Follow MormonTimes.com, DeseretNews.com and LDS Church News for coverage of the the tragedy and relief efforts in Haiti.Sunday, March 7:Utah man works to fulfill promise, helps in HaitiIn a tiny Haitian village known oddly as Batay 39, a Tennessee
doctor ducked into a dirt-floor hut to help a woman in labor while
Jeremy Johnson waited outside. Tuesday, Feb. 22:Dr. Elia: Finding the spirit of hope in HaitiIt's been a week since I returned from Haiti, but the memories will
last a lifetime. There are very few experiences in life that truly
change us from within.Tuesday, Feb. 16:From Haiti with Love: Part 1Dr
Lyles and I flew into Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and took
a taxi to the Haitian border. Let's just say that the four and a half
hour journey to the border was filled with pot holes big enough to
swallow a Mini Cooper!Skirts for HaitiThirty girls in Haiti will have bright, new, colorful skirts to wear,
thanks to 9-year-old Sarah Poyner of Choctaw, Okla.Saturday, Feb. 13:LDS, Utah volunteer Hospital Task Force returns from HaitiLDS and Utah humanitarians returned early Friday morning, Feb. 12,
from two tough weeks in Haiti to cheers, kisses and flower bouquets.Church to build temporary housing in Haiti before rainy seasonThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is launching an
aggressive program to put as many as 600 urgently needed temporary
housing kits into the hands of Haitian members.Friday, Feb. 12:Volunteers conduct three-week relief mission to HaitiThe Utah Hospital Task Force — a 120-person team of doctors, nurses,
emergency medical technicians, building contractors and interpreters —
departed for the desolate remnants of earthquake-stricken
Port-au-Prince, Haiti.LDS Church provides $4.25 million to HaitiIn the first month following Haiti's devastating Jan. 12
earthquake, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has
provided an estimated $4.25 million in assistance to date.Thursday, Feb. 11:Utah Haiti volunteer blog: Final days in HaitiThe day started with a drive through Port-au-Prince at 6:30 a.m. in the
back of a military transport truck. The air was still cool, the streets
still shaded as the sun began to rise. The traffic was light, and many
people were already awake, smiling and waving at our convoy.Wednesday, Feb. 10:Utah Haiti volunteer blog: Creature comforts, tent citiesAdapting to change has always been a motto of mine. Change usually
brings positive benefits, but too much change can leave you reeling. Tuesday, Feb. 9:2 Davis County medical personnel help at Haitian tent citiesGorilla glue and Gatorade come in handy for a couple of Utah medical
personnel who winged their way to Haiti to do some doctoring in the
roughest areas in the days following the Jan. 12 earthquake.Haiti grips Utah doctors — whether there or back homeOne Utah doctor is sending his joy, sorrow and exhaustion home from
Haiti via cyberspace, e-mailing tales of life and death. And another
Utah doctor now home from the devastation is trying to process the
post-earthquake experience in his blog.Ask Dr. Elia: Life is so fragile!Of course we've all heard about Haiti, how in one horrific minute on
January 12th, around 200,000 men, women and children perished as a
result of a massive earthquake.Monday, Feb. 8:Utah Haiti volunteer blog: Priesthood dutyI met Guesno Mardy last week, when I was lying on the tarmac at
Port-au-Prince International airport. Immediately, I was struck with a
sense of, for lack of a better word, humble greatness. He seemed happy,
yet reserved.Our faces of Haiti: 4 survivors personify strength, resilienceLast week, the Deseret News team that traveled to Haiti to report on
the January earthquake returned to Utah. While in Haiti they slept in
tents, near a runway crowded with relief planes and in the grass with
earthquake survivors. Saturday, Feb. 6:Utah native finds Haiti assignment uniqueA small group of Haitian orphans left for
Miami on a C-130 Friday night, and a Midvale, Utah native serving in the Air
Force found himself in the thick of the action again.Mormons among churches reaching out to Haiti in many waysThe Moreland Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints will be having a special fast for the people of Haiti on Sunday.
Friday, Feb. 5:Utah Haiti volunteer blog: Angels, hope, Church organizationI consider my self a relatively tough guy, not in a macho or physical
sense, but more on the mental side, you know, having mental toughness
in adversity or having control of emotions, having the ability to
compartmentalize fear — that kind of toughness.Thursday, Feb. 4:Michael Otterson on WashingtonPost.com: 'Pure religion' seen in Haiti as Mormons, others helpIn the wake of the earthquake in Haiti that left millions of
lives shattered, the world saw, and continues to see, an outpouring of
love, compassion and service on a magnificent scale. Wednesday, Feb. 3: Utah volunteer finds heaven and hell in Haiti"Welcome to Hell" was the greeting we received when we arrived at the University Hospital in Downtown Port-au-Prince. Reporter, photographer witnessed true religion in actionWhen Deseret News photographer Jeff Allred and I learned our assignment
to cover post-earthquake relief efforts in Haiti would keep us there
over a Sunday, we talked with anticipation of attending meetings with
one of the local Latter-day Saint wards.Tuesday, Feb. 2:Utahn Brandt Andersen replacing Haiti orphanageUtahn Brandt Andersen came back from his relief trip to Haiti
with two things that will always remind him of his week in
Port-au-Prince: the deed to a gorgeous, three-acre plot of land where
he plans to rebuild an orphanage, and an indelible vision of the
smiling children who soon will live there.Monday, Feb. 1:Haitian children arrive in Utah — finallyTen Haitian children arrived at Salt Lake City International Airport's
Terminal 1 early Monday afternoon, greeted by anxious, sobbing siblings
and extended family members they had never before met.Addressing interracial adoption issues importantAll last week at the Interactions hair salon in Provo, Utah, shop owner
Tamu Smith and her customers have been talking about Haitian orphans
and what it means for a white family to take in a black child.Utah volunteer gives eyewitness account in HaitiCurtis C. Newman, a volunteer for the Utah Hospitals Task Force, is
writing a series of first-person stories on what he sees in Haiti. Mormon efforts in Haiti to last over a yearEfforts to aid earthquake-ravaged Haiti likely will
last a year or longer, the church's welfare manager for the
Caribbean Area says.Sunday, Jan. 31:
Local leaders tending their flocks in disasterThe earthquake that rocked Haiti on Jan. 12 left in its aftermath an
estimated 200,000 dead and more than 1 million homeless in the reeling and
already impoverished Caribbean island nation.Saturday, Jan. 30:Help for Haiti: A long-term effortLatter-day Saint help and support in Haiti will be a long-term effort,
said Dennis Lifferth, managing director of Church Welfare Services. Haiti orphans finally land in MiamiPeter Meuzelaar's heart is beating 90 miles a minute. He is so
completely drained after a two-week-long battle to get his three
adopted children out of earthquake-ravished Haiti, that he doesn't dare
believe. Friday, Jan. 29:Steven Kapp Perry's Cricket & Seagull podcast: 'Healing Hands for Haiti'It began with an online plea for 150 Latter-day Saint volunteers with
expertise in medicine, construction, and the French/Creole languages,
all to fly to Haiti and help with relief and rebuilding after the
massive earthquake. Within hours emails and applications began pouring
in by the thousands, said Steve Studdert.130 leave from Utah for 3-week mission to HaitiHaiti needs doctors, nurses, construction-and-demolition
experts, medical equipment and supplies, interpreters, heavy equipment
and tools desperately. But serious weight limitations forced the Utah
Hospital Task Force to prioritize before 130 people took off on a
chartered 737 for the island nation Thursday afternoon.Six hundred Haitians call LDS church building homeA momentary calm fell over the Petion-ville Ward Chapel grounds
as homeless Haitians raised their voices in song and prayer to close
another day.
Strains of "Where Can I
Turn for Peace" in French filled the cloudy night sky followed by
Stevenson Laurent's heartfelt petition in Creole to awake to the
sunshine of a new morning.
Thursday, Jan. 28:Mormons among faiths uniting to help HaitiLike many who lost family during the earthquake in Haiti, Jude Pierre
turned to his faith for solace and wanted to find a way to help.Wednesday, Jan. 27:Swanson Foundation team joins colleague in HaitiChuck Swanson was standing on top of a mountain in Mongolia when he got word he was needed in Haiti. That
was Sunday. On Monday, Swanson, chairman of the board of the Dr. W.C.
Swanson Family Foundation, was on a plane heading back to Ogden to get
ready for a Tuesday night departure to Port-au-Prince. The
foundation refurbishes medical equipment and sends out supplies.Plans yo-yo for Haitian children headed to UtahA group of 70 children headed for adoption in Utah and other states
is sleeping on a concrete driveway and in tents under squatty banana
trees as they wait in earthquake-induced limbo. The
Foyer de Sion orphanage is a loving madhouse. A total of about 180
children call the compound home, many from four orphanages crushed by
the violent Jan. 12 quake.LDS relief: Social workers help Haitians with grief, angerChris Anderson and Paul Garrett are well
aware of the gamut of emotions the Haitian people are going through now
in the wake of the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake in their island
nation.LDS medical team heads home, evaluates work in HaitiTuesday evening marked the two-week mark
since the Jan. 12 earthquake leveled much of Haiti and the capital city
of Port-Au-Prince, resulting in an estimated 150,000 deaths to date.Tuesday, Jan. 26:Mormon doctors from Utah set up new clinic in HaitiNothing is routine in Haiti, especially setting up another another makeshift meetinghouse clinic.Haitian LDS family is reunited in MiamiOlgan Saintelus and his wife, Soline scrambled home Jan. 12 to find the earthquake their three-story apartment complex collapsed with their children inside the rubble. It took 10 hours to dig their children out of the rubble. Their oldest
son, Gancci, was singing Primary songs that could be heard by rescue
workers trying to dig him out. The Saintelus children and caretaker
were the only survivors found in the collapsed building.Monday, Jan. 25:Med student discovers a daughter to adoptBill Betz asked to borrow a cell phone Friday
to make a call home to his wife, Amy, in Fort Worth, Texas. The life-changing call confirmed the culmination of one effort and
the start of many more, including a new family in Texas and a new
partnership linking Utah and Haiti.Utah chopper pilots feed hungry HaitiansA crowd gathers as soon as the helicopter
circles an open field looking for a spot to set down between crumbled
houses. Hungry Haitians gazing skyward come running from all directions
knowing food is on the way.
Haitian Mormons attend church as relief work continuesSunday as a day of rest?
Hardly so in Haiti. However, reminders of the Sabbath day were visibly apparent throughout the devastated capital city.Haiti roads complicate Mormon relief effortRichard Long has managed on-site
emergency-relief efforts after tsunamis in Indonesia, Samoa and Tonga
and earthquakes in Peru. He arrived at massive California and Utah
wildfires before the ashes cooled. And he knew hurricanes Katrina,
Rita, Ike and Gustav on a first-name basis.Sunday, Jan. 24:Haiti binds a broken heartLiz Howell provides a perky spark among her peers as the only female
among the 18-member, LDS Church-sponsored team of doctors and nurses
volunteering in Haiti.LDS-team nurse draws on the power of love to help Haitian boyLDS-team nurse Liz Howell recounts, as told to Deseret News' Scott Taylor, a personal experience in aiding injured Haitians.Saturday, Jan. 23:LDS relief: Utah doctor speechless as Haiti clinic in ruinsUtahn Jeff Randle found himself speechless this week as he got his first look at the Healing Hands for Haiti rehabilitation complex he helped found more than a decade ago.Utah doctors share tragedy, triumph in HaitiSitting in a makeshift camp on the infield
weeds of the Port-au-Prince airport with jet engines roaring 100 yards
away, a group of doctors and emergency workers shared the tragedy and
triumph of a week in post-earthquake Haiti.
Friday, Jan. 22:First Presidency asks church members to provide help for HaitiThe First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
appealed today to the worldwide membership of the church to help
relieve the suffering in Haiti.Aftershock rattles LDS medical volunteersMore aftershocks rumbled through Port-au-Prince on Jan. 21, rattling an
already spooked population of survivors and damaging the hospital where
members of the LDS Church's medical team were working.Helping hands reach farther in HaitiThird-degree facial burns. Fractured pelvises. Infected limbs needing amputation.
The volunteer doctors and nurses comprising the LDS Church's
first-response medical team has seen it all.LDS medical teams save man's leg in HaitiThe involvement of LDS Church members and volunteer medical personnel
came full circle in the case of the diagnosis and treatment of a
Port-Au-Prince man injured in the Jan. 12 earthquake.Aftershock in Haiti sends LDS doctors scramblingAn aftershock that measured 5.9 rolled through parts of Haiti early
Wednesday morning, rattling buildings and scaring Haitians still
reeling from last week's 7.0-magnitude quake.LDS Haitian man's grief started with son's kidnappingFor most Haitians, their current state of extreme pain and suffering
started in the moments following the horrific Jan. 12 earthquake. But
for Guesno Mardy, his heartbreak started Dec. 6, the day his 2-year-old
son, Gardy, was kidnapped.200 Haitian orphans gathered on grounds of LDS meetinghouseThey are children without homes, without families. And now, in many
cases, they are almost without food. They are the tens of thousands of
orphans of Haiti, caught in the center of a life-or-death struggle.LDS doctor chronicles his relief efforts in HaitiThey raised him and then sent him on a mission to Haiti many years ago.
Now a physician, Dr. Charles S. Peterson of Mesa, Ariz., is back in
Haiti to help following the earthquake.Hundreds of former LDS missionaries help in HaitiThe response from former missionaries wanting to serve again in Haiti is unlike anything Stephen Studdert has ever seen. And for a former White House advisor, that's saying a lot.Thursday, Jan. 21:LDS relief: Efforts are fostering cooperation in HaitiEarthquake relief efforts are crossing all boundaries and fostering all sorts of unique cooperation. Such was the case Wednesday afternoon at the Petionville Ward LDS
chapel, where hundreds of Haitians have taken up nearly every available
square foot of space on the grounds.BYU student worried about family in HaitiMinutes after
Wednesday's 5.9 aftershock rattled the already-beleaguered nation of
Haiti, Rousseline Salter got a text from her family: "Please help us,
we are scared."
"It's been hard," the 27-year-old BYU student said from her
apartment in Provo, "knowing that they don't have a place to sleep, no
food or water, especially with Rousselande having an infection."Wednesday, Jan 20:Baby symbolizes new beginnings amid devastation in HaitiAs the death toll from the Jan. 12 Haitian
earthquake soars from tens of thousands to possibly several hundred
thousand, little glimmers of light and hope still have shone through in
Port-au-Prince.Visitors get more out of Haiti trip than they expectedIt took fourteen hours for Adam and Karen Buhler's family to receive word that they were safe.Utahns try alternative relief methods to aid HaitiansEverywhere Boyd Barney looks, he sees
people in pain. He can't walk down the streets without having a reason
to stop and help — except there are 132 reasons to keep going.New 6.1 aftershock hits HaitiAn aftershock that
measured 6.1 rolled through parts of Haiti early Wednesday morning,
rattling buildings and scaring Haitians still reeling from last week's
7.0-magnitude quake.Tuesday, Jan. 19:LDS medical team sees glimmers of hopeAs the death toll from the Jan. 12 Haitian
earthquake soars from tens of thousands to possibly several hundred
thousand, little glimmers of light and hope still have shone through in
Port-au-Prince.A call from Haiti relates tragic loss of a dear friendAs Sue Ann Call listened to her phone messages Saturday afternoon, Jan.
16, she heard the voice of a dear friend. Although the voice was
familiar, something was different.RM, family finding refuge on Haitian LDS meetinghouse groundsPierre-Louis Wanso has been among the more
than 500 people — Mormons and nonmormons alike — who have made the
Central Ward meetinghouse their new home in the first week after
Haiti's horrific earthquake on Jan. 12.Former Mormon mission presidents reflect on HaitiIn speaking with former mission presidents and their wives who served in
Haiti, two major themes kept emerging: the nation's physical
infrastructure was already exceptionally poor prior to the Jan. 12
earthquake, and the strong faith of church members will abide and
endure in spite of the present trials.LDS relief: Medical team reaches HaitiAfter a time-consuming, tedious trip from Salt Lake City that began
late Sunday afternoon, the LDS Church's medical team finally reached
its destination Tuesday morning: earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Now, it's time to do what the 14 volunteer doctors and nurses and
two emotional-health specialists were brought by The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints to do. CNN.com: iReporter video of Mormon relief efforts for Haiti14 year-old Ryan Samuels reports from The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) gymnasium in North Miami Beach,
Florida, about Haitian Relief Efforts taking place there.Quake hits home for former Mormon missionaries to HaitiFor former LDS missionaries who served in Haiti, last week's massive
earthquake demolished more than just a place on the map. It crushed a
country that, for two years, they called home. LDS medical team will depend on 'survival bags' in HaitiThe large, black duffel bag given to each traveling member of the LDS
Church's medical-response team bound for Haiti underscores the severity
of circumstances in the island nation ravaged by last week's earthquake.LDS relief team to reach Haiti via Dominican Republic Tuesday at the crack of dawn.That's the anticipated time that the LDS Church's team of volunteer doctors and nurses are expected to finally reach Haiti.Church aid continues to arrive in HaitiShipments of relief aid from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints arrived in Haiti over the weekend.Monday, Jan. 18:LDS relief team to Haiti delayedThe breakdown of a chartered
aircraft and the closing of the Port-Au-Prince airport has the LDS Church's
team of volunteer doctors and nurses scrambling to find another way to Haiti.
LDS Haiti medical team finds new uses for lunch boxesIt started as simply providing
a late-night meal to volunteer doctors and nurses headed to earthquake-damaged
Haiti. It ended up directly blessing the hurting Haitians.
First medical team sent by LDS Church to arrive Monday in HaitiJeremy Booth, an emergency room doctor from Ogden, Utah, who speaks French
Creole, needed to place only two calls to make the select group. Prayers offered for Haitian families at Salt Lake LDS TempleRelief came at 3 a.m. when the phone rang. Daniel Cameau had spent days pacing and switching between home and cell phone for just one word about beloved family members.Logistics a challenge in dispersing aid from Mormon ChurchEmergency response and humanitarian relief
supplies have slowly trickled in to Haiti from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the
first full week after Tuesday's devastating earthquake.Sunday, Jan 17:Out of Haiti comes relief and sorrow
Each little bit of good news coming out of Haiti is tempered by
sorrow, according to Utahns scrambling to contact loved ones in the
earthquake zone. Multiple faiths come together to aid HaitiIf disaster can bring out the worst in human nature, it can also
bring out the best, as when humanitarians find partners in unexpected
places.Saturday, Jan 16:Haiti aid flow grows; feuds erupt over foodHungry, haggard survivors clamored — and sometimes fought
— for food and water Saturday as donors squabbled over how to get aid
into Haiti and rescuers waged an increasingly improbable battle to free
the dying before they become the dead.Utah doctor heading for Haiti to assess Healing Hands for Haiti damageDr. Jeff Randle will be on board when a plane loaded with supplies for a humanitarian mission of the LDS Church takes off for Haiti, most likely on Sunday.Friday, Jan. 15:Utah-based Healing Hands for Haiti clinic reduced to rubbleThe Healing Hands for Haiti clinic is rubble. The apartments the group owned are flattened. Far worse, two tenants are believed to be trapped in the wreckage.
Death, destruction surround BYU student's family in HaitiRousseline Salter can't describe what it smells like to sleep in a street full of dead bodies. But her family can. Their home in Delmas, Haiti, is gone, leveled by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that ravaged the island nation Tuesday afternoon.LDS Church sending aid, providing shelter, to Haitian survivorsWater, food, shelter, medical care.
Those are the drastic needs for the survivors in Haiti in the wake
of Tuesday's massive earthquake. And The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is trying to respond by delivering emergency-relief
products and people to meet those needs.Mormon Church sends team of doctors to HaitiThe Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is sending a team of
doctors and medical supplies to Haiti immediately to help
care for those injured by the devastating earthquake. The
doctors will set up a temporary medical center in an LDS Church
meetinghouse in Port-au-Prince. The meetinghouse is largely
undamaged by the quake.Thursday, Jan. 14:Utah mayor with Haitian roots waiting to hear from relativesThe news is scant when it comes from a friend of a friend. But it's scary just the same when you hear your uncle's three-story home near Port-au-Prince has been leveled. Not just your uncle's home, but every home in the neighborhood. New
Saratoga Springs Mayor Mia Love says she had just talked to her uncle
Saturday. He had called from Haiti to congratulate her on being sworn
into office.North Salt Lake couple seek to help adopted Haitian daughterFor more than two years, Jeremy and Hollie Wardle have waited patiently to bring home their adopted daughter from Haiti. Now, they are in a race against time. "The orphanage is running out of food, water, supplies," said Hollie Wardle.Washington Times: Many faiths mobilize for earthquake reliefFrom Muslims to Mormons, religious groups across the country are
opening their hearts and wallets to get food, water, blankets and
medical help to millions of Haitians victimized by Tuesday's deadly 7.0
magnitude earthquake. The Alexandria, Va.-based Islamic Relief USA announced it was
teaming up with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to fly
$1 million worth of aid to the stricken country.
Wednesday, Jan. 13:LDS Church continues Haitian relief effortsWith its missionaries in Haiti all safe, The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is beginning its
humanitarian-relief efforts in the wake of Tuesday's massive earthquake
and Wednesday's aftershocks in the Caribbean island nation.LDS Church begins Haitian relief efforts; missionaries all safeWith its missionaries in Haiti all safe, The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is beginning its humanitarian-relief efforts in the
wake of Tuesday's massive earthquake and Wednesday's aftershocks in the
Caribbean island nation.Earthquake crushes Haiti; LDS assistance on its wayA powerful earthquake struck Haiti's capital on Tuesday with
withering force, toppling everything from simple shacks to the ornate
National Palace and the headquarters of U.N. peacekeepers. The dead and
injured lay in the streets even as strong aftershocks rippled through
the impoverished Caribbean country.
Editor's note: Most of the MormonTimes.com readers contacting us this week are asking how they can contribute to relief efforts in
Haiti. LDS Philanthropies has offered the following link for Haitian
relief contributions: give.lds.org/emergencyresponse
.