Our sister-mission team from New Jersey was expecting to have to wait a full week for a flight out of Haiti. But all 15 of them managed to board an Icelandic flight that had arrived in Haiti yesterday with relief supplies. They have now been taken to the Bahamas. They will fly home to JFK in New York to their families tonight!
From what we've been told, it sounds like the whole team was at the orphanage with Pastor Ronald, his whole family, Raguel, Phinton, and all the kids when the earthquake occurred. They could not have been in a better place… and all together! They all got out of the building and into the field.
The orphanage building itself remains completely intact and unharmed, including (I believe) the clean water well and generator. The security walls around the orphanage land, however, have tumbled. Its like God put his hands right on top of the orphanage and protected it while everything around it was demolished. Because of the size of this new orphanage, we anticipate there will be many newly-orphaned children joining our family. For now, the military is thinking about using our acres of land as a “drop point” for military supplies and a headquarters for medical relief efforts.
The head of our ministry received a phone call from Pastor Ronald about 30 minutes ago. She said he was loud and clear. He was calling from over the mountain in the Dominican Republic where he was trying to find food and gas to take back home. His own home is fairly destroyed… some walls are completely gone so they can’t sleep there. Everyone is staying at the orphanage.
This is amazing… many parts of the church have “fallen apart”, as Pastor Ronald put it. The whole front of it is gone, his office collapsed, and many walls are destroyed. He said that on Tuesdays from 6:00am until 6:00pm during December and January, there are weekly revival services that usually crowd the church for the majority of the day. Unexplainably, no one was in the church when the quake hit. Pastor Ronald said, “God just kept them out. There is no other way to explain it.”
In general, food and water are scarce, but the church has a good clean well. Most people are sleeping outside for fear of another quake. If aid doesn't arrive soon, people may get desperate and do things they wouldn't ordinarily do. Looting in many areas has already taken place. In some areas, dead bodies are being picked up by trucks and dumped in remote places.
I'm sure the latrine at the remains of the church and school are being used beyond their capacity. That's when disease can begin to take over. Although we have a medical clinic right on the school property behind the church, the supplies are limited.
Financial contributions will be critical. Maybe we'll send a team from Denver after things have settled a bit.
I’m so happy I can’t even speak right now. Thank you for your prayers. God listened.
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