Green Country Residents Experience Haiti Earthquake First Hand

By Craig Day, The News On 6

CLAREMORE, OK -- Two Green Country residents involved in Haiti mission trips are safe following the tragic earthquake. 

An estimated 40,000 Americans live in Haiti, and many people from Oklahoma do mission work there.

Some Oklahoma families have loved ones in Haiti right now amid the devastation including a Tulsa minister and a Claremore family anxiously waiting for their teenage daughter to return home.

Just before leaving on a mission trip to Haiti, Liberty Henegar told her parents she always wanted an "on the edge adventure."

They never dreamed their 18-year-old daughter would experience a life threatening one. 

"Prayer is the only thing that got me through it, because when she went it was out of my control.  I had to give it to God when she left, and he's had to handle it from there," said Valerie Henegar, Liberty's mom.

Web Extra: USGS Scientific Info About Haiti's Earthquake

Liberty is volunteering at an orphanage in Haiti. Her parents first heard of the earthquake when she texted them to say she was ok. 

"Thank you Lord, she's ok. She's alive," Valerie said.

After seeing the devastation, they realized how fortunate they are she wasn't hurt. 

"I know it's in God's hands, and it's going to be ok," said Liberty's father, Nathan Henegar. 

Guts Church Pastor Bill Scheer is thankful too. His mother is in Haiti. 

"The one call that we got from her - it was broken up," said Pastor Bill Scheer. "We heard earthquake; we heard 7.0, and we heard fine."

The church has done mission work in Haiti for 10 years, drilling water wells, building a church and school, and feeding hungry children. 

Scheer says in the earthquake's aftermath, help is needed now more than ever.

"The infrastructure and the buildings and everything there were very poor anyway, barely liveable standards," he said. "What this is, it didn't take it from good to bad, it took it from bad to probably non-existent." 

Scheer is considering going to Haiti if airports reopen soon. As for Liberty Henegar, her flight home was canceled, and it will be another week before she can return to Claremore.

Liberty has also sent back pictures of her work in Haiti. 

"Now I'm really homesick for her.  I'm ready for her to get home," said Valerie Henegar, mother to Haiti

The 7.0 earthquake in Haiti was so powerful, it registered with equipment at the Oklahoma Geological Survey in Leonard near Bixby.