MONROE -- Ben and Lexi Depp were about to eat dinner when the house began to shake. They ran outside, then back in when the rumble subsided. In just a few minutes, they armed themselves with a pick ax, water and bandages. Houses all around them collapsed as they tried to pull people out.

The Depps, from Waxhaw, work for the Mennonite Central Committee, a ministry of Anabaptist churches that responds to basic human needs worldwide. They live in Pétionville, a city on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

Ben Depp is a photographer and field reporter for a microfinance organization, providing financial services to Haiti’s indigent.

In a podcast recorded Jan. 15, three days after Haiti was shaken by a 7.0 earthquake, Ben Depp broke down in tears. Driving through the city earlier that day, he described dump trucks full of dead bodies headed toward mass graves. Many people were running out of water, and some had not eaten since the earthquake.

“That’s probably the worst part, just knowing there’s thousands of people still alive,” but buried under the rubble, he said in the podcast.

Another earthquake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, hit Haiti on Jan. 20.

Yet there is hope in the blog Ben Depp keeps with his wife. The couple tells of neighbors helping neighbors and doing everything possible to save strangers’ lives. Much work must still be done.

To read the Depps’ blog and see pictures from Haiti, visit tinyurl.com/ydal4lo. To listen to the podcast, visit tinyurl.com/yczocyq.

Q: Did you lose anyone you know in the earthquake?

A: “No, I didn’t lose any close friends. Several friends were trapped in fallen buildings and sustained mild injuries. Our neighborhood was very affected and a lot of people died in our neighborhood.”

Q: You mention in your blog that some of the media’s coverage has been blown out of proportion when reporting on violence there. Can you give me a snapshot of how people are faring right now? What’s the overall mood?

A: “There is violence and people stealing, but overall, people are working together to stay organized and help their neighbors survive. People are very fearful, fearing not finding food, water and fearful of another earthquake.

“There has been a tremor at least once every day for the last week. A lot of the news coverage of violence has happened at food distributions that have not been well organized.

“If you were in a group of 50,000 people who had not eaten a solid meal in days and a truck showed up with not enough food for everyone, it would be really hard to not fight to secure food for your family. “

Q: Have most people been helped by locals and emergency teams, or are there still many people who need help?

A: “There are hundreds of thousands of people still hungry and thirsty.

“There is food to buy in the city, but everyone’s jobs have been interrupted and the banks are closed and people also lost whatever money they had in their collapsed houses and businesses.”

Q: What’s your greatest need that people here can help with?

A: “There is an overwhelming need for food, medicine and shelter. One of the most important things, though, will be providing jobs for people so that individuals can do meaningful work and earn money to feed their families and rebuild their lives.

“This week, hundreds of thousands of people need food and water, but next week and the week after, the relief work needs to be done in a way that helps people improve their lives and their country. Often a crisis like this wreaks havoc on the local economy and local agriculture because free food undercuts the local economy and destroys farmers’ lives. So when donating money, give it to an organization that takes these things into consideration.”