This story, along with many others at CommissionStories.com gives a telling picture of the day-to-day realities in disaster areas around the world. Volunteers are there making a difference.

‘No bottled answers:’
Haitians ask volunteers ‘what do I do’ now?
Staff
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What do I do?” the Haitian man asked helplessly. The Jan. 12 earthquake had destroyed his home and taken the lives of his wife and two children. He was living out of a suitcase.

Butch Vernon, pastor of Thoroughbred Community Church in Nicholasville, Ky., struggled to answer the man’s question. Vernon was in Haiti as a volunteer with a Kentucky Baptist disaster relief team.

“I’m not asked that question a lot back in the States, you know?” said Vernon, his voice cracking with emotion.

“It’s not one of those deals where you can say, ‘take two [Bible] verses and call me in the morning. It’s the only time I’m going to see that guy, and there are no bottled answers.

“I prayed with him and I hugged him, and we gave him some medicine that won’t fix [his problems], but it made him feel better,” he added. “We’re seeing a lot of that.”

Teams on the ground in Haiti
From Jan. 31 to Feb. 8, Vernon and the Kentucky team joined forces with a Mississippi Baptist disaster relief team. They were part of a coordinated effort among the Florida Baptist Convention, which has a long-standing relationship with Haitian Baptists; Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist relief and development agency; the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board.

The toughest part for a volunteer is accepting that you can’t help everyone, said Daniel Edney, who directed the medical response efforts with the Mississippi disaster relief team.

“But we can take care of those who God puts in front of us,” said Edney, a member of First Baptist Church, Vicksburg, Miss., who had led relief teams in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and in South Asia after the tsunami.

“When those you help walk out with a smile on their face, you know you’ve done something.”

When the Mississippi volunteers pulled up to a church on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, they were surprised to see people praising and worshipping God — so many of them were struggling to get by without food and water.

“It was a neat thing to drive up and hear them singing and praising the Lord and worshipping,” said Kay Cassibry, Mississippi’s state WMU executive director who led the 10-member relief team.

“They have been so receptive,” added Cassibry, a member of Highland Colony Baptist Church in Ridgeland. “People do not know us, but they are receptive to our hugs and everything.”

Many helped during week
During the week, the Mississippi team helped at makeshift medical clinics and saw more than 1,100 patients.

“We have treated all kinds of things,” said Cassibry, while walking through one of the clinics. “There were a lot of respiratory problems, a lot of infection. We had to set a couple of bones.

“We’ve got a guy on an IV,” she added. “He asked for a Bible as soon as he woke up. We were pretty excited about that.”

For Hester Pitts, another Mississippi volunteer, the biggest blessings were the thank you letters she received from Haitians.

“I know what it means for us to be here,” said Pitts, a member of First Baptist Church of Vicksburg, “but [these letters are] tangible evidence of what it means for them.”

Pitts admitted her life-changing trip to Haiti was almost a missed opportunity.

Vacation interrupted to serve
She was on vacation with her husband, Kerry, and two other couples in Tampa, Fla., when she was contacted about joining the relief team. Pitts — a retired medical technologist — admitted she wanted to wait until later to volunteer, but she couldn’t shake her burden for Haiti.

Pitts agreed to go to Haiti immediately and asked others in her vacation group if they wanted to join her. One of her friends, David Baldwin, broke down in tears.

“He said, ‘Hester, I’ve been sitting here praying that God would open that door for me to go,’” Pitts said. “I could not believe it.”

Within two hours, the couples were on the road back to Mississippi so that Baldwin and Pitts could prepare for their trip. For Pitts, giving up her vacation was an opportunity of a lifetime.

“I’m just thankful that I didn’t miss the experience,” she said. “I came so close to telling God ‘no.’”