Haiti. These days since January 12, 2010, that single word encompasses the entire spectrum of human emotion, human frailty, and human suffering. The powerful 7.0 earthquake that has taken nearly 200,000 lives in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has spurred most of the world into a relief effort that has begun to rival the one following the Indian Ocean Tsunami of Dec. 2004, in which 204,000 people lost their lives.

Those of you who were in church on Sunday, January 24, witnessed the first sermon that I have preached in my 12 years of ministry that was accompanied by a slide presentation. We as the family of faith and the body of Christ here at Ascension Lutheran Church witnessed together the devastation and heartache that rocked Port Au Prince and the surrounding countryside. We viewed pictures of the makeshift tent cities that have cropped up around the country, mostly just boards or sticks with sheets for a roof. These fragile structures will be no match for the rains that are about to start as their rainy season approaches. We saw bodies, many of them, some laying in piles in the street, some crushed under tons of concrete. We saw children, helpless victims, some receiving medical treatment, some waiting for aid to arrive. We saw people praying for help to come, praying for the loved ones they had lost, and praying for ways to survive in the aftermath of the earthquake and its continuing aftershocks.

And we as a congregation responded with our prayers and with our resources. $1,963.00 was collected to be sent to Thrivent Financial for Lutherans to be matched 50-cents on the dollar, to make a total of nearly $3,000.00 to be sent to the people of Haiti so that they know their Christian brothers and sisters who live in the richest country in the Western Hemisphere care about them very deeply.

Our help to Haiti will continue as long as I am your pastor. I cannot stop thinking about the many ways that we will be able to help the people that live less than 1,000 miles southeast of us. We just delivered about 200 quilts to Lutheran World Relief and we hope that many of these will find their way to Haiti.

Keep praying for the people of Haiti. Keep sending your donations, because the need will continue for years into the future.

Also, take a few moments to read the article that I have included in this newsletter that describes Haiti’s particular vulnerability to even the slightest amount of rainfall.

Situated where it is, Haiti has a history of being hit by hurricanes from July-October.

By Jeffrey Masters, Ph.D. — Director of Meteorology, Weather Underground, Inc.
In many ways, the hurricane season of 2008 was the cruelest ever experienced in Haiti. Four storms--Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike--dumped heavy rains on the impoverished nation. The rugged hillsides, stripped bare of 98% of their forest cover thanks to deforestation, let flood waters rampage into large areas of the country. Particularly hard-hit was Gonaives, the fourth largest city. According to reliefweb.org, Haiti suffered 793 killed, with 310 missing and another 593 injured. The hurricanes destroyed 22,702 homes and damaged another 84,625. About 800,000 people were affected--8% of Haiti's total population. The flood wiped out 70% of Haiti's crops, resulting in dozens of deaths of children due to malnutrition in the months following the storms. Damage was estimated at over $1 billion, the costliest natural disaster in Haitian history. The damage amounted to over 5% of the country's $17 billion GDP, a staggering blow for a nation so poor.

Figure 1. The flooded city of Gonaives after Hurricane Hanna, September 3, 2008. Image credit: Lambi Fund of Haiti.
The year 2008 was only one of many years hurricane have brought untold misery to Haiti. Hurricane Jeanne of 2004 passed just north of the country as a tropical storm, dumping 13 inches of rains on the nation's northern mountains. The resulting floods killed over 3000 people, mostly in the town of Gonaives. Jeanne ranks as the 12th deadliest hurricane of all time on the list of the 30 most deadly Atlantic hurricanes . Unfortunately for Haiti, its name appears several times on this list. Hurricane Flora killed over 8000 people in 1963, making it the 6th most deadly hurricane ever. An unnamed 1935 storm killed over 2000, and Hurricane Hazel killed over 1000 in 1954. More recently, Hurricane Gordon killed over 1000 Haitians in 1994, and in 1998, Hurricane Georges killed over 400 while destroying 80% of all the crops in the country.

Hurricane Georges Approaching Haiti: September 22, 1998
Why does Haiti suffer a seemingly disproportionate number of natural disasters? The answer in that in large part, these are not natural disasters--they are human-caused disasters. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. With oil too expensive for the impoverished nation, charcoal from burnt trees has provided 85% or more of the energy in Haiti for decades. As a result, Haiti's 8 million poor have relentlessly hunted and chopped down huge amounts of forest, leaving denuded mountain slopes that rainwater washes down unimpeded. Back in 1980, Haiti still had 25% of its forests, allowing the nation to withstand heavy rain events like 1987's Category 3 Hurricane Emily, without loss of life. But as of 2004, only 1.4% of Haiti's forests remained. Jeanne and Gordon were not even hurricanes--merely strong tropical storms--when they stuck Haiti, but the almost total lack of tree cover contributed to the devastating floods that killed thousands. And it doesn't even take a tropical storm to devastate Haiti--in May of 2004, three days of heavy rains from a tropical disturbance dumped more than 18 inches of rain in the mountains, triggering floods that killed over 2600 people.
What can be done to reduce these human-worsened natural disasters? Education and poverty eradication are critical to improving things. In addition, reforestation efforts and promotion of alternative fuels are needed.
In the past two decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development has planted some 60 million trees, while an estimated 10 to 20 million of these are cut down each year, according to the USAID director in Haiti, David Adams. If you're looking for a promising way to make a charitable donation to help Haitian flood victims, considering sending a check to the Lambi Fund of Haiti, which is very active in promoting reforestation efforts, use of alternative fuels, and infrastructure improvements at a grass-roots level to help avert future flood disasters.