Hurricane Sandy

As Hurricane Sandy’s outer reaches lash Haiti with heavy rain and winds, it has now past Jamaica and Cuba. In Cuba thousands were evacuated from low lying areas. We are reminded how fortunate we are. We look out over the city, which is shrouded in cloud yesterday and today. It has been raining at our house for 16 hours straight but south of us it has already been raining for two days. Yesterday we just made it up the hill before the down pour started.

View from up the hill where we live on a sunny day

View from today

Since then we have not left the apartment, we are dry and safe, praise God. Less fortunate are the multitudes that live in makeshift patchwork houses: pieces of scrap tin sheets or tarpaulin make the roof. These people live on the edge, born into poverty; these are the people we are here to help. 
We can see the other side of the creek where people normally congregate; today they are wearing bright coloured rain coats, even now, as I am writing this, we can see kids walking up the mountain, carrying their buckets of drinking water, which they still need to get even during the rain. 

 Yesterday we had planned to meet our language teacher for today. This morning seeing the showers again, and talking to him, he said, that his house is surrounded by water, so he would prefer not to go out. With this, we can't help, but wondering how ‘our’ kids in the orphanage are doing.

Please pray for the people in tents and in the countryside prone to mudslides and flooding. Please pray for the next 48 hours as the river swell and the rain comes down from the mountains. With this, people who live close to the river fight with raging water, which is stinky, dirty and probably disease infested. One lady was swept into the sea trying to cross a swollen river. 

Rubbish left after last months down pour

The road between Port-au-Price and our colleagues in Grand Goave is blocked by electricity poles that have come down.

Please pray as we try to learn, hear and understand how to help in a way God wants us to, not with our western mindset of pouring money at the problem, the need here is huge and systemic.