Imagine this: a 7.0 earthquake devastates your nation. Hundreds of thousands of people lose their lives; cities are reduced to rubble; millions are left homeless. The world immediately rallies to your aid with money, food and supplies.

Fast forward six months. While many nations of the world would have made significant headway in the rebuilding process, the island nation of Haiti has not. The streets are overcome with rubble and garbage – the Associated Press reported that in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, 98 percent of the rubble still remains. The U.N. has reported that 1.5 million people are still living in tents, meaning one in nine Haitian people are homeless.

But in the midst of the chaos and devastation, a mission team from a local church made life a little better for one Haitian family.

“We began asking ourselves, what can we do the help the situation in Haiti?” said Pastor Mike Knight of Community Baptist Church, of the church’s initial response to the tragedy.

It would take some time, but they would soon have their answer.

Knight found out about a Haitian pastor who was trying to organize rebuilding efforts for 150 Christian families in his area who had lost their homes. They were attempting to recruit 150 American churches to take an offering, then send a team to Haiti to build a house for one of those families.

Community Baptist became the first church to heed the call. The church took a special offering and was able to raise $8,000 – enough to purchase their plane tickets and fund the $5,000 house they would be building.

A team of eight was assembled for what would be the church’s first foreign mission trip, comprised of six men and two teenagers.

One of those men, Rich Wells, had never been on a mission trip before. A computer engineer for IBM and a father of five, Wells and his wife Lydia adopted their youngest child from Ukraine just last year. Wells says the month they spent overseas helped in some ways to prepare him for the trip to Haiti.

“I had my eyes opened when my wife and I went to Ukraine but that was nothing compared to what I experienced in Haiti,” he said. “The needs in Haiti are great and when our pastor mentioned the mission trip, God made it clear that I needed to go.”

The journey begins

The date was set, the money raised and the team assembled. But nothing could have prepared the men for what they would see upon arriving in the country. On May 15, they arrived in Jacmel, a small town about 30 miles outside Port-au-Prince.

“I know that most of us were quite shocked by seeing the damage caused by the earthquake as well as how poor the people really are,” said Wells. “There are collapsed buildings everywhere and scores of tents everywhere which many displaced Haitians call their homes now. For

most people there is very little food and even less clean water. I think most of them are simply trying to make it through to the next day.”

Knight also expressed his shock at the amount of devastation.

“When you see it firsthand – the destruction, the poverty, the amount of rubble and the amount of filth – it’s literally like driving through a garbage dump. It was devastating. The destruction there is much worse than I could ever have imagined,” he said.

But in the midst of the destruction, there was a job to be done. The team of eight was tasked with building a three room concrete block house for a family of 11 to share. According to Knight, there was a room for the men, a room for the women and a living room space. There was no bathroom. When the team arrived, there was a concrete foundation already laid, but nothing else.

The team would wake at 5:30 each morning, have breakfast, then journey by truck bed to the job site, arriving around 6:30 a.m. They spent the day sifting sand, mixing mortar, carrying blocks into position and arranging scaffolding under a powerful Haitian sun.

According to Wells, there was no air conditioning, and the electricity was only on from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. each day. Water had to be trucked in and paid for, making bathing facilities scarce. The team’s drinking water had to be filtered and disinfected. Even with those precautions, a few team members still managed to get sick.

“Luckily we were prepared with antibiotics and other over the counter medicines to help us through,” said Wells. “It certainly took its toll on us lazy Americans and most of us lost quite a bit of weight.”

Wells said in the seven days they were in Haiti, he lost 10 pounds.

During the work days, Knight said the team was constantly approached by children and adults, begging for food and water.

“We cannot touch the poverty level there, and it just broke your heart,” he said. “We would give rice to one family, but there would be 100 more that needed it, too.”