Whatever He Says

By Belinda (Continued from Monday) By the time they got back to the house it was about 8.00 p.m. They took a roll call and established that everyone was okay, although a large privacy wall had come down and the plumbing was damaged. They knew they needed to get word out to their families that they were safe and they managed over the internet to do that, using Skype, even though the phones weren’t working. The UN requested that the pilots and flight attendants be on standby at the airport, as they thought they would want to evacuate and a Hummer picked them up and took them to the airport. Brian, and Carl, his colleague, slept that night on the couch, close to the door. There were a number of bad aftershocks and they woke up twice that night and ran outside. By Wednesday afternoon Brian realized that he hadn’t eaten anything since Tuesday afternoon. It really began to hit home fully how bad things were. The local people brought bodies to the gate of the UN compound because they didn’t ...

By Belinda (Next week I will continue my memoir posts) On Tuesday, January 12th 2010, at 4.53pm local time, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti, killing an estimated 230,000 people; injuring 300,000; and leaving 1,000,000 homeless. This is one man’s story. Brian Wilkins is a quiet, reserved man, who serves his church, Hillside Community Church, in Tottenham, behind the scenes. He faithfully mans the sound system and does many small, unseen technical things that make things run smoothly. He is more comfortable in the background, while his wife Cheryl, with her beautiful voice, serves as a worship leader. On January 10th at worship practice, Cheryl mentioned that Brian had left the day before for Haiti. His company, Trans Capital Air , had sent him there to repair a plane for the U.N. Cheryl seemed to be missing him already. Two days later, on January 12th at around 5 o’clock, we heard the news of the catastrophic, magnitude 7.0 M earthquake that had just hit Haiti. Fear immediately gripp...