Local Missionary Speaks About Haitian Disaster

A local missionary who has spent time in Haiti says the devastation left by Tuesday’s earthquake is beyond comprehension.

John Benson has made more than 25 mission trips in the last ten years to Haiti. He is in contact with workers and fellow missionaries currently on the island. He says aide is coming in to the island, but workers don’t have the resources to get the supplies out to the population. Benson says workers with aide and supplies are being torn in many different directions trying to help the masses of people.

"You are going to encounter so many needs of people, of buildings in the road, of bodies, people that will be clamoring for water and food and (they say) ‘help and look at my child’,  ‘look at my mother’ you know all these different things," says Benson.

Benson says workers and missionaries are still pulling people out of the rubble. He recently spoke to a missionary with Cross World’s Mission, based out of Pennsylvania, which operates a school in Haiti. He says when the earthquake struck the school collapsed on the American missionaries and Haitian students.

"They got hit real bad, they were having class in the seminary at the time a two story structure came down and they have students in there and she skyped me this morning at 6:30 and said her husband was already out with another team of workers digging out, they hear noises and they are still digging out students that are trapped in the rubble," says Benson.

Benson says the Haitian people have no food, water or shelter and are basically just waiting for help to arrive. Benson, himself, has already signed up with three different organizations that will send volunteers in to Haiti. A doctor on the island Benson has spoken with believes hundreds of thousands of people perished in the earthquake.

Katie Jeffries

KJeffries@whizmediagroup.com