One UNC alumnus was involved in relief long before the magnitude-7.0 earthquake hit Haiti on Jan. 12 and turned the world’s attention to a devastated country.
Rev. Sam Dixon, the chief executive of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, died in the rubble of a collapsed hotel while he was at a conference to coordinate missionary work in Haiti.
It was the last of many global outreach trips — from countries in Africa to Chile to former Soviet republics — during which he would connect with the impoverished, the hungry and the war-torn.
“Sam could reach out and touch a child and just light up their life,” said Cashar Evans, a long-time worker in the United Methodist Church who considers Dixon a best friend.
Optimistic and humorous, Dixon would relate with people in crisis through acts as simple as taking digital pictures and inspiring awe in children who had never seen that kind of technology, Evans said.
And then Dixon, a pastor in North Carolina for 24 years, would come back to the United States and tell stories to congregations of people who had never seen that kind of poverty.
“He had the ability to transcend that setting back to the pulpit and tell and relate the story,” Evans said. “The people he talked to had no concept of what he was talking about when he started. Before he was finished, he had them committed to relief work.”
Dixon is survived by his wife, four children and two grandchildren, as well as his mother and three sisters.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief is an organization within the church that responds to international and domestic disasters.
