Hi, everyone!


First, a word to the state of Port au Prince: I barely recognized it. Stacks of rubble 10 or 12 feet high piled in the medians, having simply been shoved there for lack of anywhere else to put it. Roads completely cracked down the middle. Tent villages are proliferate, “Red Cross” and “UN” and “UNICEF” logos everywhere, billowing like flags of Western philanthropy (for which the people are nothing but grateful, if a bit greedy). One tent village is built on top of a mass burial ground (150,000 bodies). People still wander the streets in droves, looking lost. There is such a feeling (again, still) of disorientation. So many homes were lost, so many people displaced… no one knows where to go or what to do. We found a teenage boy left for dead on the side of the streets – severely malnourished with wounds from what appeared to be abuse. We got a truck and took him to get medical attention but as we talked to the translators about it, he shook his head and said, “this is very common for us.”
The first-hand reports we heard of the earthquake included the following: People simply ran out into the streets… hurt people, dying people, people missing limbs, people having babies, all in the street. There was no medical triage: it was first come, first serve and there was nowhere else to go. The congestion consisted not only of Port au Prince residents but anyone on the outskirts who could make it on foot into the city, seeking help. Finally the stench of rotting flesh overwhelmed, resulting in the necessary if somewhat insensitive mass burial movement.
People felt like the earth was spinning or shaking… many said they felt seasick for 3 days or more. Most of them had never lived through an earthquake, didn’t know what it was, and didn’t know what to do. In one family we met, the mother said that when the earthquake happened, she ran inside “for cover” but her 3 year old son started screaming at her to get out… he died and she escaped in time. Another woman was trapped for 2 days underneath her home before finally being pulled clear. She lost her left arm and is now afraid to go indoors.
People who had scraps to begin with now had nothing. People who had jobs are still too disoriented to find out if their employers or employment even still exists. Obviously social and economic infrastructure is virtually non-existent.


This trip reminded me from a personal standpoint of something: it’s easy, living here in Pennsylvania and working 40 hours a week, to come to think of missions as “exotic travels.” I tell people about my life and they coo enviously, “oh, you’ve been all over the world!” To which I have to reply, yes, I’ve been many beautiful places… I’ve also lived in a tent and slept on concrete floors… I’ve seen trash dumps, slums, projects, hovels, huts, shacks all over the world… I’ve gone to the least and the poorest and sought to brighten a corner of their lives through food and water and Christ.
I hope that you, friend, see this partnership of ours as something more than travel, philanthropy, or even awareness, as meaningful as all of those things can be. I went to Haiti because the people of Haiti, right now, cannot help themselves. Right now, they have the least. And Jesus, empathizing thoroughly with these very people, said, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me,) I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Matthew 25:35 & 36). I think that he approvingly reminds you and me both that “…as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”
I may be going back to Haiti in December with a larger team. I’ll keep you posted.
LOVE and GOD’s BLESSINGS to you all! Thank you for your friendship and support.