Covenant News

Pastor, Family Find Haiti Exit Challenging

EAST HAMPTON, CT (March 2, 2004) - Haddam Neck Covenant Church pastor Tom Anderson and his family are back in the United States after traveling to Cabaret, Haiti, to participate in a youth conference.

The family, including his wife, Alice, and son, Elijah, left for Haiti on February 17. The Andersons got out of Haiti aboard one the last planes leaving the country from the American Airlines fleet on February 26, according to Rose Cornelious, Covenant World Mission coordinator of church relations for the Eastern region of North America. Recent unrest forced Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee the country, according to various media services.

On Saturday, the Andersons and pastor Martinez Jovin and his wife, Emma, went to Cabaret and stayed at a church until Wednesday. The group had originally hoped to commute from the Jovin home, but they decided to stay in one camp rather than risk undue travel dangers. Pastor Anderson said he felt that his family was relatively safe due to the leadership of Jovin, a pastor with many connections to his homeland whose rapport with the local community has allowed him to travel safely under what some would consider dangerous circumstances.

While Tom did a lot of public speaking (in four different settings), Alice worked to establish a new sewing project. Funds donated to a church with connections to the local Covenant church in the United States will help that project get off the ground.

"The biggest problem we had was coming home last Wednesday," Anderson said. "Jovin had picked up a group of kids from Marbial and Jacmel and they had ridden over to our camp (in a large truck with U.S. Army markings). He was trying to get them home Wednesday morning and it was turned around. He looked in downtown Port au Prince for the mayor and talked to the chief of police and he said he thought we could get past the checkpoint.

"We drove out with the U.S. Army truck behind us," Anderson continued. "We hit a checkpoint and it was just a group of civilians, although one had a small gun and others had automatic weapons. We got cleared, but the group was more interested in the group behind us (filled with children). When we got to the airport, every seat on the plane was taken. In December, when I went with a group of people to Haiti, the planes were only a third full. We happened to be going at a bad time (due to the sudden and unexpected civil unrest), but we had a good time and I wouldn't want anyone not to go to Haiti because of this."

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