The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Local missionaries expected home soon from Haiti

Man, 68, drowns at Caesar Creek Lake
5/26/12
Water rescues prompt warning from health officials
5/25/12
Beach Waterpark sued for failure to deliver
5/25/12
Raleigh Trammell’s defense opens in felony trial
5/25/12
UD to move satellite campus to Dublin
5/25/12
> More headlines

By Ken McCall, Staff Writer Updated 4:27 PM Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The news has been good for friends and relatives of the 18 members of CornerStone Dunkard Brethren Church in Covington who had just arrived in Haiti Jan. 12 for a mission trip when the earthquake hit.

All of the 18 on the trip — which included 11 children, some in early grade school — are in good health and looking to head home some time in the next several days, said David Rice, a pastor at the church.

“Most of them were riding in an open truck with all their luggage when this thing hit in the streets, and they were driving through,” Rice said.

The group had gone down to join church member Heather Stauffer, who had been working at the mission 50 miles east of Port-au-Prince since September. Heather was in one of the vehicles that came to pick up the group, which included Heather’s mother, Sheila Stauffer, and brother, Andrew Stauffer. All three Stauffers had previously spent an entire year at the mission, Rice said.

“I think that the Lord’s timing was just perfect that brought them within the hour that it occurred, when Heather was there for her mother and brother to show up when she needed them most,” Rice said. “And that nobody was injured so they were all able-bodied and able to serve people and not have to take care on any injuries to themselves.”

The group was going to work on construction of a hospital at the International Faith Mission’s busy clinic, Rice said, but they have mostly been working on search and rescue and driving injured people to hospitals in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

The mission has also set up a field clinic close to the impoverished nation’s devastated capitol, and the church members have been making the two-hour drive to help at the clinic.

“The roads in Haiti are just a wreck all the time,” Rice said, “so it takes them awhile to get back and forth.”

Rice said his congregation was able to jump in and help this Sunday, when they got a message that the clinic was running out of basic emergency medical supplies. The church learned about two men who were leaving for Haiti early Monday morning and agreed to help.

“Sunday afternoon we put together six suitcases of emergency medical supplies that a lot of us bought quickly in local grocery stores and pharmacies,” Rice said.

They also included some truck parts that one of the members, a mechanic, needed to fix some of the mission’s trucks.

“That got our congregation involved a little more,” Rice said. “We were just pretty excited to be able to ship that down there.”

Rice said an e-mail from Sheila on Wednesday, Jan. 20, mentioned there had been no security issues at the mission compound. “They have not been threatened or in any danger there,” he said.

Rice said most of the group should be returning in the next few days. They’re not sure when, he said, but the church is anxiously awaiting their return.

“We’ve just all been so involved in prayer and thinking about them and e-mails going back and forth,” Rice said. “Of course we’ll be relieved to get them back, and excited to hear the tales of their experience.”

Share this article