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Fallen colleagues remembered at Hotel Montana


Melissa Crutchfield of UMCOR walks past the wreckage of the Montana Hotel
on her way to a memorial service for the Revs. Sam Dixon and Clinton Rabb. 
UMNS photos by Mike DuBose. 

By Kathy L. Gilbert*
12:15 PM EST Jan. 23, 2010 | PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (UMNS)

Walking up the curving driveway to the Hotel Montana, Melissa Crutchfield stopped several time to pick flowers.

Crutchfield, United Methodist Committee on Relief international disaster response director, was on her way to a memorial service for two United Methodist executives and friends who died in the hotel after being trapped inside during the earthquake that hit Jan. 12.


The president of the Methodist
Church of Haiti leads a memorial
service at the Hotel Montana.  
 

The Rev. Sam Dixon, top executive of UMCOR, and the Rev. Clinton Rabb, executive with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, both died from their injuries. The Jan. 22 memorial service occurred at the same time a funeral service for Dixon was taking place in Raleigh, N.C. Rabb is being remembered Jan. 23 in a service in Austin, Texas.

Dixon and Rabb went to Haiti to discuss projects to improve life in the impoverished island nation. They were in the hotel when the quake hit. Both men were trapped for several days in the rubble before rescuers found them. The initial elation at their discovery turned to grief when neither mission worker survived.

“This time last week, we thought they were alive,” Sharad Aggarwal, another colleague from UMCOR, as he walked inside the hotel gates to the service.

The Rev. Gesner Paul, president of the Methodist Church of Haiti, and the Rev. Marlo Despestra, also an official with the church, coordinated the service that was attended by Crutchfield, Aggarwal and the Rev. Edgar Avitia Legarda, an executive with the mission agency. The three are in Haiti preparing the way for UMCOR to respond to the aftermath of the earthquake.

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The private service began with the singing of “Amazing Grace.” While Paul prayed, a search and rescue team was still working to recover bodies from the rubble.

“They came to help us,” Despestra said. “It must have been a very painful time, they must have suffered a lot. We don’t understand why or ask God why. The God who created us is with us now.”

The small gathering said The Lord’s Prayer together.

“We commit their souls to God and his Son. We know one day we will have the privilege of being with them in heaven,” Paul said. “The Methodist Church in Haiti is grateful for their service.”

Crutchfield left the small bouquet of pink, white and red flowers on the rubble.

*Gilbert is a news writer for the United Methodist News Service on assignment in Haiti.

News media contact: David Briggs, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

slideshow

Photos from team in Haiti

Related Articles

Remembering the lives of Sam Dixon and Clint Rabb

UMCOR’s Sam Dixon remembered for life of service

Mission agency’s Clinton Rabb dies of earthquake-related injuries

Haitian Methodists and UMCOR size up needs

Earthquake in Haiti: The Church Responds

Resources

United Methodist Committee on Relief

UMCOR: Haiti Emergency

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