The Church

Photography by Scot Facer Proctor

Imagine you are a bishop in a ward in Haiti following the recent earthquake that has shaken your congregation to the core.  You are probably young, certainly a first-generation member. 

The Bishop here is the man just under the Church’s title between the two taller men on the left side of the picture.

You look out at a congregation where 80% are probably unemployed and approximately 70% have just lost their homes.  This displacement has made it difficult to get food and stay well.  You know your members are grieving and the little children among them are suddenly idle, since all of their schools have been destroyed. 

Your ward grounds have become a temporary shelter for hundreds of homeless families, and you are in charge to assure that all goes well.

You also know that you belong to a church with a welfare model that works so well that governments seek to learn its principles-and that model works along priesthood lines of authority.  That means your stewardship, working with others who have been called in the ward, stake and area, is to see to the needs of the people, lift their feeble knees, during this time of tremendous personal upheaval.

The general Church programs and officers are there to assist, but in a plan designed to ignite the leadership and potential of each player, you have a responsibility on the front line.  Your goal is to help your members regain their footing.

Oh, and one last thing.  You have lost your home in the recent earthquake, too.

It’s a staggering responsibility, reminiscent of mission impossible, but the priesthood leaders in Haiti are in just that place in the weeks following the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Beans are a staple in the Haitian diet.

The Church has sent down about 500,000 pounds of food and other critical materials in the weeks since the quake and will stay on providing relief for the foreseeable future.  Some of that food and goods goes to the general population as the Church partners with a number of groups including CARE, Food for the Poor, International Relief and Development and many others.  Much of those goods, however, go directly to the members of the Church as the bishops report the needs of their ward.

Caring for their flocks in Haiti, right now, has become nearly a full-time job for priesthood leaders. 

Don’t they just stagger under these loads?

President Francillion has faced near-insurmountable challenges in this disaster.

Gheuthewannha Francillion, President of the Port-au-Prince Haiti North Stake and the Haiti Facilities Director for the Church said, “We know we are leaders.  This is our task.  Leaders should be dedicated to our people.  Sometimes we feel really sad.  Sometimes we feel we will fall down, but when I think about the people, I think I wake up.  This is a hard time, but we have to face it.”

President Francillion especially grieved the loss of one of his home teaching sisters whom he had committed to bring back to full activity in the Church.

The Church lost 41 members in the country, 21 of them in President Francillion’s stake.  Three or four of them were returned missionaries, and one was an inactive sister that he home taught and had vowed to reactivate. However, all the leaders, but the second counselor in the stake Relief Society presidency are living, though several lost their homes.  He said they can and must carry the load.

“You have to help others, and you are a victim also,” he said.

The first thing President Francillion did after the earthquake was to call a friend who lived close to the mission home, who went there, assured that all were safe, and then got a satellite phone.  The Church has a communications network in place long before disasters strike.  As a civil engineer and Church facilities manager, President Francillion called his boss and passed the word along that they would need help-particularly medical assistance.

The next day, the 29-year-old mission president, Kerving H. Joseph, and he borrowed a motorcycle to visit the city and find the missionaries and bring them to the mission home.  They anxiously traveled, seeing the destruction, the wounded, the bleeding, the dying.  They saw people lying on the roads, one would be asleep, the person next to him, would be dead.

They also visited all the church buildings and gave instructions to the members to gather there, where they could find support and help. 

The members were also told to bring what food they had to share.  Generosity is a gift for Haitians.  Even in the best of times, give a Haitian a piece of bread and he’ll share it with 10 of his friends.

Two days later they took 10 bags of rice and two of beans and traveled to ten of the churches to divide and share them with everyone.  It was a small amount for a large number-but it was what they had.

When the first shipments of food arrived from the Church, two days after the earthquake, there was no way to transport it. President Francillion borrowed a truck from a friend, who said he’d be available tomorrow to deliver it.

With hungry people at risk, that wasn’t soon enough for President Francillion, so he loaded the truck at 11:00, awoke in the middle of the night and left for deliveries to the churches where the members were gathered.

President Francillion gets little sleep these days as he sees to the needs of the members.

President Francillion said he never felt frightened, “Personally, I’m never afraid of anything,” but he felt particularly calm because he “knew he was on the Lord’s errand.”

It was harrowing to be out at night in those hours when the earthquake was still fresh.  Rubble, aftershocks and unstable buildings made driving a little like dancing through a mine field.  Dead bodies lay in the streets, including many little children. Those first days after the earthquake were particularly dangerous times to be out and about at night, especially with food.

This drive was like so many others that priesthood leaders would make looking for their ward members, seeking for their safety.

Now the Church distributes food every night to the nine LDS churches in the Port-au-Prince area and to chapels beyond. 

There are 18,000 Church members in Haiti, divided into 27 congregations, two stakes and two districts.  Before the earthquake, the Church was in the process of creating a third stake in Haiti, something that may be delayed now as the leaders respond to the more pressing crisis.

True to patterns already established in the Church, priesthood leaders request what they need for their members and the Church delivers.  What is distributed each night is determined by those requests.

Members, who are receiving this help, load and unload the food each night and help to distribute it as part of their welfare contribution.

Products such as rice and beans are bought locally where they are available.  Transportation is terrible along the congested, broken roads, but that situation is beginning to smooth out.

Temporary medical clinics have been set up at several of the churches, manned by physicians that the Church invited to Haiti and also by some medical people from the Utah Hospital Task force.

President Francillion said that responding to the humanitarian crisis will be in phases.  The first has been locating members, getting them medical help and food, and sheltering them temporarily at the church. 

As these immediate needs are met, priesthood leaders have to help their people find some kind of acceptable shelter, following the normal welfare principles.

Tents, next to food and water, have become the most sought-after commodity in Haiti.

If they have family, with shelter, then the members go there.  If their family is not nearby, priesthood leaders assist members in getting to family.  If the members have no shelter, the Church is trying to provide them the living basics-a tent, a propane stove, a solar panel so they can have electricity to charge their phones and stay in communication with their leaders, basic supplies, including rice and beans.

Meeting these needs, alone, is a very tall order.

Just after the earthquake, six to eight thousand people were staying on the church grounds, but that number is dwindling as people are beginning to find alternative places to stay. 

With the goal of moving everyone to another location instead of the church parking lots, the church leaders have located two pieces of property already owned by the Church and adjacent to ward buildings where church members will be able to stay.

Work is moving rapidly forward on making a secured, lovely space for about 168 families to live in tents here next to the Croix-des-Missions chapel.

One of these pieces of property is behind the Croix-des-Missions chapel, a lovely piece of land that just needs some work to secure it and take out some vegetation so it can accommodate families. 

Yet, even these solutions will not be enough when the rainy season comes in the fall.  Haiti is often in the path of hurricanes, and tents will not be inadequate for people when this weather hits.  A solution for this is still forthcoming.

Meanwhile, bishops are going with a construction crew from the Utah Hospital Task Force house by house in their ward to see if they are safe for members to return to.  Only about 5% of the members of the Church in Haiti owned their own homes even before the earthquake.

President Francillion said that the Church is also moving toward another unique solution.  Nearly all the schools in Haiti were destroyed, and when they will be up and running again, in any semblance, is anyone’s guess, since other needs are so pressing.

When the members have stopped sleeping at church, the buildings will be cleaned up and open again for seminary and institute.

Priesthood leaders do not want their children to be idle or uneducated, though, so they are going a step further.  Wilmer Anicette, who is a member of the bishopric in the Del Mas ward and is an education leader in the Haitian government, is devising a plan to start temporary schools at church until the government schools are available again.

Nate Leishman came to Haiti to get first-hand knowledge of the dire situation.

Nate Leishman, who is the managing director of emergency response for the Church, said that the direct efforts to help the members in Haiti recover from the earthquake will take at least two years. “The Haitian earthquake is one of the biggest disasters to directly affect Church members we have ever seen,” he said.

President Francillion said that the members are discouraged because everyone was touched.  They lost a friend.  They lost a family member.  They lost a home. 

The gospel, however, gives them hope and they have faith, and this makes the disaster a different experience for them than for those who do not have this hope.  He talked to one little boy who lost his sister a year ago, and then his mother died in the earthquake. He said, “I am really sad, but I am OK, because my mother taught me the gospel.”

The congregations are swelling each week with less active members who are returning and people who are looking for life’s meaning.  As we stood on the front porch of the church doing these interviews, a beautiful young woman approached us, “Can you tell me what you mean when you say the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ?”