Albany team survives Haiti earthquake
On January 5th St. John's Episcopal Church in Troy, in our link diocese of Albany, sent an eight-member team to install solar panels on a school in Haiti. They were still there when the earthquake struck on 12th January but fortunately all of them have returned safely to the US.
The parish has partnered for 25 years with the Church of the Holy Spirit, an Episcopal parish in Lascohobas, a rural rice farming town of about 5,000 people 50 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince.
Linda Stevens: Mission coordinator, Albany Episcopal Diocese and chair of the Missions Committee at St. John's, takes up the story:
"General Electric donated the 12 solar panels and all the shipping and customs costs, which was worth about $40,000. The team hooked everything up and the computers are working, the lights are working in the classrooms and everyone is so excited. Before going solar, they only had sporadic electricity that was on for maybe an hour each day. Since gas cost $12 a gallon before the earthquake, they couldn't afford to run a generator very long.
"Our members have been very generous to Haiti over the years and we send about $5,000 a year in donations. We've purchased school supplies, musical instruments and raised salaries for the teachers. We've helped improve the quality of the school in many ways, including expanding it to K-12 and a student body of 350 boys and girls. When I first visited, the fourth and fifth-graders were barely reading. This year, every single one of the students in 12th grade passed the national exam. "
Linda has visited Haiti several times and has found it both a rewarding and humbling experience.
"The people at the Church of the Holy Spirit are so poor, yet they're so full of joy in the Lord," she says. "It puts you to shame in some respects because their church services are amazing and filled with music and wonderful prayer. They pray in Creole with such joy in their hearts. We have so much here and yet we kind of sleep through a lot of our religious services. Their worship is absolutely glorious and I feel so uplifted when I'm there.
"We're meeting this week to plan our next mission. We're getting donations that we'll be sending to Lascohobas because they're bracing for a large influx of refugees fleeing quake-damaged Port-au-Prince. That will be a challenge for Lascohobas, which was already struggling before the quake. We're committed to continuing to improve the school because Haiti's never going to change until the education system gets better. That's where we've been able to make a difference."