Today, as Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches, I call us all to be awake in prayer, even as Lent begins and the world cries out.  On 11 March 2011, a devastating 8.9 earthquake hit Japan, the 5^th largest in history. At this time, tsunamis are still reaching Hawaii, and are about to hit the West Coast of the U.S., and will also hit Central and South America. At this time, we have no idea how severe those waves will be.

We pray for all people in the aftermath of the earthquake and in the paths of the waves today, for our MCCer’s in the Philippines, in Hawaii, and on the coast of the western hemisphere:

“God of grace and mercy, we call upon you now, as stiller of the storm, as our refuge and strength. We hear, Jesus, your cry of “Peace, be still,” as you spoke to the storm so long ago. Bring Your people together as one, in this holy season, and in this time of great need in so many places in the earth. Help us to unite in prayer, and in our actions, for those of our brothers and sisters today who are in harm’s way for any reason. Make us instruments of your peace, justice and love. In Your Holy and Precious Name we pray, Amen.

Grace and Peace,

+Nancy

Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson

Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches

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Today the death toll still stands at 166 souls. The focus has shifted from a recovery of life, to a search for the dead who still remain in the buildings of the inner city of Christchurch. There is also a house by house search spreading through the suburbs which will take many days as homes have collapsed and it is unsure how many people may lie within them.

The cordons within the central city have been reduced, resulting in a gridlock of traffic of inner city residents trying to recover belonging, citizens hoping to recover vehicles which were abandoned and businesses trying to recover computers and any stock that can be accessed. I am on the edge of the Red zone (the complete no-go area) and at present have a fence across one end of the street, and a demolition crew taking a large building down at the other end. There is a small alleyway which I am able to get down from a side street which I am grateful for. There is still concern for the 27 story Hotel Grand Chancellor which is leaning due to the foundations dropping over a metre in one corner of the building, and also other multi-level buildings which are also leaning as well. It is thought that is the Grand Chancellor falls it will cause as much shaking as the Feb 22nd quake in the area that I live in and come down on a full city block. I look out my bedroom window at it after each aftershock just to check!

There is a huge push in the construction of small porta-cabins to provide accommodation for the homes which have been red-stickered. As Autumn approaches and the weather cools this is becoming more important as some residents are living in car-garages, tents and homes which are not weather tight. Campervans and motor homes are also being used as accommodation for many people and two areas have been identified to set up temporary villages. There are a couple of suburbs which may not be allowed to be built on as the land will be too difficult to remediate, and so some hard decisions on who this will affect, and where new suburbs can be safely developed will be made over the next few weeks. The historic buildings which cannot safely be entered will be demolished, which includes the majority of our main street in the centre of town.

Water and sewage is still a key issue and over 30,000 chemical toilets and 2,500 porta-loos being distributed around the city as they arrive. Water continues to come and go, and diesel generators and being placed around town to support the fragile electricity network. A generator is planned for our street due to the damage to the local transformer.

Over 60,000 people have fled the city and wonderful support is being given to them from local towns and communities. The MCC community is coping well, we have managed a grocery run for as many as we are able, which took several hours due to the difficulties in traffic flow and damage to streets. The eastern suburbs now have three supermarkets open, although around four are too damaged to re-open and assessments on a further three are still awaiting. Welfare centres are open for people access emergency services including counselling services. The Nancy Ave Worship centre seems intact from the outside, however has yet to be inspected properly. We continue to hold gatherings at the home of Marion Wilson (worship leader) to keep our community in contact. There are some difficulties with roads and lack of public transport for some to get around, but people are keeping in touch through cell phones and email.

Around 6,000 people have been identified as having lost jobs due to damage to workplaces and as the reality of the situation and inability to get businesses running due to the loss of infrastructure the number of unemployed will rise significantly.

Most days we have several aftershocks with many in the low to mid 4’s on the Richter Scale. This is causing ongoing stress to most people and we are all on an emotional roller coaster.

To the ongoing messages of support, we all give a huge amount of thanks. If people would like to donate to the earthquake relief you can either donate online to the NZ Red Cross through their website, or make a payment to the CRAVE MCC Christchurch bank account details of which can be found on our website www.cravemcc.com/christchurch

Money being donated directly to CRAVE MC Christchurch is being used to provide emergency groceries, pay for transport, emergency repairs to homes and other support requirements that are otherwise not available.

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We returned from Haiti to the Dominican Republic this (7 June 2010) afternoon.

The trip to Haiti was a very challenging one, and even dangerous. We intended to visit the tent camps to provide tents to families still without them. (“Tents” in most of the camps refers to shelters made of bed sheets and sticks. We are providing real tents from MCC.) While walking thru the first camp, people started to gather around us. The crowd became so large and pressing that our group was scattered. Because of the crowd, it was dificult to figure out how to get back to the bus.

The people in the crowd were very angry and very loud. I could not understand what they were telling me, but they pointed to their stomachs, leading me to believe that they must have been very hungry.

I was escorted to the fire station nearby for protection by Gito, one of our group members. As the crowd followed me and Gito, others in our group were able to get clear and back to the bus.

Following the incident at the first camp, we changed tactics. We took the bus to a school in which we had taken up lodging and locked the gate. We then walked to the smaller tent camps that were near the school. We were able to identify many families that needed tents. We provided these families with a ticket to obtain food and a tent from the school and sent them back to the school to retrieve their resources. This worked for a little while.

When people in that neighborhood saw people coming out of the school with food and tents they climbed the school protective wall and, very soon, we had another big crowd around the bus. We had two police officers with us at the school for our protetion, and were able to distribute food and tents to everyone who received a ticket from our group. Once the food was all gone, we hurried to leave the schoolyard. People were so desperate that they were not understanding that we were out of food.

We still have 10 tents to distribute on our next trip.  For our next trip, which will likely require the last of our funding, we plan to send two delegates to Haiti before the mission trip to choose one of the small camps where all the tents are made of bed sheets (30 to 40 tents). We expect to be able to upgrade that with real tents. Our delegates will talk with that community and tell them our plan so that they know ahead of time that there will be help for everybody. Hopefully, the people in the camp will help us stay organized and safe.

I am hopeful that MCC will be able to provide more funding for resources here in order for us to continue aid to these people.

Things in Haiti are still very bad. People are not getting food and many of them are sleeping on the mud because of the rain. There has been no real progress on providing the people with what they need to survive this. Instead, the only visible progress for this area is the removal of rubble in the streets for easier travel.

(Rev.) Tania

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June 3, 2010 we will make our third relief trip to Haiti.

We will be taking food items for 30 families and tents for forty families.  Our plan this time is to go to one of the tent camps and provide real tents to those who have tried to make tents out of sticks and bed sheets.

We also plan to distribute the food in the same camp area.  Also, again, we will be taking medicine to POZ.

MCC asks for your prayers as this journey begins.  Pray for safe travels and abundance in distribution of resources to our siblings in Haiti!

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12 February 2010

We have just arrived back in the Dominican Republic and are exhausted from the events of the day.

The team of five volunteers and three drivers from ICM Santo Domingo departed for Haiti at 4am on Thursday, February 11^th.  From the church were Rev. Tania Guzman, Wilkin and three Haitian church members (Webster, Gregory and Jonel) who are very familiar with navigating Haiti and whose families still live in the areas affected by the earthquake.

We developed a very effective system that involved having the church members contact their families and select one person for us to deliver the food to.  When we approached the drop off points, we contacted the individuals via cell phone.  Once we arrived at each point of delivery the contact person was already there waiting for us and we only had seconds to get all the food out of the bus and leave before we were noticed and crowds would gather.

Each person receiving the delivery was so grateful and happy and blessed our efforts and the journey.

When we arrived, we were greeted by friends of our church members who arranged to met us and helped us make the deliveries.  As it turned out, 2 of these friends are members of POZ, the GLBT organization that was meeting during the earthquake and lost some of their members in the building collapse.  They were so grateful and touched by the church’s efforts to help.  I will provide more detailed information later regarding this organization and ways to help them further.

We wanted to capture photos to share with the world but it was difficult because we had to move so quickly.  We hope that our stories will suffice.  It was bittersweet for our Haitian church members  because they could only see their loved ones for the few moments we were unloading things for them.  Their parents wanted to hold on to them, but we only had what felt like seconds to be with them and then we had to let go.

We were able to make deliveries to 22 families and had more food left which we just handed out to people on the street very quickly as we drove through some of the affected areas.

I have been following the situation in Haiti through the news media since the disaster happened, but it was hard to actually be there and see the devastation with my own eyes.  There were tents everywhere; in public areas, even on the medians of what were once very busy streets.  Most of them are not even real tents but bed sheets and pieces of fabric.  There is still a lot of chaos and unrest and the streets were filled with  thousands of people who were in desperate need of food and relief.

This experience was overwhelming.  Our hearts went out to those that we were able to assist.  This was a life changing experience for each of us.

We still have funds remaining and we were able to do a lot of bargaining for things because we want to continue to help where we can.  It was the consensus of our group that we need to make another trip, this time with tents and tarps so that they can have shelter from the elements.

Thank you MCC for all of your support in making this relief effort possible.  Please continue to hold us and the people of Haiti in your hearts and prayers.

Blessings,

Rev. Tania Guzman

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14th January, 2010 – Posted by NWilsonadmin –

I woke up this morning, thinking of people in Haiti who spent the night on the streets. Having survived a horrific earthquake in Los Angeles, January 17, 1994, I know the terror of an earthquake. But, we had retro-fitting, infrastructure, water, shelter, and easy access to medical care and heavy equipment. When our church collapsed, at least our members, most of them, had a place to sleep, water to drink, and realtive safety.

All that is missing in Haiti. I woke up feeling helpless this am

Hopefully, you have seen the MCC email blast, and that we are activating our Disaster Relief Fund today, and working with our pastor in the Dominican Republic, Rev. Tania Guzman, as they minister to our people there, many of whom are Haitians, or have family in Haiti. We will do everything we can in the coming days to use those funds, 100%, to help the people of Haiti, and our community that is one of our new church plants and anchors in the Caribbean. If you have not visited the MCC website, do that today!

I think of the UN personnell, the peacekeeping forces, so many dead.  People working in AIDS agencies, the Catholic Archbishop, dead. So many of who could help, are dead or injured, in a time where every minute counts.

It is also so outrageous to hear people like Pat Robertson perpetuate racist myths about “pacts with the devil.”  The “curse” on Haiti is not one they put on themselves, but it the tragic legacy of slavery, colonialism and continued economic exploitation, and religious sanction of the same. Shame on those who would heap coals of ignorance and conempt on the heads of those suffering so much right now.

My prayer is that Haiti has finally hit bottom. That the international community will rise up, and rebuild a Haiti that is sustainable, healthy and whole.

This is the worst disaster, perhaps ever, in the Western Hemisphere. All eyes are on that little island. In the 21st centtury, we cannot turn away, the tv cameras are everywhere, and we cannot pretend not to see the suffering. May we be committed to ending the suffering, as a test of our humanity, and for those of us who claim to be Christian, as a committment to Jesus in “the least (most vulnerable) of there.

Thanks, MCC, for all of you who called and emailed us yesterday asking how you or your church could help. We can step up today!

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Office of the Moderator

For Immediate Release:  15 January 2010

from Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches

Click Here to Read More and Join MCC’s Efforts!

…or Give NOW to support this effort!

Click Here.)

Mr. Robertson’s comments tear at the very heart of the Haitian people, misrepresenting their history and using this horrific earthly disaster as fodder for prejudice and religious propoganda.

In a strong statement against this perspective of God’s activity in the world, MCC pastor Rev. Edgard Francisco offers a plea for understanding, support, and aid for suffering communities in Haiti.

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Introduction

Pat Robertson, the chief spokesperson of the “700 Club” made comments in regard to the earthquake and devastation in Haiti. Robertson’s comments included the following: “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it…They were under the heel of the French…And they got together and swore a pact to the devil…ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” (For the full text of Robertson’s statement, Click Here.)

Mr. Robertson’s comments tear at the very heart of the Haitian people, misrepresenting their history and using this horrific earthly disaster as fodder for prejudice and religious propoganda. Akin to his statements regarding the “reasons” for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, these latest comments by Robertson continue to spread a notion of God’s punishing activities through earthly disasters.

In a strong statement against this perspective of God’s activity in the world, MCC pastor Rev. Edgard Francisco offers a plea for understanding, support, and aid for suffering communities in Haiti.

Statement written by Rev. Edgard Francisco, MCC New York

The Mystery of the Incarnation (Emmanuel, God with Us) points toward this truth: Whenever we are in pain – in our bodies and souls – God is also in pain.

Today God cries with the people of Haiti. Today God is in pain.

And today I am embarrassed by Christian leaders who say the earthquake that has devastated Haiti is the result of people making “a pact with the devil.” The Rev. Pat Robertson expressed on national television:

“They (Haitians) were under the heel of the French…and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you’…and so, the devil said ‘Okay, it’s a deal’ and kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

Haiti is a country of descendants of African slaves who fought against the domination of oppressive forces, like the Hebrew people fought against slavery in the land of Egypt. To say that African slaves got their freedom because they made a pact with the devil demonizes not only African descendants but all those who fight against any oppression. Rev. Robertson’s expressions are not only insensitive and un-Christian but also carry with them undertones of racism.

NO! God didn’t punish or curse Haiti!

Tectonic plates moved and caused the earthquake.

The Christian response to such a natural disaster is not to demonize our brothers and sisters in Haiti but to find ways to support them.

Please read the Action Alert (here) and respond in the name of God.

Rev. Edgard Francisco
Metropolitan Community Church of New York

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