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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.”

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“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

Related Articles

Clayton mission volunteer in Haiti requests donations and supplies,

Conference VIM team safely airlifted from Haiti

Resources

Earthquake in Haiti: The Church Responds

Bahamas Methodist Habitat

Bahamas Habitat

Bahamas Conference of The Methodist Church

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