Detroit Conference VIM Team Safe in Haiti Following Earthquake

1/12/2010

Earthquake Relief Effort

Donations to assist the Haitian people can be made through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), which also has a field office in Haiti. Visit UMCOR's Web page to donate to Haiti Emergency, UMCOR Advance #418325. 

 

United Methodist Haiti Earthquake Links

UMC.org

UMCOR Field Office in Haiti

(for updates to this story and the conference response to the Haiti earthquake, please visit www.detroitconference.org/haiti)

A Detroit Conference Volunteers in Mission team in Haiti led by the Rev. Don Gotham, pastor at Saint Clair: First UMC, has reported in safe following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that was centered 10 miles to the west of Port au Prince, the capital city of Haiti. The 17-member VIM team was working in Jeremie, Haiti, which is approximately 120 miles west of the epicenter of the quake.

According to Elise Gotham, a member of the team who posted on the facebook page of Don Gotham, the team felt tremors, but there is no destruction in the region the team is located in.

 

The team, which includes members of both the Detroit and West Michigan Conferences, has been in Haiti since Friday, Jan. 1, and is scheduled to fly back on Saturday, Jan. 16. 

 

The Detroit Conference has a long relationship with the Haiti District of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas and shares a covenant relationship with the Haitian church.