(CURE photo)
Haiti (MNN) ― The International Monetary Fund is canceling Haiti's $268 million debt and lending them an additional $60 million to assist in reconstruction.
While this act pushes the country along in its recovery efforts, Haiti is still trying to right itself, even a half a year after January's earthquake.
"It's overwhelming; every way that you turn, the needs are so great that there's never enough hours in the day or days in the week," said Phil Hudson of CURE International. Hudson went to Haiti back in February.
At that time, everyone, including CURE, was mostly focused on just survival and the logistics of getting as much relief as they could, as quickly as possible.
Today, the focus of relief and development agencies has changed, but the country's landscape remains quite similar to January.
Hudson said nearly one and a half million people still live in tent cities, and about 300 of the camps do not have an NGO or government looking out for them. Though the damaged buildings have been tallied and total 185,000, one third of these buildings must be destroyed; another third need significant repairs; and the last third have not yet been inspected.
Gradually, temporary housing is cropping up to get people out of tents and into more solid structures before repairs and new permanent structures can be made.
However, before many of these refugees have another place to go, landowners of plots containing tent cities want their land back. Yet, Hudson said, the situation is more complex than that: "It's easy to be mad at the landowners who don't want people there. But for many of them, their only way of survival is through this rental property."
Fortunately, the Adventist Disaster Relief Agency (ADRA) has stepped in to negotiate between landowners, the displaced, and the local government. As ADRA resolves this crisis, the country is slowly taking steps in the right direction. Hudson said, "So it seems really slow. It IS really slow. But it's actually moving, getting better all the time."
Most of these steps and forward progress are due to the many organizations down in Haiti who continue to work diligently even after the media has left.
CURE is one of these organizations. Since January, they continue to provide extensive medical aid, trauma counseling, and spiritual support. Though both their hospitals in Haiti collapsed, they have two medical centers up and operating, helping cure children of clubfoot. They also send patients who need extensive and expensive surgeries to the Dominican Republic and who would otherwise not receive the help they need.
Hudson said CURE is also dedicated to sharing Christ's message of hope with Haitians, still coming to grips with the permanent changes in their lives.
"The only thing keeping the country from exploding is the hope that people have in Christ and the hope that provides for the future," he said.
Now CURE and the other faithful organizations need your prayers and support as they diligently continue to serve.
"Don't forget ... keep the pressure on the organizations that are working there to continue there," Hudson said.
Click here to help CURE continue their efforts.
