Episcopal Press and News
The Response to Central America's Hurricane Disaster Continues
Episcopal News Service. April 15, 1999 [99-041]
(ENS) Central America's massive hurricane recovery effort has faded from the front pages of newspapers across the U.S., but in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Belize, the work goes on. For Episcopalians, it means that money is still flowing and volunteers from throughout the church have signed up for missions to the devastated areas.
Some in the church who have visited Central America since Hurricane Mitch struck last October found they received as much as they gave.
"What an experience -- but I was glad to be going home to my bed," was how Bruce Garner of Atlanta, Georgia, summed up his trip to that country in March. Garner is a member of the church's National Commission on HIV/AIDS, which was directed by the General Convention to study the issue of racism and HIV.
The commission, which has held hearings around the church, was invited by Honduras Bishop Leo Frade to listen to the experience of people with HIV/AIDS in Central America.
"The visit fit with our broader mission," Garner observed in a long statement he wrote after the commission's visit. "While Honduras has about 17 percent of the population of Central America, it has 50 percent of the AIDS cases in Central America. Honduras has some 12,000 cases of HIV with a total population smaller than that of Georgia."
Garner described what he saw of the aftermath of Mitch: washed-out roads, walls still streaked with high-water marks and hundreds of people living in cardboard-and-corrugated-tin shacks.
Then he met with some young Hondurans living with HIV. "There are no HIV drugs for adults," Garner learned. "The government makes promises but does not come through. Emphasis is placed on prevention as much as possible -- not on caring for those already sick. The cost of antivirals is beyond the reach of all but the rich."
The Hondurans told of rampant discrimination, particularly the loss of jobs when employers learn of someone's HIV status. These employers included U.S. companies doing business in Honduras. Garner, who is HIV-positive, was so moved by the Hondurans' stories that he shared his own medicine with their doctor.
Later the commission visited a home for children with AIDS, two AIDS hospices for adults, a refugee settlement and the home for girls run under the direction of Frade's wife, Diana. Garner noted that a 2-year-old at the home had been diagnosed with HIV, but the other girls will not allow her to be sent to the home for children with HIV; they claim her as family.
Garner's experience left him deeply moved. But he is not the only Episcopalian from the U.S. who has journeyed to Central America or who has offered help after the storm, which, according to the U.S. State Department, left 9,000 dead and 9,000 still missing. Among the dioceses that already have sent groups and materials are:
The Diocese of Texas In addition to donating nearly $700,000 to the Honduran recovery effort (including $500,000 from the Cain Foundation established by Gordon and Mary Cain), 10 volunteers -- eight of them students at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest, plus one seminary spouse and a youth minister from Marshall, Texas -- journeyed to Honduras in January to help distribute food and supplies. ETSS students are already planning to return to Honduras later this year. In addition a diocesan relief task force has been helping to organize other efforts to respond to the disaster.
The Diocese of Newark While it first set a $10,000 goal for funds to send for hurricane relief, it received $21,000, and its initial collection of materials filled two 40-foot containers.
The Diocese of San Joaquin Members of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Lodi, California, immediately filled cartons of gift packages for children, 65 packages specifically for infants and toddlers and more than 50 for children from 3 to 14. The cartons were sent to the "Banana Boat Team" in the Diocese of Texas that was working with the Chiquita Company, which had made a ship available to transport supplies to Central America.
Medical mission teams from the Dioceses of West Texas and Mississippi already have visited Honduras, and plans are under way in many other dioceses to get involved. The Diocese of Kentucky, for example is organizing a trip for youth and adults set tentatively for Aug. 3 through 14; the Diocese of Central Florida is planning a trip for 100 youth and adults in July.
Early this year, in an appearance at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to express her thanks for the Diocese of Washington's outpouring of aid to its companion diocese in Honduras, Diana Frade said, "God does not bring gloom and doom. God is in the midst of turmoil and chaos. This [hurricane] was nature's doing. Our response is what matters."
The church is now contemplating a new phase for its aid, which will include development help from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief.