Local family uniquely impacted by Haiti earthquake

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By McKay Allen, Guest Contributor
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January 18, 2010 — There are few words that can describe the suffering in Haiti. It is a country that has nearly nothing. Most people live on less than a dollar a day. It's the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, one of the five poorest in the world.

Before last week's earthquake, this was a typical scene on the streets of Port Au Prince, Haiti. Contributed Photo.

Port Au Prince as it appeared when the Halpin family travelled to Haiti for one of their adoptions, before last week's earthquake. Contributed Photo.

And that was before the 7.0 earthquake that struck last week.

The Halpin family in the Green Bluff Ward of the Spokane North Stake has seen the streets of Port au Prince, Haiti, first-hand, several times. After all, three members of the Halpin family grew up in Haiti.

In 2004, the Halpins-after they'd already had children of their own-felt like they should adopt and they felt like they should adopt from Haiti. And so after the paperwork was done, John and Allyson Halpin went to Haiti, to an orphanage, to pick up their new children.

John Halpin and his family including their three adopted children from Haiti. Contributed Photo.

"You go there and they sort of mob you," Allyson Halpin said.

In July 2004 they adopted two Haitian children-now-7-year-old Daniel and now-18-year-old Gladys. Then just last year they returned to Haiti and adopted 11-year-old Rosemitha.

Allyson and Rosemitha on the day she and John brought her in to their family. Contributed Photo.

To hear the Halpins talk about Haiti is startling. It's a country that had no basic services and no money before the earthquake.

"We're a very poor country," 18-year-old Gladys Halpin says.

Almost no one has running water, the electricity only worked for about two hours a day.

"Everyone always wonders where there next meal is going to come from," Gladys says.

Gladys was sent to an orphanage by her mother when she was 5. She says her biological mom put her on a bus and told her not to forget her last name. She didn't know where she was going. She ended up spending the next eight years at half-a-dozen different orphanages in and around Port au Prince until the Halpins adopted her.

John with some orphans at the Foyer De Sion orphanage in Port Au Prince during their trip to adopt Rosemitha. Contributed Photo.

The orphanage in Haiti where John and Allyson adopted their children. Contributed Photo.

Gladys still has friends in Haiti orphanages; her biological family still lives there. She doesn't know if they're OK; she hasn't spoken to them.

"I love them, I wish I could be down there with them," Gladys says. "And I wish everything would just be OK."

But everything is not OK. The Red Cross estimates over 50,000 people have died in the earthquake, survivors lay dying in rubble and bodies line the streets. The U.N. estimates 70- percent of the buildings in the capital city of Port au Prince are significantly damaged.

"I remember visiting the Presidential Palace when I was little," Gladys told me. "Then on the computer I saw the pictures of it on the ground and stuff. I just started crying because that was the most beautiful place in Haiti. It was something that we were proud of, now it's on the ground."

All of Haiti is on the ground.

"When I heard how big the earthquake was I knew it was going to be bad," Allyson said. "They just don't have good building codes there and the ones they do have are not adhered to."

Since she adopted her children, Allyson has worked as a liaison between an orphanage in Haiti and American families. She says the orphanage she works with collapsed, only one child died, but the remaining 200 kids are starving to death. There is no food and no water.

"I don't know how much longer they can last," she said last Friday.

The man who runs the orphanage is an LDS bishop. His mother and some of his siblings are believed to have died in the earthquake.

"When I talked to him he was just sobbing," Allyson said of the bishop. "He's trying to take care of his family and the children at the orphanage, they have no food and no clean water, they have nowhere to go."

And for 18-year-old Gladys Pierre Halpin she only wishes she could do more to help the people there - her people.

"I feel like I should be down there with them because I went through a lot with them," she said. "I spent the first 13 years of my life there. It feels like I should be down there."

To donate to the Foyer De Sion orphanage that Allyson works go to their Web site www.foyerdesion.org.

McKay Allen is a reporter for KXLY 4 HD News. He's a graduate of Brigham Young University. He and his wife are members of the Franklin Park Ward in the Spokane North Stake.

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