmental organization for moral, spiritual and material support as they deal, mostly in secret, with the illness.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

"Haiti has had a rough go of it with hurricanes in 2008, then the earthquake and now cholera," said Dave Drachlis, a deacon at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Huntsville who has made two trips to Haiti this year. The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, which has a partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, has sent five medical mission teams to Haiti this year and a sixth is on its way.

The Rev. John Fritschner, rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Auburn, and doctors Keith Adkins and Will Meadows from that parish were scheduled to leave for Haiti this weekend.

Last month, the diocese sent a team of clergy wives on a mission trip. They worked at a remote mountain school setting up a lunch program.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Every church in the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire will receive a visit from a motorcycle gang with a message: Don’t forget Haiti.

The Rev. George Stamm, a retired minister who led both Christ Episcopal Church and St. Simeon’s Episcopal Church in Chippewa Falls, is one of about 15 bikers who will ride from Superior to La Crosse for four days beginning Thursday — stopping at all 22 churches in the diocese to benefit Haiti.

Riders prepare to head out from St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Superior at 8 a.m. Thursday and the public is invited to cheer on the riders and pledge their support for the people of Haiti.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wonderful stuff--watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • Sports • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Saturday, we had the presentation by the Theology Committee and their report "Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church." I was a bit disappointed with the report itself, which was really simply two papers, one from the conservative viewpoint, and one from the progressive viewpoint. While they were good papers, the House of Bishops had asked for the committee to prepare "a" paper, not two. I am quite sure this will be published soon, if it is not available already out there somewhere. Still, it did provoke very good discussion, as did the report of the "Around One Table" results. This was a church wide study on the identity of the Episcopal Church. Saturday night were class dinners, and then our Sabbath began....

Sunday night after dinner we had a fireside chat with the Presiding Bishop. Many topics were covered, and much shared but perhaps the most moving was the talk by Bishop of Haiti, Zache' Duracin....

Bishop Duracin shared with our group the day of the earthquake. It was so moving to hear his story. He had just left his car and was in his front yard, when the earthquake struck. He watched his house crumble before his eyes, with his wife and two girls still inside it. The girls came crawling out of the rubble just minutes after, basically unharmed, but his wife, although alive was trapped. Her leg was, and is, severely damaged. She is now under care in Tampa, Florida. He reported that his car, the one he had just left before the earthquake, was only unearthed this past Friday. He is a very grateful man, to be here, but also for all you have done, and many across this church....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Did you hear about the Protestant minister who said that Haiti "has been in bondage to the devil for four generations"? No, it wasn't Pat Robertson but Chavannes Jeune, a popular Evangelical pastor in Haiti who has long crusaded to cleanse his nation of what he believes is an ancestral voodoo curse. It turns out that more than a few Haitians agree with Jeune and Robertson that their nation's crushing problems are caused by, yes, voodoo.

I know this not because I read it in a newspaper or saw it on TV, but because of a blog. University of Tennessee-Knoxville cultural anthropologist Bertin M. Louis Jr., an expert on Haitian Protestantism, posted an essay exploring this viewpoint on The Immanent Frame, a social scientist group blog devoted to religion, secularism and the public sphere.

Elsewhere on The Immanent Frame, there's a fascinating piece by Wesleyan University religion professor Elizabeth McAlister touching on how the voodoo worldview affects Haiti's cultural and political economy. She writes that the widespread belief that events happen because of secret pacts with gods and spirits perpetuates "the idea that real, causal power operates in a hidden realm, and that invisible powers explain material conditions and events." Though McAlister is largely sympathetic to voodoo practitioners, she acknowledges that any effective attempt to relieve and rebuild Haiti will contend with that social reality.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Each Sunday morning, members of White Stone Church spread photos of the girls' grinning, impish faces across a folding table in the lobby, then prayed for the day they might join them.

When the churchgoers closed their eyes and bowed their heads, it no longer mattered that 1,400 miles separated them from the girls or that they lived in a Haitian village whose dirt floors and lack of running water were unthinkable in north Knoxville's quilt of neatly tended subdivisions and fast-food drive-thrus.

They are "Our Girls," the worshippers told one another.

Over six years, the girls of Coq Chante had come to feel like family. Now, after trips by dozens to Haiti, thousands of dollars raised and spent, and countless hours poring over adoption paperwork, the bond with 19 children from another world felt unbreakable.

Until a Tuesday night in January.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Children • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

When they heard I was going to report in Haiti after the massive earthquake, fifth-graders from Amylynn Robinson's class asked if I could deliver some messages to any children I'd meet. Their letters included drawings of flowers, hearts and rainbows. And they began simply:

"Hello Haiti, nice to meet you."

"Dear Buddy ... "

"Hi there, I'm a child as well."

"Dear friend, I am your friend. I wrote this letter to tell you I care about you."

The children wrote about their school, Balboa Magnet Elementary, a public school in Northridge, Calif., in Northern Los Angeles County, which was the epicenter of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in 1994. Although these 10-year-olds were not alive then, many say they've heard stories about the damage in California. So they were sympathetic to kids coping with the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti.....

This is just a fantastic piece that I caught on the morning run. You really need to do the audio as it is far superior when you hear the children's voices (about 7 1/3 minutes). And check out which song one of the Haitian children chose to send back to the children in California! Listen to it all--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Education • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Read it carefully and read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

People of faith have responded to such disasters in two ways. First they, like Darwin, have attempted to try and understand how such a world can be created by a loving God. While some at the fringes of the church have proclaimed the horror caused by earthquakes and hurricanes as the judgement of God, most Christians see something in the view that the creativity inherent in the world also brings with it risk. So the fault lines which cause devastating earthquakes have also been of immense benefit by providing minerals, oil, and good soil for agriculture. In fact, the 19th century evangelical and friend of Darwin, Asa Gray, argued that evolution's waste and suffering were necessary for more complex forms of life to emerge in creation.

However, such insights can sound very trite to the person who has lost a loved one or been made homeless. In addition, they don't provide a full explanation to the extent of suffering, a point which struck Darwin strongly.

It's here that there has been a second response. Seeing in Jesus, both a God who gives genuine freedom to the Universe and a God of compassion in the face of need, churches have been motivated to be at the forefront of help to those affected by earthquakes despite the unanswered questions of suffering.

Read the whole reflection.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • South America • Chile • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theodicy

Chile is on a hotspot of sorts for earthquake activity. And so the 8.8-magnitude temblor that shook the region overnight was not a surprise, historically speaking. Nor was it outside the realm of normal, scientists say, even though it comes on the heels of other major earthquakes.

One scientist, however, says that relative to the time period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, Earth has been more active over the past 15 years or so.

The Chilean earthquake, and the tsunami it spawned, originated on a hot spot known as a subduction zone, where one plate of Earth's crust dives under another. It's part of the active "Ring of Fire," a zone of major crustal plate clashes that surround the Pacific Ocean.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Science & Technology • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • South America • Chile

Check it out--very worthwhile.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Military / Armed Forces • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Caribbean • Haiti

Consider a few facts. Voodoo is one of the official religions of Haiti, and its designation in 2003 merely granted official acknowledgment to a longstanding reality. The slave revolt that brought Haiti independence indeed relied on voodoo, the New World version of ancestral African faiths. To this day, by various scholarly estimates, 50 percent to 95 percent of Haitians practice at least elements of voodoo, often in conjunction with Catholicism.

Yet in searching the LexisNexis database of news coverage and doing a Google search this week, I found that Catholicism figured into three times as many accounts of the quake as did voodoo. A substantial share of the reports that did mention voodoo were recounting Mr. Robertson’s canard or adopting it in articles asking Haitian survivors if they felt their country was cursed.

At a putatively more informed level, articles, broadcasts and blogs depicted voodoo as the source of Haiti’s poverty and political instability — not because of divine punishment, mind you, but because voodoo supposedly is fatalistic and primitive by nature.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths

The Jan. 12 earthquake was an equal opportunity leveler with such mass deadliness that it erased the individuality of its victims. According to the Haitian government, more than 230,000 people died in the disaster, but initially few had ceremonies to mark their deaths. Even the collective loss of life was not memorialized until this past weekend, when the government imposed a national period of mourning.

Bit by bit, though, the individual losses are coming into focus for Haitians finally ready to grieve. Many victims were not accepted as dead until the search missions were over, and many bodies were never recovered or were dumped in mass graves. But belatedly, funerals and memorial services are taking place daily, and the traditional word-of-mouth network known as telediol has reawakened, delivering death notices.

If Haiti, always stoic, first seemed too stunned to cry, the tears are rolling now for those who seem irreplaceable: the tax man who wrote software to detect fraud in a corrupt society; the gallery owner whose eminent Haitian art collection perished with her; the writer who translated the culture’s oral storytelling into prose; the feminist leaders; the nursing students; the factory workers; the teachers; and the children, especially the children.

“My little girls died at the very moment I was making plans for their future,” said Frantz Thermilus, the chief of Haiti’s National Judicial Police, caressing their pictures on his cellphone. “And the future of the children is the future of Haiti.”

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

The number of dead from Haiti's earthquake has been estimated as high as 200,000. That's nearly 7 percent of the population of Port-au-Prince. Imagine the entire population of Des Moines, Iowa, vaporized.

This is a country that observes death with elaborate ceremony. But with most of the bodies hauled to mass graves or still entombed in fallen buildings, normal funeral rituals are impossible.

All over Port-au-Prince, the places that usually play an integral role in burial customs are eerily empty.

Read or listen to it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

For Haitians in particular, the mass graves are wrenching. [Karen] Richman says Haitians place significant emphasis on dying with dignity and holding a funeral, a process that can take nine days. Relationships with the dead last forever; survivors believe their ancestors visit them in their dreams and give them guidance.

"Every culture has its way of making sense of the beginning and end of life. Our rituals are the way we control what these events mean to us: Irish wakes, Jews saying the Kaddish prayer, Hindu processions," she says.

Although the Catholic Church frowns on voodoo culture, it is pervasive in Haiti, where many are buried with both Catholic and voodoo rites. "Every family inherits the spirits their ancestors worshiped," Richman says. "You need to communicate with the ancestors to reach these spirits or souls. You need to know they have been respected."

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Other Faiths

John Pipkin is a retired pilot. He's held many jobs, most recently working for Netjets International, flying celebrities around.

These days, he flies relief workers, medical teams and humanitarian aid from airstrip to airstrip in Haiti.

His wife, Joyce, is the volunteer coordinator of the Haitian ministry at their church, St. Mary's Episcopal in Columbia, which sponsors a parish and its school in Les Cayes, a town in the southwest section of the country.

The Pipkins travel together at least three times a year helping the needy, coordinating mission work, assisting the international community of aid workers and supporting local clergy. They visited Charleston Southern University on Wednesday to share their story.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * South Carolina

It is important to maintain two contradictory attitudes at once in many areas of Christian theology, and this is one of those areas. These are the two clashing points of view in this case:

Point of view #1: The creation does declare the glory of God, and the "Thunderstorm Psalm" (#29: "The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon") proclaims that message magnificently. God is not only the Creator but also the One who rules over the cosmos. The theophany in the book of Job (chs. 38-41) is the preeminent biblical passage treating of this subject, and the phrase "the doors of the sea" is derived from 38:8. Many people have experienced a sort of theophany--a manifestation of the power of God--even in the midst of destruction; people have testified to this even when they have had to face the dire consequences of a natural catastrophe (there are examples of this in Isaac's Storm, the book about the hurricane that destroyed Galveston, and in David McCullough's account of the Johnstown Flood). So the wild, untamed aspect of nature can be either comforting or exhilarating or both, depending on one's point of view.

Point of view #2: At the same time, nature is not benign. Nature is "red in tooth and claw." Nature, like the human race, is fallen and is subject to the powers of the evil one who continues to occupy this sphere. Flannery O'Connor wrote that her work was about the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil; we should not fail to realize that "nature" is part of that occupied territory. Nature is often hostile, as Annie Dillard has so powerfully shown us, and the nature-worshippers among us fail to acknowledge this hostility in their pantheistic enthusiasm. Only by action of the Creator will the peaceable kingdom arrive, where the lion lies down with the lamb (isn't it suggestive that "Lion of Judah" and "Lamb of God" are both titles of our Lord?)

The conflict between these two realities cannot be resolved in this life. Does the Creator of all that is have the power to say to those tectonic plates, "Be still!" Of course. Then why doesn't he? Why does he permit earthquakes in the poorest country in the hemisphere?

We do not know.

Read the whole thing.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theodicy

[BOB] ABERNETHY: When people come to you and say where was God in what happened in Haiti, what do you tell them?

[RABBI JACK] MOLINE: The glib answer is to just say God was there. But I was walking through the synagogue the other day and a couple of kids were horsing around. One of them bumped her head and started to cry. Her friend immediately apologized, and I walked over and gave her a hug. I wasn’t able to stop the pain, but I was able to share it with her a little bit, as was her friend. I think that’s where God is—sharing that pain.

ABERNETHY: With the people who are suffering, suffering with them?

MOLINE: With the people who are suffering. Absolutely.

Read or watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theodicy

Watch it all--wonderful stuff.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Health & Medicine • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

[Interviewer]This is an appalling tragedy, the UN are saying that it may well be the biggest natural disaster in history. How do we reconcile our faith with this terrible tragedy on this scale?

ABY: I think it is not an easy thing to reconcile, the heart of it because it is just so so awful and the people suffering terribly. We tend to look for answers actually where there are sometimes no answers.

I think the reconciliation for me comes in my understanding of God as I see him in Jesus Christ. A God who is almighty and powerful is born like a little baby, grows up and is crucified, doing for us that which we can not do for ourselves. On the cross you hear him say "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" But that's not the end. He rises from death, conquering evil and death and pointing out to us that actually in the end it is life in God which matters. So a God who has becomes like one of us, dies, rises, sends his Spirit, that we may be forgiven for the wrongs we have done in the past, and given new life in the present and hope for the future.

That kind of a God is neither to be seen as the sort of grand puppet master who just pulls pulleys nor is he a Dr Who, or a Wonderwoman or Superman but actually a God who is there with us. Rabbi Hugo Gryn was a survivor of the Holocaust and was asked the same question "Where was God when the Jews were being gassed? Why did he allow it to happen?" and Rabbi Hugo Gryn said "God in those gas chambers was being violated and blasphemed". That God is always around us, with us, suffering with us and giving us the hope that in tragedy and death and things we can't explain - in the end these things are not the end.

Read the whole thing (or use the audio link at the bottom).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • Archbishop of York John Sentamu • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Theology • Theodicy

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

It was a blessing for me to encounter the theologian Austin Farrer a year before his sudden death. With him, I was one handshake away from his friends Tolkien, Lewis, and Sayers. In reflecting on natural disasters and God's action in the world, he said with stark realism that in an earthquake, God's will is that the elements of the Earth's crust should behave in accordance with their nature. He was speaking of the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, which killed about the same number of people counted so far in devastated Haiti. Most were killed in churches on All Saints Day, which gave license to rationalists of the "Enlightenment" to mock the doctrine of a good God. Atheists can suddenly pretend to be theologians puzzled by the contradictory behavior of a benevolent God. On the other extreme, doltish TV evangelists summon a half-baked Calvinism to say that people who get hit hard deserve it.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Theodicy

The only people who would seem to have the right to invoke God at the moment are the Haitians themselves, who beseech his help amidst dreadful pain. They, too, alas, appear to wander the wasteland of theodicy. News reports have described some Haitians giving voice to a worldview uncomfortably close to Pat Robertson’s, in which a vengeful God has been meting out justified retribution: “I blame man. God gave us nature, and we Haitians, and our governments, abused the land. You cannot get away without consequences,” one man told The Times last week.

Others sound like a more frankly theological President Obama: a 27-year-old survivor, Mondésir Raymone, was quoted thus: “We have survived by the grace of God.” Bishop Éric Toussaint, standing near his damaged cathedral, said something similar: “Why give thanks to God? Because we are here. What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now.” A survivor’s gratitude is combined with theological fatalism. This response is entirely understandable, uttered in a ruined landscape beyond the experience of most of us, and a likely source of pastoral comfort to the bishop’s desperate flock. But that should not obscure the fact that it is little more than a piece of helpless mystification, a contradictory cry of optimistic despair.

Terrible catastrophes inevitably encourage appeals to God. We who are, at present, unfairly luckier, whether believers or not, might reflect on the almost invariably uncharitable history of theodicy, and on the reality that in this context no invocation of God beyond a desperate appeal for help makes much theological sense. For either God is punitive and interventionist (the Robertson view), or as capricious as nature and so absent as to be effectively nonexistent (the Obama view). Unfortunately, the Bible, which frequently uses God’s power over earth and seas as the sign of his majesty and intervening power, supports the first view; and the history of humanity’s lonely suffering decisively suggests the second.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Theology • Theodicy

The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is caring for close to 23,000 Haitians in at least 21 encampments around the earthquake-devastated country.

The information came Jan. 23 in a letter from Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin to Episcopal Relief & Development President Robert Radtke and posted here. In the letter, Duracin said that the diocese and the organization are working "hand-in-hand," telling Radtke he has "complete confidence in you and your agency."

"Please tell our partners, the people of the Episcopal Church, the people of the United States and indeed the people of the world that we in Haiti are immensely grateful for their prayers, their support and their generosity," Duracin wrote. "This is a desperate time in Haiti; we have lost so much. But we still have the most important asset, the people of God, and we are working continuously to take care of them."

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Though some 80 percent of Haiti's 9 million people are professed Catholics and 16 percent are Protestants, roughly half of the total population practices Vodou, according to the CIA's World Factbook.

Like many other indigenous religions, it has its high form and folk form, priests and rituals, according to June McDaniel, religion professor at the College of Charleston. It derives from several African cultures, including the Yoruba, and equates its gods and goddesses with Catholic saints.

For example, Legba, the messenger of the gods and a force of destiny, is thought to live at the crossroads of the spirit and material worlds. He is a doorkeeper and, thus, associated with St. Peter.

According to the beliefs, Vodou gods, or loas, live on an underwater island with the souls of the dead, McDaniel said. They are able to communicate with the living who are eager to make contact. To do so, people pray and perform various rituals.

Read the whole thing.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

How did you get involved with Haiti?

I first went to Haiti 12 years ago with my friend, Anne Fairbanks, a Skidmore professor who founded the Haiti mission at our church in Troy 25 years ago. I took over the job from Anne in 2005 after I retired. Anne died last year at 85, but I'm so grateful she introduced me to Haiti. I'd never been to a Third World country when Anne dragged me along to Haiti in 1998 and it was an eye-opener for me. I fell in love with the people in Haiti at the church we sponsored, particularly the teachers, who worked so hard for so little money. Since then, I've made seven trips to Haiti."

How does your church support your partner parish in Haiti?

Our members have been very generous to Haiti over the years and we send about $5,000 a year in donations. We've purchased school supplies, musical instruments and raised salaries for the teachers. We've helped improve the quality of the school in many ways, including expanding it to K-12 and a student body of 350 boys and girls. When I first visited, the fourth- and fifth-graders were barely reading. This year, every single one of the students in 12th grade passed the national exam. Every day at noon, volunteer ladies from the church make beans and rice for lunch. For many of the kids, it's the only food they'll get all day. They love sardines on it, which didn't really appeal to me, but I started bringing cans of sardines on every visit. Every student gets a sardine on the top of their beans and rice and it's a huge treat for them.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Last week’s earthquake has devastated Haiti, and prompted a massive relief effort. In a smaller but almost equally intense way, the disaster has pervaded every part of the school day for the 510 students — 80 percent of them Haitian — at SS. Joachim and Anne, the Roman Catholic elementary school in Queens Village, Queens, a hub of New York’s Haitian community.

They pray. They scrounge up donations. The quake informs class discussions about politics, about helping the poor, about the afterlife. And when the children are not talking about it, their teachers suspect, they are thinking about it.

As classmates played with cubes on Wednesday, learning to add, Michael Constant, 6, squirmed in his seat. His mother had just left for Haiti that morning to bury his father.

As 250,000 Haitian-Americans in the New York area mourn, children bear their own burdens. Many feel as much at home in Haiti as in New York. They struggle to picture the houses where they spent summers now in rubble, grandparents and cousins dead, missing, homeless. For others, Haiti exists in tales parents tell — a place they long to visit and now wonder if they will ever see.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Education • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Voodoo is playing a central role in helping Haitians cope with their unthinkable tragedy. Outside of Haitian culture, few know what Voodoo is. Elizabeth McAlister, a Voodoo expert at Wesleyan University, says at its core, the philosophy is really pretty simple.

"Voodoo in a nutshell is about the idea that everything material has a spiritual dimension that is more real" than physical reality, she says. "So everything living — but even rocks and the Earth — is considered to have spirit and have a spiritual nature."

McAlister says there is no unified Voodoo religion. There's no "Voodoo Pope" or central authority, no Voodoo scripture or even a core doctrine.

Read or listen to it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths

When I was introduced to the congregation by the lay leader, Faubert Baptiste, he spoke one sentence in English for my benefit and then a sentence in French for the congregants.

“We have never had a bishop here,” he said. “We are glad you have come.” With Faubert’s help, I offered words of consolation and support. When I announced that I would be reading from Psalm 46, everyone immediately took out their Bibles and rose to their feet.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea ... the Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”

Following my comments, another lay member, Lucien Jendy, came forward to bring the sermon for the day. He read from Matthew 24: “As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the building of the temple. Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another, all will be thrown down.’”

He explained every word of the Bible is true, and that our earthly buildings and our lives are temporary. He stressed that in life we will have suffering, but those who endure to the end will be saved.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Methodist

Did God abandon Haiti?

No, say its people of faith -- and there are many here in a place without much beyond faith. The earthquake was a sign of God's presence.

So, it should be no surprise that on a narrow street choked by debris, outside a church with a shattered ceiling open to the morning sky, what was left of the congregation of Haiti's Second Baptist Church stood in a courtyard and waved their hands in the air and shouted, "Victoire! Victoire!"

Victory.

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Caritas search and rescue teams Jan. 19 miraculously found and pulled five people from the rubble of the badly damaged Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, where they had been clinging to life for seven days.

The first to be rescued, Enu Zizi, was pulled out by expert teams from Mexico and South Africa who worked for two hours to extract her. Caritas officials said she suffered injuries to her hips and possibly a broken leg, but "was not critically injured."

Zizi told her rescuers, "I love you," upon being pulled from the rubble.

Wow--read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Humans are meaning-seeking creatures. We search for patterns and, if we don't see them, we imagine them. We put all sorts of pieces together, whether by instinct, sentiment or scientific evidence.

Now, the biggest pattern of all — God — has come within our scientific purview.

Neuroscientists such as Andrew Newberg are telling us that we are "wired for God." That belief is part of our brain structure, which is an often heard but still controversial point of view.

There's even a term that has been invented for this type of researcher: neurotheologians.

They are St. Augustines with medical degrees and brain scanners. They take religion seriously, as a research project.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Theology

In the face of the tragedy in Haiti, I want to make a proposal. It’s not a realistic proposal, I grant; but it is a serious one. My proposal is this: that all those Anglicans involved in litigation amongst one another in North America — both in the Episcopal Church and those outside of TEC; in the Anglican Church of Canada, and those outside — herewith cease all court battles over property. And, having done this, they do two further things:

a. devote the forecast amount they were planning to spend on such litigation to the rebuilding of the Episcopal Church and its people in Haiti; and

b. sit down with one another, prayerfully and for however long it takes, and with whatever mediating and facilitating presence they accept, and agree to a mutually agreed process for dealing with contested property.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Rejecting offers to evacuate him from Port-au-Prince, Episcopal Diocese of Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin said Jan. 18 that he must remain in the Haitian capital.

"No, I will stay with my people," the Rev. Lauren Stanley, one of four Episcopal Church missionaries assigned to the Haitian diocese, told ENS the bishop said in response to the evacuation offer.

Stanley was home in Virginia when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck just before 5:00 p.m. local time Jan. 12 and has been monitoring diocesan reports from there.

"The people are strong," Duracin told Stanley, echoing messages she has received from other priests. "We still have our people, and they are strong. We need to help them."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Departing Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Ruth Pierre wept before the congregation of a small Haitian church in Mattapan yesterday, mourning her uncle, who was killed in the earthquake that has left her impoverished homeland in ruins.

But Pierre said she is also grateful for those who survived, for those who have been rescued from the rubble that has paralyzed Haiti.

“My uncle died, but God saved many others,’’ said Pierre, 25, one of a dozen members of Church of the Nazarene who reflected on their families and loved ones during the 11 a.m. weekly service. “Thank you, God. I pray there are more found.’’

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • Spirituality/Prayer • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Like other ministers in churches with Haitian-American congregations across the USA, the Rev. David Eugene took to the pulpit of his north Miami church Sunday and sought to offer solace to his worried, grieving flock.

"I preached from Deuteronomy, chapter 31, verse 8, and the title of my sermon was 'I will not forsake you,' " said Eugene, pastor of Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church. "The second part of the text was Psalms 46, verses 1 and 2 — 'The Lord is my refuge, my help and my strength.'

"It was very emotional. There was some crying," he said.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Two Episcopal Church missionaries in Port-au-Prince say that they feared for their lives during the Jan. 12 earthquake and in its aftermath that shook the Haitian capital.

When the magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit just before 5 p.m. local time, the Rev. Canon Oge Beauvoir and his wife Serrette were in their Port-au-Prince home, he told Nathan Brockman of Trinity Wall Street in a Jan. 15 telephone call.

"For the first time I was certain I faced death," Beauvoir told Brockman. "I was certain we were going to die."

Beauvoir, 53, is the dean of the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti's seminary.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

With their churches flattened, their priests killed and their Bibles lost amid the rubble of their homes, desperate Haitians prayed in the streets on Sunday, raising their arms in the air and asking God to ease their grief.

Outside the city’s main cathedral, built in 1750 but now a giant pile of twisted metal, shattered stained glass and cracked concrete, parishioners held a makeshift service at the curb outside, not far from where scores of homeless people were camping out in a public park. The bishop’s sermon of hope was a hard sell, though, as many listening had lost their relatives, their homes and their possessions.

“We have to keep hoping,” said Bishop Marie Eric Toussant, although he acknowledged that he had no resources to help his many suffering parishioners and did not know whether the historic cathedral would ever be rebuilt. He said the quake had toppled the residences where priests stayed, crushing many of them.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

The world is mobilizing to respond to Haiti’s needs after its devastating earthquake. President Obama pledged a $100 million US effort in aid and recovery:

President Obama: ” To the people of Haiti we say clearly, and with conviction, you will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten.”

Faith-based groups across the spectrum organized to raise money and send in supplies. Many religious agencies already had humanitarian teams on the ground and were trying to coordinate rescue efforts and emergency medical help. Churches and church-run hospitals, schools, and orphanages are among the buildings that are now rubble. Many US religious groups are still trying to locate staff, missionaries, and short-term workers. Among the confirmed dead, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Joseph Mioht.

Here in the US, there have been many special prayer services and vigils for the victims. Pastors and spiritual counselors tried to offer comfort to grieving Haitian Americans. Several religious groups are working to bring injured and displaced Haitians here. The vast majority of Haiti’s population is Christian.

Because of the many Haitians in the US and Haiti’s proximity to the US, and because of the overwhelming needs, all over this country there are people with personal connections to the tragedy. Kim Lawton, our managing editor, has grandparents who were missionaries in Haiti and parents who did short-term mission work there.

Read or watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

ZENIT: What is the immediate need?

Cardinal Cordes: Every natural catastrophe is unique, but our long experience of previous disasters (e.g. Tsunami, Katrina) shows two distinct phases:

-- Short-term: manpower is needed to save lives, provide the basic necessities (water, food, shelter, prevention of disease), restore order;

-- Long-term: reconstruction, offering spiritual and psychological help, especially when media attention fades away.

Benedict XVI has called on all people of good will to be generous and concrete in their response in order to meet the immediate needs of our suffering brothers and sisters in Haiti (General Audience, Jan. 13, 2010). It is important that we are giving tangible help through the charitable agencies of the Catholic Church. Much is being organized and encouraged in this regard throughout the world.

For example, the episcopal conference of Italy has set Jan. 24 as a day of prayer and charity for the people of Haiti. The national embassies to the Holy See are organizing the sacrifice of the Holy Mass to be offered for our suffering brothers and sisters. We must remember to intercede through prayer and not only money for the suffering of Haiti.

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Can this be a turning point? Haiti is crying out for better government at home. But it also certainly requires improved support from those on whom it relies. The United Nations has failed miserably on most fronts over the past decade, and the leadership of Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has so far suggested little improvement. In rebuilding Haiti on a better foundations, the UN has an opportunity to demonstrate what it usefully can do.

Haiti also represents a decisive challenge to the Obama Administration, and one that extends far beyond the immediate rescue effort. Meanwhile, the response of China — a paltry contribution of $1 million — has proved depressingly revealing. After the Sichuan earthquake, the international community rushed to help China. But China has shown no such reciprocity now. The asymmetries of China’s self-serving foreign policy are looking increasingly consistent.

Haiti has frequently been described as the world’s unluckiest country. That plight looks set to continue in the short term. But the underlying causes of that fate have been international as well as domestic.

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

A photo of the Cathedral before the earthquake is here (Hat tip: Brien).

Check out what remains from Mark Harris. Makes the heart sad--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

A local family is still waiting for word on a Washougal man who has been missing since Tuesday’s earthquake devastated Haiti.

Walt Ratterman was visiting Haiti to check on a solar-power project when his family lost touch with him when the quake hit.

“We are pretty certain he was sending e-mails at the time, from the courtyard of Hotel Montana,” said Briana Ratterman, daughter of the missing man.

This is but one illustration of dramas playing out throughout the world this week. Read it all and please check out this blog entry also. If you have time check out the linked Facebook page--it makes for moving reading.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Interviewed on the programme, Commander Ron Flanders of the US 4th Fleet, based in Florida, said that the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was acting as a sea-base from which the navy could deliver supplies to the island. "Our main goal," he said, "is to ease suffering and prevent loss of life".

Listen to it all (about 10 1/2 minutes).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Military / Armed Forces • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.

Read it all

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

And as the international community continues to respond, I do believe that America has a continued responsibility to act. Our nation has a unique capacity to reach out quickly and broadly and to deliver assistance that can save lives.

That responsibility obviously is magnified when the devastation that's been suffered is so near to us. Haitians are our neighbors in the Americas, and for Americans they are family and friends. It's characteristic of the American people to help others in time of such severe need. That's the spirit that we will need to sustain this effort as it goes forward. There are going to be many difficult days ahead.

So, so many people are in need of assistance. The port continues to be closed, and the roads are damaged. Food is scarce and so is water. It will take time to establish distribution points so that we can ensure that resources are delivered safely and effectively and in an orderly fashion.

But I want the people of Haiti to know that we will do what it takes to save lives and to help them get back on their feet. In this effort I want to thank our people on the ground -- our men and women in uniform, who have moved so swiftly; our civilians and embassy staff, many of whom suffered their own losses in this tragedy; and those members of search and rescue teams from Florida and California and Virginia who have left their homes and their families behind to help others. To all of them I want you to know that you demonstrate the courage and decency of the American people, and we are extraordinarily proud of you.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Efforts to deliver desperately needed food, water and medical help to victims of Haiti’s earthquake intensified on Friday even as the voices of survivors buried underneath mountains of rubble began to fall silent.

Cargo planes and military helicopters swooped in and out of the crowded airport in Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of American troops were arriving, with more on the way. Some 25 rescue teams fanned out to collapsed hotels, schools and homes, and aid groups said they had given food and blankets to thousands of people.

But 2 million to 3 million are still in dire need, and patience was wearing thin on the streets as Haiti went another day with no power and limited fresh water.

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Up to 10,000 US troops will be on the ground or off the coast of Haiti by Monday to help deal with the earthquake aid effort, US defence officials say.

Aid distribution has begun, but logistics continue to be extremely difficult, UN officials say.

Tuesday's earthquake has left as many as 50,000-100,000 people dead.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said more than 15,000 bodies had already been recovered and buried, French news agency AFP reported.

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Caribbean • Haiti

(ACNS) The Archbishop of Canterbury has given a message of support to the people of Haiti affected by the devastation caused by Tuesday's earthquake.

"I am profoundly shocked and concerned to hear about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. As the news comes through, we are learning more about the tragic loss of life, injury suffered and terrible damage to the country. We stand alongside all the people in Haiti affected by this terrible disaster in prayer, thought and action as the situation unfolds. We pray for the rescue of those still trapped and look towards the rebuilding of lives and communities.

I commend the swift action of the Department for International Development and the relief agencies and churches in mobilising an emergency response. In this time of catastrophic loss and destruction, I urge the public to hold the people of Haiti in their prayers, and to give generously and urgently to funding appeals set up for relief work."

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Check them out.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Dear Friends,



Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.



- Haiti is the largest and fastest-growing diocese in The Episcopal Church.

- There are over 83,000 Episcopalians in Haiti

- There are over 110 Episcopal Churches in Haiti, and over 200 Episcopal schools

The Episcopal Church in Haiti has lost a cathedral, convent, Holy Trinity Complex, College St. Pierre, and a Jubilee Center. The Bishop has no place to live. Thankfully, the four missionaries are all accounted for - Mallory Holding, Jude Harmon, Oge Beauvoir and his wife Serette.

How can you help?
Check the Haiti page on Episcopal Relief & Development website http://www.er-d.org/


Donate and encourage others to donate to Episcopal Relief & Development by calling 800-334-7626 ext 5129. https://www.er-d.org/donate-select.php



Episcopal Relief & Development has a four star rating on Charity Navigator and meets all 20 standards of the Better Business Bureau.



Episcopal Relief & Development has a long partnership with The Episcopal Church in Haiti. http://www.er-d.org/HaitiEarthquakeResponse



We have already been listed in a number of news outlets, including CNN, ABC, MSNBC. We can still use your support. Call your local media contacts and sources and request that Episcopal Relief & Development be included in their list of relief organizations for Haiti.



Place a link to Episcopal Relief & Development on your congregation or diocesan home page. http://www.er-d.org/



Share this information on Sunday and in your bulletin inserts. Bulletin inserts from Episcopal Relief & Development are available in both Spanish and English. http://www.er-d.org/BulletinInsertsCT/



Please do not encourage anyone to travel to Haiti.

Priority must be given to first responders and a few relief agencies so as not to over-burden the already compromised infrastructure.



Thank you for all that you do for our Church.



Peace,

Malaika Kamunanwire

Senior Director, Marketing and Communications

Episcopal Relief & Development

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Archbishop Joseph Serge-Miot was reported dead after the Tuesday earthquake that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale.

Father Andre Siohan, a missionary of the French St. Jacques Society, e-mailed the Missionary International Service News Agency a few hours after the quake, which was centered less than 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, the country's capital.

"Nou atè nèt," the priest wrote, which means in Creole, "We are on our knees."

"I went to the city center this morning to visit the other religious communities," he said. "The area is completely devastated and there are thousands of victims."

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty. Two-thirds of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country's widespread deforestation. While the economy has recovered in recent years, registering positive growth since 2005, four tropical storms in 2008 severely damaged the transportation infrastructure and agricultural sector.

Before you look, please guess the GDP per capita income of Haiti (the United States is tenth in the world at $47,500 for comparison purposes) Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Caught this on the morning run--brings it home. Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Teens / Youth • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin's home was destroyed in the earthquake and his wife injured her foot, according to news received mid-morning on Jan. 13 by the Rev. Christopher A. Johnson, the U.S.-based Episcopal Church's officer for social and economic justice. Duracin was not injured in the earthquake. The Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot of Port-au-Prince died in the earthquake, according to the Associated Press. The Roman Catholic Cathedral was badly damaged.

The Episcopal Church has four U.S.-based missionaries working in Haiti, three of whom were in-country when the earthquake hit: the Rev. Oge Beauvoir, 53, dean of the theological seminary in Port-au-Prince, and Young Adult Service Corps volunteers Mallory Holding, 23, of Chicago and Jude Harmon, 28, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Charleston disaster relief worker Jerry Miner knows the earthquake in Haiti could be the start of a human nightmare that has every chance of escalating.

"The information is the destruction is on the scale of the (Pacific) tsunami," said Miner, who works with West Ashley-based Water Missions International. "This is big and horrible.

Note especially the how to help section at the bottom. I esepcially want to highlight Water Missions International as a worthy idea for donations. In any event, read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

A lot of very helpful links to look at.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Methodist

President Obama set the U.S. government Wednesday on a massive rescue and relief operation in the devastated capital of Haiti, ordering the rapid mobilization of military and diplomatic assistance, and pledging an aggressive effort to save the lives of those caught in Tuesday's earthquake.

Naval ships steamed south and flights began shuttling search-and-rescue teams to dig through rubble in Port-au-Prince. Military aircraft flew over the island, mapping the destruction, while U.S. officials coordinated the efforts of non-governmental aid agencies. Coast Guard helicopters began flying seriously wounded Americans from the island nation's U.S. Embassy to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba., about 200 miles away.

"With just a few hundred miles of ocean between us and a long history that binds us together, Haitians are neighbors of the Americas and here at home," Obama said, calling the earthquake an "especially cruel and incomprehensible tragedy."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Look through the whole gallery.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

We the Bishops of Province Two of The Episcopal Church were gathered for our annual retreat when we learned of the great earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Having spent our 2008 retreat in that country, we were already very conscious of the desperate situation of the Haitian people and of our Diocese of Haiti. This new disaster which has injured and killed so great a number touches us very deeply. Haiti is the poorest nation of the hemisphere and therefore the less able to cope with such a catastrophe.

Our brother Bishop Zaché Duracin had not been able to attend our retreat this year, and we learned with relief that he is unscathed. However, we have reports that his wife Marie-Édithe has been injured and their family home destroyed. It appears also that one of the Roman Catholic bishops of Port-au-Prince was killed when his office collapsed during the earthquake. Along with the great number of Haitian expatriates and all those who have loved ones and friends there, we await news of them with impatience and worry, including the Episcopal missionaries who do extraordinary work in that country.

We ask therefore that the faithful of our dioceses, as well as all people of good will, pray for this people devastated by yet another cataclysm, that they will know the mercy and comfort of the Holy Trinity. To support immediately our brother Bishop Duracin in the work of reconstruction, we pledge at least $10,000 from our own resources. We ask our members to join in these efforts by giving to Episcopal Relief and Development.

The efficiency of Episcopal Relief and Development in helping people in these crises is well known. They will update their website, http://www.er-d.org as they receive fresh information. They are currently accepting donations to the Haiti Fund (https://www.er-d.org/donate-select.php) to support this assistance.

The Diocese of Haiti is the largest in The Episcopal Church. The efforts of their clergy and laity to proclaim and live out the Good News of Jesus Christ have in the past earned our profound admiration. Now that they have suffered yet another calamity, may the Holy Spirit give us the strength and resources to meet their new needs.

Signed,



Bishop Gladstone Adams

Bishop Mark Bethwick

Bishop George Councell

Bishop Michael Garrison

Bishop William Love

Bishop Larry Provenzano

Bishop Prince Singh

Bishop Mark Sisk

Bishop Pierre Whalon

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

A Message from the Rev. Kesner Ajax, Partnership Program Coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, received January 13, 2010

Dear Friends in Christ:

We have devastating news to share with you from Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake yesterday. According to reports I have received here in Les Cayes, the damage in Port au Prince and areas around it is terrible. There is no Cathedral. The entire Holy Trinity complex is gone. The convent for the Sisters of St. Margaret is gone. The Bishop's house is gone. College St. Pierre is gone. The apartment for College St. Pierre is still standing. Bishop no longer has a house in which to live. In Trouin, four people were killed during a service.In Grand Colline, the church is gone. In St. Etienne Buteau the church, the rectory and the school are gone.

In Les Cayes, BTI is OK, but some people were injured trying to get out of the buildings during the quake. The rectory in Les Cayes is in very bad condition.

The Rev. Kesner Ajax
Executive Director, Bishop Tharp Institute (BTI)

Please read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * South Carolina

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

The death toll from Haiti's 7.0 magnitude earthquake is at least 100,000 and could be several times that number, Haitian officials said Wednesday.

Haitian Consul General Felix Augustin said the capital Port-au-Prince "is flattened, CNN reported.

"More than 100,000 are dead," Felix Augustin told reporters.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said it could be much worse, saying several hundred thousand people may have been killed.

Makes the heart very sad--the Lord be with them. Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 has struck the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake struck Tuesday afternoon. There are unconfirmed reports that a hospital has collapsed. A tsunami watch has been issued for the neighboring Dominican Republic, along with Cuba and the Bahamas.

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

(ENS) The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is trying to evaluate the needs of Haitians in the wake of four storms that have battered Hispaniola in less than a month.

"What has happened is very hard to us," Bishop Jean Zache Duracin wrote September 10 in response to an email inquiry from ENS. "As you may know, many people died, disappeared [or are] hurt. The whole [of] Haiti has been affected, a country where the socio-economic situation was already bad. Many people have been left homeless, with no food and clothes, etc."

"Many of our church buildings have been affected. We are now doing an evaluation of what we have lost, but because of problems of communication, that will take some time."

Duracin, noting that usually in such situations many people wait for the church to respond, wrote that "the church here is making efforts to help. We are preparing to send food and other primary necessity materials to victims, but because of lack of ways of communication our work is very difficult."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti