This news item popped up earlier today:

Two Connecticut residents, including a deacon from Southbury, have been rescued from the wreckage after Haiti’s earthquake, the Hartford Courant reported on its Web site Wednesday morning.

The executive director of Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, Emily Smack, said two of the organization’s staff were pulled from the rubble this morning after their house partially collapsed during the earthquake.

Smack identified the staffers as the mission’s acting director, Jillian Thorp, and a management consultant, Charles Dietsch, who has been working with the ministry. Dietsch is a deacon at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Southbury.

A visit to the web page of Deacon Dietsch’s parish includes the following note from his pastor:

I am sure you are aware of the tragic earthquake that has occurred in Haiti. Our parish has established a twinning relationship with the Parish of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows in Gran Boulage, Haiti. We have no news about our sister parish and so we continue to pray for them. Through our many visits there in recent years we have grown in our affection and concern for the Haitian people. Obviously this tragedy draws our concern, prayer and resources even more.

In addition our deacon, Chuck Dietsch, is in Haiti and in fact was trapped for 10 hours in the rubble of the Mission House of the Norwich Diocesan Office of Haitian Ministries. He has been rescued and, while injured, is safe. We await further news and his safe return to us.

Well, the good news is that he has returned home. And the local paper has more details about the ministry in Haiti:

As it was learning that two of its workers had been rescued, the Diocese of Norwich Haitian Ministries began raising money Wednesday to help the victims of Tuesday’s earthquake.

“One way or another we will be in Haiti,” said Emily Smack, the group’s executive director.

The two Connecticut residents who were trapped for 10 hours in the collapsed mission house near Port-au-Prince were pulled out alive early Wednesday morning.

Jillian Thorp, 23, of Old Saybrook, the mission house’s acting director, and Charles Dietsch of Southbury were rescued.

Smack said cash needs to be raised so that food and medicine can be purchased in the Dominican Republic and taken into Haiti.

“The airport is closed down and mobilizing and trying to containerize (donated items) … by the time we get into Haiti all that would be of little use,” Smack said. “They need medicine, food and shelter now.”

Smack said now that the missionaries have been rescued, “our next thing to do is find out what’s happened to our partners, the orphanages we support and the schoolchildren and the feeding programs. All of those take place in extremely adverse areas, so it will be a while before the dust settles.”

Smack said the ministry’s three-story building was destroyed and everyone is “camping out in the driveway right now.”

Thorp and Dietsch were in the basement of the building when the earthquake hit.

“A male guard came and heard them banging on the metal and concrete and he went and got the others and they dug by hand,” Smack said. “We have four Haitian staff men who, once they knew their families were OK, they came back to that mission house to dig our staff out.”

You can read more at the link.