S.C. volunteers caught up in disaster

John Pipkin is a retired pilot. He's held many jobs, most recently working for Netjets International, flying celebrities around.

These days, he flies relief workers, medical teams and humanitarian aid from airstrip to airstrip in Haiti.

His wife, Joyce, is the volunteer coordinator of the Haitian ministry at their church, St. Mary's Episcopal in Columbia, which sponsors a parish and its school in Les Cayes, a town in the southwest section of the country.

The Pipkins travel together at least three times a year helping the needy, coordinating mission work, assisting the international community of aid workers and supporting local clergy. They visited Charleston Southern University on Wednesday to share their story.

The roads in Haiti typically are so congested with traffic that it can take hours to travel a few miles. That's why John became involved with Mission Aviation Fellowship, an Idaho-based ministry.

The Jan. 12 earthquake has made a bad situation much worse. Before, it took about five hours to drive from the border of the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince. Now, it takes 18 hours.

And perhaps a third of the country's gas stations have fuel to sell. As of last week, it cost $26 a gallon.

When the Pipkins arrived in Port-au-Prince the day of the earthquake but before it struck, they took care of a little business at the airport before settling in at the Nazarene Compound about seven miles away. As usual, they stayed in a small, one-story cement house with missionary friends Michael and Karen Broyles.

Driving up the steep road to get to the compound, they passed big homes, some partially built, perched on the side of a deep ravine.

They pulled in at about 4 p.m., unloaded their bags, stored some mission supplies, then took a few minutes to relax and change clothes before heading off to the Caribbean market a mile away to do a little shopping along with those few Haitians who could afford to spend their money at a big grocery store.

Joyce lay down on the bed. John was changing his shirt. The coat and shirt hangers in the closet began to sway, then the cupboards began to shake.

"Why are you shaking the bed?" Joyce asked her husband before it dawned on her what was happening.

"Then the whole house started shaking to the point where I lost my balance," John said.

They ran outside. Cars were bouncing up and down in the driveway. The 8-foot-tall security wall surrounding the compound collapsed into the street.

People at the compound, which is run by Haitians, were stunned. Shock quickly gave way to fear. Some dashed off to find loved ones. Half of the big mountainside homes had fallen down. A mile away, perhaps 200 people were trapped in the rubble of the Caribbean

market.

"It was such a humbling experience," Joyce said, "because you realize what a speck you are in the magnitude of creation. You are not in control."

The earthquake lasted about 40 seconds.

Tarps and mattresses were set outside. Aftershocks made it too dangerous to remain in compromised buildings. The compound received Haitians -- calm, dazed, injured, concerned for others -- and United Nations employees who also rented homes there.

The stories were accumulating, stories of loss. One stood out for the Pipkins. After the quake, a Haitian at the compound rushed to his apartment building to search for his wife and daughter, both feared crushed. Though the family occupied a ground-floor apartment, somehow the mother and daughter escaped the rubble and wandered away. They climbed into a nearby tree to avoid the debris that rained from the sky.

When the man arrived, his family was nowhere to be seen, and he assumed the worst. The next day, the mother and daughter, despite their injuries (the woman had a badly wounded leg; the girl suffered a cut to her cornea), returned to the collapsed apartment building. The man returned, too. There they were reunited.

By the time they made it back to the compound, the woman could hardly walk, though adrenalin made her forget the pain when a large aftershock rocked the area: She jumped from her outdoors bed and dashed for safety, only to be carried back to her mattress.

The Pipkins were asked to leave the island to make way for emergency responders and to prepare for a relief mission a couple of weeks later.

Next week, John likely will return to pilot one of Mission Aviation Fellowship's four aircraft currently in Haiti, giving someone else a much-needed break. MAF has been working inside Haiti for 20 years. It coordinates its efforts with Missionary Flights International, another faith-based organization, which specializes in transporting people and supplies between Fort Pierce, Fla., and Haiti.

It has been difficult to transport medicine, supplies and humanitarian crews to areas outside Port-au-Prince, John said. Yet the damage, death and injuries in other cities and villages are severe.

The Pipkins are eager to return to Haiti, they said.

"I felt I didn't experience enough, help enough," Joyce said. "I felt guilty."

"Why are we leaving if others are coming in to do similar work?" John wondered.

But it is evident that God is in control, Joyce said. "We know we were spared for a reason."

And that reason is simple: to advocate on behalf of the Haitian people.

The Pipkins said they do what they do for the people, the kind, faithful, spirited people.

"In Haiti, God is central," Joyce said. "I've been ministered by them much more than I could ever minister to them."

Reach Adam Parker at 937-5902.