The Oregon Faith Report - Faith News from Oregon

January 25, 2010

Great interviews and guests from the Georgene Rice Show,
By Oregon Faith Report Notes,

Georgene Rice shares the account of a survivor of the Haiti quake, Dan Woolley, as interviewed on the Today Show. Woolley was in Haiti working with the group Compassion International when the earthquake struck. Trapped for 65 hours under tons of wreckage from the Hotel Montana, not at all certain he was going to survive he wrote notes to his two young boys and wife.

Opening the notebook, pages punctuated with smears of blood, fighting his emotion he read an entry to his six and three-year-old sons, “I was in a big accident. Don’t be upset at God. He always provides for His children even in hard times. I’m still praying that God will get me out, but He may not. But, He will always take care of you.”

With the incredible use of technology Dan was able to help himself survive.

He is nearsighted and lost his glasses but by using the focusing light on his digital camera he knew where he was and where he needed to go. Woolley took refuge in an elevator shaft. Using the IPhone first aid app he’d downloaded earlier, he was able to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and stop the bleeding from his head wound. The app also warned him not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cell phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes. Then for 65 hours he waited for whatever fate was in store for him.

One other person on his team was also rescued. A group of Florida’s Lynn University students were also staying at the hotel. Four of those remain missing along with faculty advisors who were on a Food for the Poor trip.

Woolley attributed his survival and rescue by a French rescue team to divine providence. He says, “A lot of prayers go out for the work we do and our safety on the trip, so I believe God was present with me. He decided He wanted me to survive and helped me in those moments.”

Dan’s wife, Christina, struggled to cling to hope, not always successfully. “I went through moments of despair,” she says. But like her husband she says her faith sustained her with a certain knowledge that wherever Dan was God was holding Dan in the palm of his hand. “I just didn’t know if it was in Haiti or in heaven.”

ABC News has reported that most of the churches in Port-Au-Prince have been destroyed, but they reported that thousands of Haitians made it to whatever open spaces they could find and were worshiping openly. They were praising God and thanking Him for sparing them and trusting that God was going to provide.

Authorities are now estimating over 200,000 feared dead in the earthquake of Haiti. Six days after the quake struck search workers still pulled survivors from the rubble. Food For The Poor website gives updates from a Christian ministry in Haiti on what is happening on the ground in Haiti.