A Catawba County man in Haiti with his wife and four children encourages people who want to help to look for ways to get involved and make a difference.
Bob Benfield of Conover was in Haiti when a magnitude-7 earthquake shook the country Tuesday. He, his wife and four children, ages 10, 12, 14 and 15, were with him on a mission trip.
They are in Montrouis (pronounced mow wee), about an hour northwest of Port-au-Prince, at the House of Bread Christian mission.
Benfield wrote in an e-mail that one of the Catawba County missionaries who stays full-time at the House of Bread had heard about the violence and looting being widely reported after the earthquake.
His own accounts of the tragedy deal more with the injured people he encountered on the streets.
"We saw one little 12-year-old boy with a severe shoulder injury, but he had a homemade bandage around his head," Benfield wrote.
"I asked (my 14-year-old son) Daniel to help me hold his head while we unwrapped it and when we did, Daniel said, 'Hey Dad. His head is cracked open.' Sure enough, it was. This was a severe skull fracture that needed emergency care immediately. The boy was being carried on a wooden door down the street by strangers.
"We immediately rewrapped his head, did what we could do to keep him stable, and drove him to the hospital. The hospital that was closed up tight and not seeing patients."
Benfield also writes, "My kids stood by the street today and watched the UN trucks one after the other bringing the dead down the road headed for St. Marc. They will mass cremate the bodies there."
Benfield's wife, Shelly, is a midwife at Catawba Valley Medical Center. She works with Midwives for Haiti and has been to the country four times in the last year. She said members of the hospital's medical staff are on their way to Haiti.
The Benfields are members of Tri-City Baptist Church in Conover.
Bob Benfield and their children met Shelly Benfield in Haiti on Jan. 7 to perform "The Promise," Tri-City Baptist's Christmas presentation.
He said if they had not already been in the country, they would now be looking for a way to get there.
The family will fly back to the United States on Friday and be back in North Carolina on Saturday.
Benfield said he knows people will want to help Haitians after last week's tragedy, and promises prayer will do wonders.
"The other thing they could do is ask God to give them a vision about being on a mission team," Benfield said.
"Don't just sit at home and watch it on CNN. Get involved. Make a difference touching lives."
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