Tyler, Texas | February 4, 2010  — The relief arm of Youth With A Mission Tyler, MercyWorks has responded to the Haiti earthquake by sending three medical teams to Port-au-Prince.  Additional medical teams are scheduled to leave next week and the following week.  Volunteer doctors, nurses, EMTs and the like are treating over 1,000 men, women and children a day.  To date, the 50+ volunteers have hand carried medicines and medical supplies in with them.  Now that the transportation and distribution of supplies is more manageable, MercyWorks is gearing up to send a “Container of Compassion” to Haiti.

Debbie Lascelles, MercyWorks founder and co-director of YWAM Tyler remarked, “We have been swamped with people wanting to volunteer and help in every way imaginable.  It’s a stretching time for all of us, but we greatly appreciate all the donations and help from the east Texas community.”

For now, the East Texas based charity has been given $15,000 to ship the first of several critically needed containers to Haiti to help set up a Refugee Camp.  Pastor Dwight Lawson has volunteered Clearview Church in Mt. Sylvan (across from the Rose Park Horse Farm) to serve as the collection point for supplies for the “Container of Compassion.”

In addition to medical supplies, among the items most urgently needed for the first container are:  easy-up pop up tents, folding tables, folding chairs, foam mattresses, sheets, tarps, pots, pans, eating utensils, shoes, baby supplies such as baby bottles, diapers, pacifiers, toys, 5-gallon buckets, and hygiene kits consisting of soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and toilet paper.

To participate in East Texas’ “Container of Compassion” bring your supplies by Clearview Church on or before Wednesday, February 10, 2010 where they will be processed and shipped on to Haiti for relief.  Drop off hours are 7:00 – 9:00 a.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Sunday, February 7.  In addition to supplies, MercyWorks is looking for additional volunteers, including grief counselors, auto mechanics, medical personnel especially physical therapists, occupational therapists, and a medical coordinator.

About Youth With A Mission: Founded in 1960 by Loren and Darlene Cunningham, YWAM is celebrating their 50^th year of operation.  The international, interdenominational missions organization has 17,000 full-time volunteers serving in over 160 nations.  MercyWorks, a ministry of YWAM Tyler, is dedicated to bringing hope and lasting change to people afflicted by war, famine, extreme poverty or natural disaster.

For additional information, photos or interview opportunities please contact:

Glenn Price Rev. Dwight Lawson

Glenn.Price@ywamtyler.org clearviewfamily@aol.com

(903) 882-5591                                               (903) 882-8949

www.mercyworks.org www.clearviewchurchfamily.com

The “heartbreaking” conditions of “families who have lost everything” has been the week-long scenario Smith County medical workers have endured in Haiti since Tuesday.

The team sent from Youth With A Mission of Tyler’s MercyWorks has experienced “overwhelming conditions” during their week-long stay, a MercyWorks staffer on the scene in Haiti said.

Dr. Jack Jorden, an ER doctor with Mother Frances, treated patients this past week.

Each Monday MercyWorks will send a new team of medical volunteers to Haiti by MercyWorks, said Debbie Lascelles, director of the Garden Valley ministry. Financial donations and medical volunteers especially will be needed in the weeks to come, she added.

On the ground for the Tyler Courier-Times–Telegraph sending photographs and updates as conditions warrant is Glenn Price, communications director for MercyWorks. Price has been working “16 hours a day” with the team, which includes emergency room doctor Jack Jorden of Trinity Mother Frances Health System in Tyler.

The stressful conditions the team has been working under, and the sheer volume of help yet needed, has taken its toll on the team, who nonetheless continue to do their utmost.

DISPATCH

A “Dispatch From Haiti” by Price sent early Saturday morning describes the woeful scene, some joyful moments and some perspectives gained by MercyWorks team members:

“We were involved in a dramatic rescue today. A young man who had been trapped in the rubble of a vegetable shop for 11 days was discovered. MercyWorks volunteers were the first ones Haitians called upon when they found him. We administered IV and water and did a lot of digging before the Israeli force arrived and got him out. There was also an 89-year-old woman rescued today from the rubble. Truly, it was a ‘Haitian celebration’ day for people desperate for good news.

Our team of 12, consisting mainly of medical personnel, has been working out of the National Police headquarters just one block from the National Palace. The police station was ruined in the earthquake, but there are five rooms still standing in the building. This central location is ideal for helping the injured as many people are brought here for treatment.

The team is daily experiencing the challenges and rewards of stretching outside of our comfort zones.  We see people in our clinic every day who have broken bones, head injuries and deep gashes into their flesh all from rubble from the earthquake falling on them, among other things.

But that is the easy part.  Nearly everyone who comes to us for medical help has lost a family member or more in the tragic quake.  One 22-year-old woman who is three months pregnant lost her mother and father and now has to be the mother to her younger siblings while preparing to have her own baby.  Another young girl lost her parents and now will raise her five younger brothers and sisters — without any house to live in as that was destroyed as well.

The medical team is still processing a number of feelings and thoughts about our time in Haiti this past week.  Some express feelings that what we are doing is so insignificant, just a “drop in the ocean of need.”

Others say they have tried not to be overwhelmed by the suffering so as to make them inadequate to serve.  Dr. Jack Jorden remarked how much he has learned from the Haitians on this trip.

“They have suffered so much and go about their lives without complaining or demanding,” he said.  ”Instead they are grateful for the help they are receiving.”

Emergency Medical Technician Sam Jorden, Jack’s son, had a similar response to what he was seeing.

“This had made me look at life differently,” he said. “I will never see things from the same perspective. I had a ‘bad day’ recently when my dog ate my passport the week before I was to leave for Haiti.  Never again will I complain as much about things that really are so minor.  This trip has redefined for me what a bad day truly looks like.”

People are walking around with surgical masks to keep from smelling the decaying bodies. The stench is particularly bad under collapsed buildings, indicating some or several people were dead beneath the rubble. Many of the streets are still uncleared and not usable.

It is still heartbreaking to see families who have lost everything, now huddled under a tarp. People are desperate for water, for food, for medical treatment, for help of any kind.

The National Palace is still a shock to see one week after the earthquake. The flag of Haiti waves sadly as onlookers come by to stare at their once-prized jewel. For Americans, the closest thing to comprehending how the Haitian people are taking this, is to imagine the White House lying in ruins.

Within spitting distance of the National Palace tent cities have sprung up. People who have nowhere to go sometimes just take a place on the ground as they wait for help. The tent cities are all throughout the capital. People do their cooking, their laundry and everything all out in the open.

The MercyWorks medical team served hundreds of people daily and took time to listen and to pray with those who came for help.  Working with us was Registered Nurse Naomi Jean-Baptiste, a third year Duke medical student originally from Haiti and interested in pursuing International Health.

“I always thought I would visit other countries before ever returning to Haiti,” she said. “But when the earthquake struck, I knew I must go back and do something.  After my trip with MercyWorks, I know I will go back to Haiti again and do something long-term to make a lasting difference.

In the foreseeable future, Mercy Works teams will be helping in Haiti, sending in waves of teams each week. The next team consists of 20 medical staff and will arrive in Haiti on Jan. 27.”

Debbie Lascelles reports on the situation in Haiti and MercyWorks’ initial response to the disaster.

Debbie serves as director of Mercy Works at Youth With A Mission.She has traveled to countries ravished by war, demolished by earthquakes and impoverished by famine.She organizes worldwide relief efforts to help those in need.It is through Christ’s love that she ministers to everyone she meets.Debbie is a member of Marvin UMC and is married to Chris, who also serves as a missionary.

A crowd gathers on Friday, January 22, 2010 on the street near where a young man had been discovered alive, trapped beneath his house.  Some Haitians ran to the nearby YWAM MercyWorks clinic to get help.

At the scene, two YWAMers call for the equipment needed to get the trapped young man out, once it becomes apparent that professional hydraulic equipment will be needed to free him..

MercyWorks Communications Director Glenn Price stands on top of the roof of a nearby house to get the best angle for taking pictures, as well as to keep out of the way of the rescuers.

An Israeli team arrives and immediately begins to take the final steps that will lead to freedom for the trapped man.

At 3:00 p.m. local time, Emmannuel Buso is carried to an ambulance and then taken to an Israeli field hospital.  YWAM MercyWorks team member Joel Kennedy, an EMT from Alberta, Canada, touches Buso with reassurance he is going to make it.

Buso is so pale that his mother thinks her 21-year-old son is a corpse.  Earlier in the day, another stunning rescue happened when an 84-year-old woman was pulled alive from the rubble.

Our team is fine as well as the children and staff at the orphanage we are staying at.  Even though our medical team will not be working at the orphanage or directly with the orphans, because we are staying at the orphanage, we will have time to interact with them all week long by befriending them and playing games with them.  I am also grateful that the orphanage has electricity and internet access!Many people in Port-au-Prince are highly fearful and extremely nervous about the future.  It is a great climate to share with them there is a God who created them and loves them personally.  Tonight and for the rest of the week, we sleep outdoors under a tree.

One week following the killer earthquake in Port-au-Prince, in which some estimates range as high as 150,000 – 200,000 dead, the smell of death is still in the city.  People are walking around with surgical masks on the faces to keep from smelling the decaying bodies.  The stench was particularly bad today under this building, indicating some one or several people were dead beneath the rubble, and they haven’t been dug out yet. It is still heartbreaking to see families who have lost everything now huddled under a tarp.  People are desperate for water, for food, for medical treatment, for help of any kind.

Within spitting distance of the National Palace, tent cities have sprung up.  People who have been displaced and have nowhere else to go have put up tarps or tents, or sometimes just taken a place on the ground as they wait for help. The tent cities are all throughout the capital and even where there are buildings with little or no damage survivors are fearful of entering because of the risk of more earthquakes.  People do their cooking, their laundry, and everything right out in the open. The need for help is enormous as the people suffer from a lack of all the basic essentials for life.

YWAM Tyler’s MercyWorks team of 12, consisting mainly of medical personnel, work out of the National Police headquarters, just one block from the National Palace.  The police station was ruined in the earthquake, but there are five rooms that are still standing in the building.  This central location is ideal for helping the injured as many people are brought here for treatment. wo MercyWorks volunteers, a third year medical student from Duke and an R.N. from Dallas tend to an injured woman inside the National Police headquarters.

What do you think this is?  If you guessed an operating room at the National Police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, you would be right!  YWAM MercyWorks teams will be working here for the foreseeable future, sending in waves of teams every week.  We are so grateful for all the volunteers who have committed themselves to serve with MercyWorks in the months to come. The situation is desperate and the working conditions dangerous as we help heal lives and restore hope here in Haiti.  The next team consists of 20 medical staff and they will arrive in Haiti on Wednesday, January 27. Please keep our teams in your prayers.

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The response effort will be immensely challenging.  The earthquake occurred 45 minutes before the sun set and due to the loss of electricity, people were in total darkness.  Phone service was lost, keeping people from getting in touch with family and friends.  Dozens of aftershocks measuring up to 5.9 kept people awake throughout the night.  Even before the earthquake, there was little to no emergency services in Haiti.  Most of the people survive on less than $2 per day.  Haiti’s envoy to the US described the earthquake as a “catastrophe” and says the damage from the earthquake could run into billions of dollars.

Henry Bahn, a visiting official from the US Department of Agriculture reported just minutes after the earthquake of seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine.  He went on to say “Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken” and described the sky as “just grey with dust.”

We have heard from Terry Snow, our YWAM Haiti national director several times since Tuesday evening’s earthquake.  All the YWAMers in St. Marc and Gonaives are accounted for and buildings received only relatively minor damage so the YWAMers are in a good position to assist in short-term relief as well as long-term response efforts.

Earlier this morning, Snow reported “We were up early to see the video footage and pictures of the Presidential Palace destroyed and so many other buildings.  Communications are still down so we have sent our own assessment team into Port-au-Prince to see the true nature of the devastation and how we can respond.  Haiti has no infrastructure, much less a crisis management team.”

Haiti’s President Rene Preval told the media “Parliament has collapsed.  The tax office has collapsed.  Schools have collapsed.  Hospitals have collapsed.  There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”

The international Red Cross estimates a third of Haiti’s nine million people may need emergency aid and said Haiti’s disaster relief teams are “completely overwhelmed.”  Many people are still trapped in the rubble from the killer quake.  The United Nations reports Port-au-Prince’s main airport is “fully operational”, however roads are filled with rubble and debris and the artery connecting the airport to the city is blocked.  If aid cannot travel over the airport road to Port-au-Prince, it may be rerouted through the Dominican Republic.

Governments and global companies are responding with pledges of financial aid as well as human resources such as rubble-clearing specialists, rescue units of engineers and medics, firefighters, etc.

After hurricane Katrina, which so devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, the people most impacted came to realize it was not government or corporate aid that made the biggest difference, but rather the body of Christ responding in a multi-year commitment long after the cameras and world’s attention shifted elsewhere.

I invite you to be a part of the YWAM MercyWorks response to this devastating loss of life and property by joining a response team and/or by making a generous financial donation.  Your gift will help with the procurement of medicines, food and assisting in the reconstruction and rebuilding efforts.

We will also be needing medical personnel to assist with this effort as well as other volunteers.  We will need grief counselors and construction crews in the days and weeks ahead.  Please contact us if you can go.  Lastly please keep these precious people in your prayers.

MercyWorks brings hope and lasting change to people afflicted by war, famine, extreme poverty and natural disaster.  Now is the time for the body of Christ to rise up and demonstrate our commitment to the suffering poor.