not rest in their houses or possessions, but in Jezí (“Jesus” in Creole). “I did not know Jezí, but I know him now!” Lucienne Brezil is 48 years old and a mother of five. “I was asleep when the water came. Thank God someone came and woke me, and brought me to the roof of the church. I was there for three days, and was so afraid. The thing I did not understand was how these Christians could be singing songs to God the whole time!” On the third day, after the water began to recede, people began to wade to higher ground, carrying their children over their heads. The outskirts of the city, built into the surrounding hills, had stayed relatively dry. There, communities welcomed the refugees, but food and water were already short, and they had precious little to share. Cholera and typhoid quickly became the biggest problems, as desperation drove people to drink contaminated water from the river or whatever standing pools were nearby. With most roads and bridges washed out, it took a week before relief convoys began arriving with rice and bottled water to distribute. By then it was too late for some. When the water level finally dropped, the destruction could be fully comprehended. Several feet of mud covered the city, burying cars and buildings. Thousands of houses were destroyed or damaged beyond repair, leaving tens of thousands homeless. Weeks later, death estimates continue to rise. Hanna was third in a series of four deadly storms to hit Haiti this summer. The authorities say that as many as 1,400 people were killed during the storms of 2008. Makeshift road repairs were eventually made, and Gonaives finally dried out enough for trucks and equipment to get in. The LWI Haiti team was itching to go. I had the privilege of joining the repair team as they made their first survey trip into the disaster zone and began to fix broken-down wells. During the two days we spent in Gona-
12
PIPELINE
Winter 2008
ives, we repaired six hand pumps in the newly overcrowded outskirts of the city. Every place we repaired a pump, people would come and tell us about half a dozen other pumps—“just over there, where the people have no water.” We worked with local pastors and community leaders to find the areas with the most desperate need. At the first site, the local magistrate, a fellow by the name of Jean-Baptiste, spoke to the crowd that had gathered. “Even though water almost killed us, we need it for life,” he said. “Thank God for sending these people to restore our water.” These communities had suffered in ways that I could only imagine. In one place, 19 people died after the storm while waiting for emergency supplies to arrive. At the same site, a Christian school had set up a temporary building after the original facility was destroyed by Hanna. The 400 students had no clean source of water before we arrived. At each well that was repaired, team members talked to the community about maintaining the pump, and about the importance of good hygiene practices for preventing disease. And they talked about the reason they had come. “Tomorrow you will drink water out of this well—and the day after that, and the day after that. Each day your body will be thirsty again. Jesus can give you living water—water to satisfy your soul—so that you never need to be thirsty again.”