Published: January 21, 2010 09:34 am      

Missionary’s school standing in Haiti, despite earthquake

At 1 p.m. on Jan. 12, Buddy Johnson got on a plane and left Haiti.

At 3:50 p.m., a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit, destroying most of what little infrastructure existed.

Johnson founded the Majestic Ministries’ Majestic Trade School, about four miles west of downtown Port-au-Prince, the capital city. He has been traveling from Oklahoma to Haiti regularly, staying two to three months at a time. Port-au-Prince was the hardest hit by the earthquake.

Johnson, whose has family members living in Grady County, was relieved to learn the school is still standing despite being a mere six miles from the epicenter of the quake, said to be the worst in more than 200 years.

“Our director was locking the door when it hit,” Johnson said, thankful she was unharmed. “I couldn’t replace her.”

All of the students and teachers had already left the school when the quake hit.

Johnson does not know their fates.

“These are outgoing, loving people who take disasters in stride they have experienced so many,” Johnson said. “These people live from day to day and have always lived from day to day. Others are surprised because they are out in the streets singing and praising God, thankful to be alive.”

Johnson was planning to move the school to a larger building in the near future, but he does not know if the new building is still in usable condition.

“No one is allowed into our area because of the extreme damage,” he said. “I am waiting on an e-mail from a missionary around the corner.”

Johnson said cell phones are unusable in Haiti because their batteries are dead and there is no electricity available to recharge them.

The loss of electricity is nothing new to Johnson. Indeed, his school has been without power for the last two years and he has been forced to use a generator and an inverter with batteries for power.

However, he has had a few encouraging messages get through: C130 aircraft have arrived, the Chinese are there with aid and two U. S. ships are there, also.

The aid coming into the devastated country is desperately needed as there is no water, food or shelter for the hundreds of thousands of displaced victims of the quake.

Worse, there is no way to reach many of the victims.

Port-au-Prince, a city designed for 50,000 people, is the home to more than 2,000,000 Johnson said.

The overpopulation combined with the lack of any type of infrastructure, like an sufficient number of paved roads, make it almost impossible to even get across town, let alone distribute much-needed supplies to victims.

“The airport is about seven miles from me and on a normal day, it takes 45 minutes to get to the school. That’s how bad traffic is and the roads are just narrow lanes with people everywhere,” Johnson said.

Those same conditions, along with poor construction, have also contributed to the estimates of a shockingly high death toll.

“Some of the news has estimated a death toll of half a million people,” Johnson said. “This is probably one of the worst disasters for death in the history of the world.”

Even so, Johnson plans to return to Haiti in February or March if possible.

“I will definitely go in May and if I can, we’ll move into the new building in May,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s wife Joyce is the niece of retired minister Dr. David C. Hall and Mrs. Hall of Chickasha.