Reflections on earthquakes - and helping the victims

The pictures from Haiti this past week have been overwhelming. I cannot begin to fathom what that must have been like and the dire circumstances the survivors are in now. Like others, we wonder how best we can help.

Barbara and I have a tiny bit of earthquake experience. We have seen first-hand - though many months removed - the devastation of a major earthquake, and we were shaken out of bed (literally) one night by a quake while in Mexico City. I assure you that our experience is a nit compared to what we are seeing on the news, but it does provide a tiny basis of understanding.

On February 4th, 1976 a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and devastating aftershocks killed more than 23,000 people in Guatemala. It was of particular concern for us because of close relations with several families that our congregation supported in mission efforts in Guatemala. They were safe, but destruction was all around them - particularly in the central regions. There was an immediate response and a collection of goods and money to help. More about that in a moment.

A little over a year and a half later, in July of 1978, Barbara and I and Royce Lindsey took a trip to Guatemala as representatives of the Mission Committee to participate in the dedication of a clinic building that had been built in Tecpan, a fairly large community of mostly Mayan descent in central Guatemala. More than 1/3 of the residents - some 7,000 people - had perished or were severely injured in the earthquake. The existing medical facility was destroyed at that time and a replacement clinic had been constructed through the efforts of many groups, individuals and churches, and we were there for the formalities of turning the completed building over to the Guatemalan Health Ministry.

As I stood listening to speeches I couldn't understand, I was absent-mindedly looking at a pile of rubble across the street when I noticed an old-fashioned metal bed post sticking up out of the debris; a rounded bed frame much like the one in Rob's room. Suddenly the pattern of rubble snapped into focus and I realized I was looking at what was left of a home - now a pile of adobe bricks and clay tiles about three feet tall. We had driven in from the airport and along the way had seen broken buildings, and steep scarred hillsides of the barrios that had simply slid off into the valleys below carrying thousands to their deaths, and highways that ended abruptly at a fault-line and restarted several yards to one side, but it was only when I recognized that bed that I felt the impact of what had happened here some two years earlier.

Third world countries build their structures with masonry - concrete, adobe brick and tile. In tropical countries metal is too expensive (and rusts quickly) and wooden structures are soon consumed by rot and decay (the only wooden structures we saw in Guatemala were bridges ??!!). Even the stop signs are made of concrete. When the ground shakes, tons of masonry - often inferior and cheaply constructed - crushes whatever is below (a thought that did not comfort me as we slept that night in a typical adobe house with a typical tile roof).

A strong and lasting impression of our trips to Guatemala (and later to poor communities in El Salvador and Peru) is how much effort the indigenous peoples of those countries spend in simply staying alive, keeping body and soul together! On a good day, they break even - they are no worse off and found food, water and shelter to survive another day. On bad days the family goes to bed hungry. On very bad days...

How do we help? What can we do? The typical immediate responses may not be the best responses. Immediately after the quake in 1976 as a congregation we gathered goods and medicine to ship to Guatemala. I remember the boxes filled with inappropriate clothing  - shiny party dresses, for example - and many other questionable items. A wig? We were going to send a woman's wig as aid to a devastated country? Good sense diverted the wig, but so much of what was collected looked like cleaning out the closets.

Money to relief organizations? Yes, but I found a word of caution about that and I share it with you here. Read this item titled "Don't give money to Haiti" and form your own conclusions, but I agree that unrestricted giving to responsible organizations is probably the best thing we can do today.

P.S. The picture above? Not from Haiti, but from central Guatemala. It was not the bed post that I saw, but so much like it that it took my breath away.