Haiti

Amid countless piles of rubble and the stench of death permeating Haiti, Christians throughout the devastated country are still able to find something to sing about.

"Our missionaries tell us in Port-au-Prince [people] still put on their best clothes and walked to church this past Sunday," Assemblies of God General Superintendent Dr. George O. Wood said in a recent Haiti update.

Church buildings throughout the Caribbean island were destroyed by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit two weeks ago. Some pastors have set up chairs and makeshift stages outside as temporary locations for worship services. more >>

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle landed in “hell” this week where he witnessed a teenage boy shot in the head and a girl sold to an older man. He was in the collapsed city of Port-au-Prince where rubble from former buildings and streets piled with corpses give the impression of an aftermath of a war zone.

Driscoll, along with Pastor James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel in the Chicago-area, landed in the capital of Haiti on Monday to assess the situation and needs of Haitian churches and to deliver 1,000 pounds of relief supplies.

On his first day on the ground, Driscoll said he heard a gunshot behind him and when he turn to look he saw a teenage boy immediately killed by a shot to the head. The teenage boy was just a few feet away from a seminary property and next to a makeshift clinic where thousands of people slept outside, Driscoll reported on his Facebook page. more >>

Just a few days ago a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti. Tens of thousands are feared dead. The total devastation will take weeks if not months to realize. The official death toll continues to rise as bodies are discovered in the rubble of the aftermath.

My heart broke, along with yours, as I watched report after report of this devastating earthquake. It seemed like every station from Fox to CNN to MSNBC to local news stations were on a constant disaster watch, every report seeming to uncover more horrific levels of absolute devastation.

On a nature level, it seems like catastrophes are back. It wasn’t all that long ago that New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. And I’m sure we all remember the shock of the tsunami in Indonesia. more >>

The images streaming in from Haiti look like scenes from Dante's Inferno. The scale of the calamity is unprecedented. In many ways, Haiti has almost ceased to exist.

The earthquake that will forever change that nation came as subterranean plates shifted about six miles under the surface of the earth, along a fault line that had threatened trouble for centuries. But no one saw a quake of this magnitude coming. The 7.0 quake came like a nightmare, with the city of Port-au-Prince crumbling, entire villages collapsing, bodies flying in the air and crushed under mountains of debris. Orphanages, churches, markets, homes, and government buildings all collapsed. Civil government has virtually ceased to function. Without power, communication has been cut off and rescue efforts are seriously hampered. Bodies are piling up, hope is running out, and help, though on the way, will not arrive in time for many victims.

Even as boots are finally hitting the ground and relief efforts are reaching the island, estimates of the death toll range as high as 500,000. Given the mountainous terrain and densely populated villages that had been hanging along the fault line, entire villages may have disappeared. The Western Hemisphere's most impoverished nation has experienced a catastrophe that appears almost apocalyptic. more >>

"Children with gaping head wounds lay screaming and confused, some had lost motor skills from the blows they had received to their heads. ... We were shocked that so few had received any kind of treatment."

The account by David Darg of Operation Blessing International was recorded Monday, nearly a week after the 7.0-magnitude quake struck Haiti and wreaked havoc on the Caribbean nation.

Relief and humanitarian teams on the ground have been hard at work trying to save lives while at the same time relaying their first-hand accounts to the rest of the world on blogs. more >>

Churches in Haiti and around the world prayed Sunday for those affected by last week’s devastating earthquake, which has claimed as many as 100,000 victims and left more than three million in need of aid.

Solid Rock First Haitian Tabernacle of Grace Church in Raleigh gathered its mostly Haitian congregation Sunday for a second straight evening to pray, sing and remember those who lost their lives.

The Atlanta Haitian Church of God, meanwhile, took donations during their service to help with relief efforts and reported that the community’s coming together is a testament to how strong the Haitian people are. more >>