3 Months After Quake, People Lean On Their Faith

The longtime Haiti missionary rushed to the front door of his Port-au-Prince home yelling, "Jesus help us! Jesus help us!" He grabbed the reluctant arm of his wife, Dorothy, and the couple fled their home as it rippled like an angry accordion from floor to ceiling.

The Jan. 12 earthquake seemed like a s-l-o-w motion eternity, but it lasted less than a minute. Once outside, after the trembling stopped, they heard a neighbor's voice from the distance: "Is anyone dead?"

No, no one died in their home. Jesus must have listened. But Smith, a California native, knew immediately a major earthquake had just hit his city. "This is a country of never-ending problems, but this problem is massive," he thought to himself while searching for survivors.

Native Haitians had no such point of reference.

"They thought the world was coming to an end," said Smith, who has lived in Haiti for 20 years.

While his Haitian neighbors panicked, running up and down the street praising God for saving their lives, Smith turned his front patio into a makeshift medical triage site.

Without any electrical power, a cell phone signal, or help on its way, Smith borrowed a neighbor's satellite phone. He shot off two quick e-mails: One to his daughter who lives in Florida, and the other to his employer, writing, "All Assemblies of God missionaries are safe."

He and his wife then stayed the night in their vehicle at a school parking lot.

For two weeks after the quake, Smith didn't venture into the city's other areas that were hit harder. He knew what he would find amid the rubble -- tens of thousands of dead bodies, some still entombed to this day. He later turned his spacious home into a temporary shelter, catering to the injured, confused, or terrified survivors."They were afraid to go back home," Smith said. "And most of them had no home to go back to."

Welcome to Haiti, three months after an estimated quarter-million Haitians were killed and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. On April 10, I arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport with two backpacks, several note pads, tape recorder, camera, and no idea what I was about to witness.

"Taxi? Taxi?" yelled a Haitian man as he grabbed one of my backpacks.

"No, no, no!" I yelled, yanking it back from his grip.

The airport is more like an airfield, with just one runway and a dilapidated building housing passengers mostly in a hurry to wait. Outside, it was already steamy and humid at 8 a.m. Sweat began dripping down my forehead.

Hundreds of Haitians converged around an iron gate, watching new guests and fellow countrymen emerge from the exit.

They spoke quickly in Creole (a mixture of French and West African languages), leaving me to guess what they were saying. But some knew quite well how to say "help me" in English with their hand out.

The popular phrase "culture shock" is a laughable understatement in this (barely) developing country.

Finally, a recognizable face and voice: "Jerry, Jerry!" screamed Christian Rath of Crown Point, my only contact in that country.

Rath, a deacon with Living Hope Church in Merrillville, rushed to me and took care of a passport problem I had with security. Born in France and raised in Italy, he speaks several languages fluently.

We then hustled to his rental vehicle, a four-wheel-drive Nissan Patrol SUV, guarded by an armed Haitian -- for a $1 "tip."

This is how things are done here and I quickly learned that a pocketful of singles is essential to get around Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital. An English-speaking taxi driver could make a killing here, I thought while Rath hit the accelerator into bumper-to-bumper traffic and a sea of displaced Haitians. I buckled up for the ride of my life.