Jack Kingston: “I wanted to rise in support of this resolution, but I also wanted to commend those who are involved in the rescue effort…”

“I wanted to rise in support of this resolution, but I also wanted to commend those who are involved in the rescue effort and the international communities, the governments, and the nongovernmental organizations, as well as the private rescue teams who have been on the ground. I also want to give high marks to those people who had already been down in Haiti. One of them is Pastor Freddie Hebron from Savannah, Georgia, whose church has an ongoing missionary down there. Pastor Hebron was actually unaccounted for for about 38 hours, and the community was very concerned about him, but he is okay. He is still down there, although communication with him is a little bit spotty. We also had another group, Pastor Bowman with Islands Church of Christ, who is down there led by Dr. John Rowlett and Dr. Brian Kornblatt, 14 American citizens who were down there and located outside of Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit. And yet from their area, they started immediately dispensing medicine to the victims of the earthquake, eventually ran out of medicine, and then were stuck in an area isolated from the American Embassy, about 25 miles. They were able to get let out of there on Saturday at somewhat great danger and peril to them because at that point the street situation was beginning to deteriorate, with gangs and mobs that were out there and a lot of chaos.”