Missionaries Go To Haiti, Followed By Scrutiny

The following is a selection from an interesting article published in the New York Times about the Hopital Adventiste d'Haiti and its mission.
 

In Carrefour, a bustling suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital, the Church of the Seventh-day Adventists, which has worked in Haiti since 1904, runs a hospital, a wastewater purification plant, a bakery, a radio station and a bookbinder. Even before the earthquake, the church was considered to have far more of a presence in Haiti than the government.

But other religious workers are operating in a far more bare-bones manner, with whatever they managed to carry in their luggage.

“You had missionary doctors parachuting in here doing amputations rather than setting or treating wounds because they knew their charter jet was leaving in two days and they would not be able to oversee follow-up,” said Dr. Scott Nelson, an American orthopedic surgeon and Adventist missionary, as he lifted a moaning man onto a soiled stretcher. 

“The community trusts us, but when other groups make shortsighted decisions it undermines everyone’s credibility,” he added.

Dr. Nelson and other veteran missionaries faulted the new arrivals for frequently acting on their own instead of collaborating with more established missionary groups that plan on staying in Haiti for the long haul. It is tension, some experts say, that can arise from the differing reasons that missions have for being here.