Pilots carry people out, bring supplies into Haiti
A
UMNS Report
By the Rev. Kathy Noble*
UPDATED 2:15 PM | Jan. 20, 2010
Volunteer pilots working with groups such as Bahamas Methodist
Habitat are making several flights a day to Haiti taking people out and
carrying medical supplies and relief workers into the country.
UMNS Photos courtesy of Bahamas Methodist Habitat.
Abraham McIntyre was at home in Eleuthera, Bahamas, when he learned that
a major earthquake had occurred in Haiti. The concern that a tsunami
might flood the Bahamas was among his first thoughts.
McIntyre initially expected the quake to have little effect on the
mission he directs, Bahamas Methodist Habitat. The organization usually
flies volunteers to construction and medical mission sites throughout
the islands.
That changed within hours when he received a call from the
organization’s treasurer, Steve Merritt of Cary, N.C., asking, “’How
fast can you get to Haiti?’ I went from apathetic to full on, and
haven’t stopped since,” he says.
Since Jan. 15, McIntyre and his staff have coordinated flights
evacuating missionaries and mission teams and helping relief workers and
medical supplies reach Haiti.
On Monday, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries executives
Edgar Avitia and Melissa Crutchfield, executive staff with the United
Methodist Committee on Relief, arrived in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic, on a flight coordinated by McIntyre. The two will travel into
Haiti from the Dominican Republic to assess needs and determine future
action.
UMCOR is among many organizations with which Bahamas Methodist
Habitat is partnering. McIntyre says he told UMCOR’s Tom Hazelwood,
“Whatever you need, we’ve got planes, we’ve got pilots; wherever you
need to go, when you need to go, we’ll get you there.”
Facebook saving lives
Chief pilot Matt Hansen of Atlanta and long-term
volunteer Cameron King, who is based in Eleuthera, as well as other
volunteer pilots from the United States and Canada, are flying
small-engine planes into Cap-Hatien, Jeremie and Les Cayes. Donations
are buying fuel. Odyssey Aviation, a private terminal at the Nassau
International Airport, is providing a “command center” – and hospitality
for the evacuees.
McIntyre’s parents, the Rev. David and Patty McIntyre of Nashville,
were visiting their son when the quake occurred. Patty McIntyre is
supervising an informal guesthouse at Queens College in Nassau where
five Bahamas Methodist Habitat staff and three or four pilots stay each
night. David McIntyre reported that on Tuesday, Bahamian Prime Minister
Hubert Ingram cited the organization as a leader in the Bahamas’ effort
to aid Haiti.
Bahamas Methodist Habitat is arranging for pilots to
fly in and
out of Haiti.
|
A Facebook posting on Thursday night led to the first flight to
Port-au-Prince. Abraham's sister, Ingrid McIntyre of Nashville,
asked if he could help after she read of the difficulty Pam Carter, a
mission volunteer from Charlotte, N.C., was having leaving the
country. Arrangements were made to evacuate the group on Friday. A
C-130 cargo pilot helped obtain clearance for landing in Port-au-Prince.
After circling the airport for three hours, King landed and learned
the group had already left. On Hazelwood’s advice, she found a family
that had been on vacation and carried them back to Nassau.
On Saturday, McIntyre says, “we started to make a difference.”
Through Facebook and texting, he has told the world that his
organization is ready to help evacuate missionaries and others from
Haiti. Requests have been steady. He learns about supplies needing
transport in the same way.
“Between Facebook and texting, we are really making a difference,” he
says. “Much as I hated Facebook at first, it’s really saving lives.”
By late Monday evening, the pilots, some flying their own planes, had
ferried close to 70 people to Nassau for flights back to the United
States. They included a United Methodist team from Clayton, N.C., and
one from the Detroit Annual (regional) Conference.
Volunteer stays
The supplies flown in have allowed at least one medical mission
volunteer to remain in the country. Ann Jordan Reynolds of Montgomery,
Ala., is working with “Partners in Health.” McIntyre said she
“guaranteed that all supplies would get to the right hands and every
last Band-aid would be used.”
“We are totally overwhelmed with people moving out of Port-au-Prince
into the rural areas,” she told McIntyre, “Oh, thank you, thank you,
thank you for sending the supplies!”
The fishing village of Jeremie was running desperately low on food
and water, he was told, when on Sunday “1,500 people show up on a boat
in their community, and they didn’t bring anything with them – 1,500
people plus whoever shows up today that don’t have anything.”
McIntyre has worked with Bahamas Methodist Habitat since 2005. He and
several others on the staff are United Methodists. The organization is
an outreach of the Bahamas Conference of the Methodist Church. It is not
related to Habitat for Humanity International.
As the work in Haiti continues, McIntyre says, “I am thankful God is
putting all this together, and it is all working.”
*Noble is editor of Interpreter Magazine, a publication of United
Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Kathy Noble, Nashville, Tenn., (615”) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.
slideshow
Photos from team in Haiti
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Resources
Earthquake in Haiti: The Church Responds
Bahamas Methodist Habitat
Bahamas
Habitat
Bahamas Conference of The Methodist Church
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