photos - floods - evacuations

Once the water levels started to recede people came down from the rooftops and started heading out looking for food or just to escape the flooding in the city of Gonaives.

The UN military helped in rescuing people from the flooded areas.

It is difficult for the handicapped to move through the flooded areas.

People had to wade through the flood waters. This man is carrying a child on his shoulders.

Many elderly and children died when they couldn't move fast enough to get away from the flood waters. These series of photos were all taken from the internet

photos - floods - international assistance

The USS Kearsage from the American Navy is providing assistance for transporting humanitarian aid. The helicopters from this ship are being used to fly in food to the flooded areas of the country. Several bodies were found in the sea.

Drinking water is in short supply as well as food. Here a shipment of water is unloaded to prepare for distribution to the people.

The UN is providing food assistance and securing the food distribution sites.

People are desperate and people push their way through to find food first at the distribution sites.

Barbed wire is set up to control the hungry people. These series of photos were all taken from the internet

photos - floods - people

These photos were taken from the internet showing the people involved by the flooding. There are many people who have lost homes and roads are flooded causing food to be in rare supply.

People are desperate for whatever food that they can get.

There are large line-ups at distribution sights.

People use whatever areas they can find to cook their food.

haiti update - september 13, 2008

“For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.” Psalm 72:12-14

Hi! This week was busy with medical visas at the US Consulate for John Charles and Chrisno Jeudi who both have hydrocephalus. We also went with Naphtalie Joseph, Dieuna Philippe and Dieunette Lormintus to the US Consulate to show that the children have returned to Haiti after completing their medical treatment in the United States. We give the Lord thanks for opening doors to enable these children to get medical care.
We also worked on the passport paperwork for Daphka Saintvil. She is a 5-year-old girl who has a deformed lower leg. She already has a hospital waiting for her in the United States. Pray that we can now get a medical visa for her soon. Pray for other children on our medical search list who are still waiting for a hospital to be found to help them. The Miami Neurosurgery Team will be coming to Haiti in October to perform hydrocephalus surgeries again. Pray for all the plans being made for these surgeries to happen. They will be held at Hopital La Paix on Delmas 33.
One of the hydrocephalus children we were trying to find help for was placed into an orphanage on Delmas 75. I found this info out from one of the workers here at Coram Deo. In reality though this baby wasn’t placed in the orphanage. The mother left the baby in front of the gate at Hal and Chris’s orphanage and then she walked away. Pray for their efforts in looking after her.
We also found out that one of the hydrocephalus babies recently died. This is the baby who we met in the Malpasse area that lived across the lake and that came to us in a sailboat. Johnley Stelle, a clubbed foot baby also died after a fever. During the time of the hurricanes the father wasn’t able to travel to seek medical care.
Grace Hope, the baby who was abandoned in the Delmas 31 area a few weeks ago is now discharged from the hospital after recovering from her infections and has now been admitted to His Home for Children run by Hal and Chris Nungester. Pray for continuing health for her and that an adoptive family can be found for Grace.
This morning somebody abandoned a cerebral palsy girl at Coram Deo. I called Linda at Holy Angels and she took in the child. She is very skinny and because of her brain damage can’t move very much. Pray that people don’t dump children by abandoning them somewhere.
The Minister of Education has delayed the opening of the school year until October 6, 2008 due to all the damage around the country because of the recent hurricanes and because many of the schools in outlying areas are being used as shelters by the flood victims. Some private schools and mission schools are open here in Port-au-Prince.
On Thursday we had an interesting walk to school. Manu starts school earlier than the other children. I was walking with him and when we got to the top of our street I noticed that there were several people looking down the next street. I heard only part of their conversation. One was saying something about a thief and taking something in front of the Missionary of Charities house. When I got close to them I asked them what was going on and they responded that nothing was going on. I looked where they were looking and saw a woman walking quickly and every now and then running. I got curious and told Manu to go on to school and then I followed this woman. She turned at a side street and then I heard an angry discussion. She had caught up to a young man who was carrying a large sac. Other people came and watched what was going on. The man denied that he took the sac and the woman kept insisting that he stole it. What happened next didn’t make much sense. After arguing for a while the woman told the man that she would split the contents of the sac with him and she started removing items from his sac and putting them into her sac. I didn’t understand why this woman would share the contents of the sac with a thief. It didn’t take long before someone else came into the picture. Another woman came stomping down the road with a couple of guys. She yelled out to everyone to stop the thief and started walking up the street shaking her fist. Then I found out that the guy was a “sac snatcher” and the first woman was an “opportunity thief”. The woman who had been separating the contents of the sac hurriedly put everything back into the one sac and gave it to the real owner of the sac. The real owner told everyone that this man had snatched the sac from the top of her head while she was carrying her child. The real owner then placed the sac on her head and walked off. The “opportunity thief” went along with the other woman and showed her the sweat on her forehead from running after the “sac snatcher”. Hopefully the owner of the sac doesn’t decide to reward the “opportunity thief”. The “sac snatcher” was left standing empty handed.
Another of the shooting victims from the incident at Food For the Poor has died in hospital. This person had been shot in the chest. This now means that the security guard has killed 3 people and injured 17 others. There is no news of this incident in the press but hopefully the security guard will be held responsible for this act and that the whole incident will not be ignored.
The country is trying to recover from the hurricanes but there is a lot of damage. On Sunday, Hurricane Ike passed off the north coast of Haiti and dumped a lot of rain onto Haiti once again. In a place called Cabaret there was flooding and people were swept away by the flooding, many of whom were children. Bridges were destroyed in several areas of the country. The bridge in Montrouis can no longer be crossed. This is an important bridge because it is one of the routes that lead to the north and to Gonaives. In Miragoane the road is flooded. This is a route from the south into Port-au-Prince. People are now traveling part of this national highway by canoe. Boats haul people from the flooded area to the unflooded part of the road where transportation awaits for the journey to Port-au-Prince. The Haitian people are determined and resourceful. The people in the flooded areas of the country are hungry. Aid is starting to come in by the best route available, which is by helicopter and boat, but there are thousands of people to feed. It is near riot conditions for food distributions sometimes. The strong push themselves to be first and the weak get knocked aside. A navy ship from the United States is now being used to help in the relief effort. The helicopters from this ship are being used to fly in aid to the flooded areas. Canada is sending in a Canadian Armed Forces DART team (Disaster Assistance Response Team) as well as a navy ship. The United Nations is seeking 110 million dollars in aid from donor countries to help with the relief effort. Because of the dirty flood waters that people are walking in health problems are occurring. Skin infections and diarrhea are complications of these dirty waters. Animal carcasses and bodies are being buried as they are found so there is no accurate death toll from these storms. Some were swept out to sea and some are buried in the mud. Pray for all those residing in the flooded areas and for the relief effort. Many missions are helping to bring aid to the people and helping people affected by the floods. Pray for the recovery efforts of the government. On Friday we saw a protest in front of the prime minister’s residence. The people will be expecting immediate action by the government. Some are angry that infrastructure projects planned after the last major Gonaives flooding in 2004 were never carried out and some people are just hungry.
That is all the news for today. Have a good weekend!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo

photos - tropical storm hannah - part 1

This is the Riviere Grise that passes in the Duvivier area which is a district off of Route 9. The river ate land on both sides of the river.

First the river ate the land on the far side swallowing land and houses in its path. Then it shifted over and started swallowing the other side. The empty area shows the land that the river removed.

The river worked quickly eroding the sides of the lands.

This man is removing the rebar from his house that collapsed into the river. The house was not on the rivers' edge. All the land in front of it was taken away by the river before his house collapsed.

Lukner's aunt is standing beside him. One of his nieces is pointing out where in the river their house used to be. Even a tractor was swallowed up by the river. It is amazing how strong water is!

photos - tropical storm hannah - part 2

This area has feritle soil and cane and bananas are the main crops that are grown. In the distance are people who are watching the rivers' movement.

The flooding damaged a lot of crops in Haiti, especially the bananas

People that live near the rivers regularly have to worry about flooding. This house was damaged in a prior storm.

When the water floods mud flows into the houses as well.

It will be a major cleanup task to remove all the mud.

haiti update - september 6, 2008

“Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.” Psalm 57:1

Hi! This week Dieuna Philippe returned from the United States after receiving 2 surgeries for her hydrocephalus. Vanessa of Angel Missions accompanied her back to Haiti. She is still on a feeding tube but is starting to eat and drink better. Thank you for everyone’s prayers for her because in the last couple of weeks she has made some major strides in her recovery. She is following people with her eyes more and is starting to make sounds. She was in a coma for 4 months and when the doctors figured that they couldn’t do anymore for her they told Vanessa that she could make plans to bring her back to Haiti so that she could die with her family. Continue to pray for improvement for her so that she can return to her family. Her family lives in Cite Soleil in the Soleil 17 area. Right now Dieuna is staying at Angel Missions temporarily. Next week we hope to be able to get a visa for John Charles and also for Chrisno Jeudi, who both have hydrocephalus. Vanessa hopes to return to the United States with both of them.
Francois, our gatekeeper who works during the day from Monday to Friday came to work one day and told us about his experience with thieves. He had gone downtown and was heading back to his home in the Village Solidarite area located off of Airport Road. 3 thieves stopped the tap-tap on the “piste” road near Airport Road. They all had guns in hand and shot in the air to show everyone that they meant business. They were fussy thieves, as they only wanted cell phones and watches. They didn’t want any money. Francois didn’t say anything and just handed over what they wanted. Another man who had an expensive cell phone didn’t want to hand it over and tried to make some comments and the one thief threatened to kill him. The other thieves stopped him. These 3 thieves were young and the youngest and meanest was only about 14 years of age. Pray for our workers as they travel the streets of Port-au-Prince.
Another of the shooting victims from last week’s incident at Food for the Poor died in the hospital. This person had been shot through the eye. The people of Cite Jeremie caught the security guard who shot the people. The security guard had hidden in the compound of Food for the Poor and later managed to get off the property. The people in the area had kept a watch around the Food for the Poor property and got him. They handed him over to the police to put in jail. This week Food for the Poor was not distributing cooked meals to the people. This is a shame because a lot of families relied on this assistance to help to feed their families.
This year’s hurricane season is turning out to be a bad one for Haiti. Tropical Storm Hannah caused trouble throughout the week. The weather forecasters had said that the storm would pass to the north of Haiti but it hit Haiti hard on Monday night. People in Gonaives weren’t prepared and didn’t have time to flee. John Charles’ mother has a sister living in the Casoleil area of Gonaives. The city of Gonaives sits in a valley area with mountains all around it and water from everywhere rushed in and surprised everyone. Junie and her family managed to get out of their house and climbed up onto the roof. The water levels quickly rose as the river overflowed and pretty soon they were standing in water up to their knees on top of the roof. Some parts of Gonaives had flooding of 2 meters of water. Junie has a young child of only 16 months. His name is Nichley. She spent the next couple of days holding onto her son on the roof along with some neighbors who had taken refuge on her roof. She also had a cell phone and was able to call John Charles mother, Mirlene. We tried to get into contact with people in Gonaives to see if they could help evacuate them but the entire city was flooded and nobody could do anything. The floodwaters were too high and the area inaccessible. The UN helicopters were not flying because of the stormy weather. Nobody had any food. Throughout the day on Tuesday we kept in contact with Junie and encouraging her to stand strong and to tell her that people knew where she was. By later afternoon the floodwaters showed no sign of going down. People were scared and screaming for help in the area where Junie was. You could hear these background sounds on the cell phone. It was at this time that Junie told her sister that she was standing face to face with death. Mirlene told her sister to stand strong and to hold on tight to her son. She told her to tie him around her stomach so that if she got tired of holding onto him he would not fall into the flood waters and be swept away. Nighttime came and the rain started to pour here in Port-au-Prince. We called again in the night but Mirlene was too upset to talk to her sister. Her husband talked with Junie and Junie told him to not to worry. She had resigned herself to whatever happens would happen. We told her that there were people praying for her. We were listening to radio broadcasts on the situation in Gonaives and it didn’t sound good. The waters would rise and fall periodically and one of the journalists saw that before one of these surges he saw 7 people on a roof and that after a surge he saw nobody. Morning arrived and we called Junie and she answered. The rain had stopped and the waters were starting to recede. They managed to get off of their roof and onto the roof of a 3-story school. Later in the day they were able to wade out of the area and headed for the hills and higher ground. The family is now staying with people in the mountains. They have nothing but the clothes on their back. Pray for Gonaives. Nobody really knows yet how many people died but there is a lot of destruction. People are hungry as no food was able to get into the city until yesterday.
The rains have affected the entire country. Even in Port-au-Prince there was some damage. We had gusts of wind on Wednesday and there were a lot of trees and branches blown down. Some houses were destroyed here as well. Christella Marcelin is a young Down syndrome child with a heart problem. Her mother called me last night to say that her house was destroyed by the winds. John Charles’ father whose nickname is “Boukie” received a cell phone call from his mother that she just barely made it out of her house before it collapsed in the winds. She lives in the north part of the country. Lukner has family living in the Duvivier section on Route 9 of Port-au-Prince. The river that passes through the area rose with floodwaters and ate sections of land. We were able to take photos of the sections that were eaten. First the river attacked one side and took out about 50 meters of land. Than it changed its course and attacked the other side, which is the side where Lukner’s family lives. 8 of his relatives lost their family homes. He had spent several of his younger years being raised by his aunt and he looks to her as his mother. The people heard the river rising and just had enough time to flee with only the clothes on their back. Their houses and land collapsed into the river. Lukner’s father’s gravesite was also lost to the river. There was a broken down loader tractor near the property and there is now no sign of it. I asked his aunt where her home was and she pointed to the middle of the river. She threw a stone into the river to show where her house was. Water is a very destructive force. Throughout the country homes were flooded, damaged or destroyed and many crops were lost. Roads and bridges are damaged and transportation is difficult. Pastor Pierre’s other church, which is close to Kenscoff, was completely destroyed by the winds. Please pray for Haiti and all those who lost family members, homes and crops. It is going to take awhile for the country to recover and it won’t be anytime soon as there is another couple of hurricane/tropical storms coming. Hurricane Ike is passing off the north coast of Haiti this weekend. Pray for those especially in the north and Gonaives. In the last month this means 4 storms, Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike. Hurricane season is still for another couple of months. In the midst of these storms is God and He is in control of all. Below is a poem on faith:

The Eye of the Storm

“Fear not that the whirlwind shall carry thee hence,
Nor wait for its onslaught in breathless suspense,
Nor shrink from the whips of the terrible hail,
But pass through the edge to the heart of the gale,
For there is a shelter, sunlighted and warm,
And Faith sees her God through the eye of the storm.

The passionate tempest with rush and wild roar
And threatenings of evil may beat on the shore,
The waves may be mountains, the fields battle plains,
And the earth be immersed in a deluge of rains,
Yet, the soul, stayed on God, may sing bravely its psalm,
For the heart of the storm is the center of calm.

Let hope be not quenched in the blackness of night,
Though the cyclone awhile may have blotted the light,
For behind the great darkness the stars ever shine,
And the light of God’s heavens, his love shall make thine,
Let no gloom dim thine eyes, but uplift them on high
To the face of thy God and the blue of His sky.

The storm is thy shelter from danger and sin,
And God himself takes thee for safety within;
The tempest with him passeth into deep calm,
And the roar of the winds is the sound of a psalm.
Be glad and serene when the tempest clouds form;
God smiles on His child in the eye of the storm.”

Anonymous

That’s all the news for today. Have a good weekend!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo