EW YORK — Members of a New Jersey church group who were in Haiti on a humanitarian mission when a massive earthquake struck the island nation this week have returned to the United States, recounting the horrors they experienced and thankful to be home.

Relatives and friends were waiting at John F. Kennedy International Airport early Friday to greet the 15-member group from the Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, a town of about 11,000 residents in northwest Jersey. They hugged and kissed their loved ones in front of a banner saying, "Welcome back, Haiti team. We love you."

Frank Procaccini, returning from his fifth Haitian aid trip, said the church group was in an open field playing ball with children from an orphanage when he heard an explosion and felt the ground shake.

"The ground was actually like an ocean, and we were actually like riding the waves," said Procaccini, of Long Valley, N.J. "It just kept rolling."

He said the group took a school bus to the airport for a flight out of the decimated country and saw chaos and misery along the crumbled roadways.

"Total devastation, buildings down, supermarkets just crushed in," he said. "People looking in the rubble for people, trying to dig them out, but they couldn't do it."

The church members who visited Haiti included two high school students and were led by the Rev. Frank Fowler. They provided birth kits, diapers and other supplies to the impoverished country.

Fowler's wife, Karen Fowler, called the group's safe return "a happy ending."