December 8, 2011
The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team has completed a 22-month deployment to Haiti, after arriving within 24 hours of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that killed more than 300,000, the Billy Graham Evangelical Association reports. More than 120 chaplains ministered in the impoverished nation, praying with and comforting more than 35,000 Haitians and relief workers. "We have witnessed the best and the worst that this world has to offer as we've ministered in Haiti," said Franklin Graham, president of the association. "We've seen pain and grief on an unimaginably massive scale, and we've seen beauty, hope and joy in the spirits of the Haitian people that defies all explanation in the midst of such a hard place." The deployment to Haiti was the second-longest outreach in the history of the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team; the longest was a three-year presence at the Gulf Coast following hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.