ARLINGTON — Members of an Arlington church that inspired Katie Zook to become a missionary in Haiti are on their way to the earthquake-ravaged country to offer medical care.
Zook, 22, continued to recover Friday in a Florida hospital from internal and leg injuries she suffered when a building collapsed on her Jan. 12. Church members said her condition is improving.
Tens of thousands of people died in the magnitude 7 earthquake that flattened entire neighborhoods, schools and hospitals.
Jean Wessel, a registered nurse, was scheduled to catch a flight to Haiti late Friday night. She plans to be gone for three weeks. Dr. Jerry Rusher was expected to leave this morning for five weeks. They belong to the 400-member Arlington Free Methodist congregation.
Wessel has been to Haiti more than a dozen times, helping on building projects and with medical assistance. She is accustomed to seeing the poverty; she is bracing for the devastation.
“I am anticipating seeing things I will probably never see again,” she said Friday.
She and Rusher will be working in a small church hospital in Dessalines, about 90 miles from the Haiti capital of Port-au-Prince. Wessel said she hopes an international outpouring of aid since the earthquake will help Haiti rebuild its infrastructure with more reliable sewage, water and power systems as well as better-constructed buildings.
Fellow church members are raising money for medical supplies that will be sent to Haiti with a garage sale at the church from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, 730 E. Highland Drive. The event started Friday.
Dick Sass, a church member, said there has been a flood of donations.
“This place is packed,” he said. “I have never seen this place like this.”
Members of the church have been helping people in Haiti for decades.
Wessel said she can remember when Zook was a baby in her mother’s arms and she watched her grow into a young woman committed to improving life in Haiti.
Family members said Zook needed to have her lungs reinflated and required a chest tube. Doctors have been monitoring bruising to her spleen and liver.
In September, Zook began what was to be a two-year mission. She was based in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, where she taught English to seminary students and helped missionaries. She lived in a guest house near the missionary headquarters and church in Delmas.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.
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