After the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, United Methodists across the connection responded with money and volunteers.
In late February this year, a team from United Methodist
Communications went to Haiti to look at ways in which life has
improved. This is part of a series about what that team found.
A UMNS Report
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
7:00 A.M. ET, March 21, 2013 | PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
Jean Claude Degazon rebuilt his home in Port-au-Prince with help from
the Haiti Home Assistance Program. Fifteen family members live in the
newly reconstructed home. UMNS photos by Mike DuBose.
View in Photo Gallery
Jean Claude Degazon and 15 members of his family live in a cement-block, four-room house, and they couldn’t be happier.
The $10,000 home features a tiny, charcoal-burning kitchen — which
is basically a small table with some pots and pans — a narrow room with
a toilet, and crazy, steep, metal stairs that lead to an amazing view
on the roof. If you squint, you can see the ocean and mountains in the
distance. On a U.S. home-improvement television show, it would be called
it a “million-dollar view.”
There are no doors. There is no electricity and no water. However,
Degazon and his mother, Andrea Bonsoir, 80, couldn’t keep smiles off
their faces as they proudly showed their home to visitors.
Degazon knows he has been blessed.
He is one of 17 longtime staff members of the Methodist Guest House who lost their homes in the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake and qualified for a project created to help guesthouse staff.
The Rev. Tom Vencuss (left) and Bill Borah visit with Jean Claude
Degazon (center) in his rebuilt home. Juliet Degazon (right) and Nana,
2, are among 15 family members who live in the home.
View in Photo Gallery
During that time, volunteers and guesthouse staff have made lasting
friendships. As they neared the end of the three-year commitment, some
volunteers thought it was time to help the people who have helped them
so much.
“We have staff coming in here (the guesthouse) and working hard
every day without a home to go to at the end of the day,” Vencuss said.
“This is the church at its best; this is when we got it right.”
Bill Borah, a United Methodist volunteer, took on the task of
writing a proposal to UMCOR in January 2012 to find a permanent housing
solution for the Methodist Guest House staff members. He also oversees
the project. The Haiti Home Assistance Project is funded separately
from the Haiti Response Plan.
Borah said it is the homeowner’s responsibility to design and build
his or her own house with $10,000. The homeowners act as their own
contractors. Degazon is the first staff member to complete his house.
‘I talked to God’
Degazon has a harrowing tale of survival.
He was buried in the rubble of the eye clinic in Petit-Goâve. Jean Arnwine, a volunteer from Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, lost her life when the clinic collapsed.
“It was very painful to us that one of the nurses died,” he said. “They were here to help.”
He said that when the eye clinic collapsed,
he could only move one arm and hand, the one with his cell phone. He
said God kept telling him “you can do something.” So he stuck his hand
out, and a friend pulled him free. Together, they directed rescue
workers to the site to pull out other team members.
When he made his way back to Port-au-Prince, he saw his home had collapsed, but none of his family was inside at the time.
He started experiencing bad headaches and neck pain and went to a
doctor for treatment. “The doctor said, ‘Jean Claude, with this injury
you should be dead or paralyzed.’” The doctor scheduled him for
surgery.
But, once again, Degazon said, he talked to God.
“I woke up with no pain. When I went back, the doctor could not find
the injury,” he said. His doctor sent him to three other doctors to
confirm what he was seeing.
“I lost many friends,” he said. But “God is always good.”
*Gilbert is a multimedia reporter for the young adult content team at United Methodist Communications, Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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