Ind. churches learn missionaries safe in Haiti

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Two churches got some very good news Thursday evening in a phone call from Haiti.

Just as a group had gathered to pray at St. Luke's United Methodist Church for nine members of a missionary team they hadn't heard from, they got a call.

The call caught everyone off guard, but the news was good. The team from St. Luke's and Milroy United Methodist had been found alive and well.

The daughter of one of the women in Haiti was overwhelmed.

St. Luke's and Milroy support a project to educate young students in Haiti.

There was some bad news, too. Two Haitian housekeepers with the St. Luke and Milroy team were killed when the house they were staying in collapsed.

David Williamson's wife is leading the team in Haiti.

"I heard it just about the same way everyone else did. I was walking in the service when someone said, 'There's been direct contact with the team,' same as everyone else heard through a medical student who physically saw them. And that's what we've been waiting for," said Williamson.

In fact, it was a student who made contact with the church group and then called Bill Chin, whose wife and son are on the team.

"I must say that I wasn't sure that I could believe that either, but now I'm absolutely elated, elated for my family, the other seven. I'm saddened that there were
others who were fatally injured," said Chin.

The team arrived in Haiti the day before Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake and was working at an orphanage 45 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince.