It was only a week but it seemed so long. That is how long it was before Pastor Rick Hutchinson and the Living Water national team to reached the disaster area. They drove 12 hours to get there over dangerous mountain ranges.
Over the next eight days they fixed 16 deep wells. New Life Missions and Samaritans Purse were there and worked distributing tarps, blankets and hygiene kits. We are so proud of our team they are truly heroes. In the picture they are Tcholo, Jose, pastor Rick Hutchinson, Gelin, Tfonfon and Tdoudou. Herbert is absent from the photo.
We heard many stories about the quake and they were all the same. Within 15 seconds everything crumbled like a cookie. There were pieces of concrete and rebar everywhere! They told of loosing family members, of being severely injured, of loosing everything they owned. There houses, beds, and everything was gone. They were left hungry and thirsty with only a man made tent to sleep under and no food to eat or water to drink. With no provisions they were all dying.
We talked with them about not loosing hope and that God would help them and that we all must focus on Him for he cares for all of his people.
They told of American solders who flew over in helicopters dropping food and if you could run you could get the food but if you were not able to run you continued to be hungry.
Our team told about the thousands of people with severe injuries, people who were sleeping anywhere that the ground was flat. The team said that their eyes saw things that were unthinkable tragedies. (Massive graves and people everywhere without toilets, starving and dying from injures.)
The poor villages that were north of Port au Prince were flooded by people who had fled from the disaster area. The villages already did not have water and food and now they had thousands of people in their village that were sleeping under sheet tents.
The Living Waters International team fixed many wells in the area so they could all have water. They also fixed wells in the disaster area but many of the pumps were covered up and hard to see. They have found over 200 broken pumps already in the Port au Prince area. The greatest need right now is the need for water.
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We began our relief effort in Croix de Bouquet, a suburb of Port au Prince.This is the first family I talked with, a family whose entire house and belongings were turned to rubble. I was so reluctant to talk with them as I knew I had few if any words of comfort. The despair around us was so intimidating but I smiled and said, "God bless you". They smiled and continued to stack pieces of block and to cook breakfast on the ground. It was as if they had to do something to give life some structure and meaning.
We sent them food over from our work site and told them they were in our prayers. They waved and smiled again. Our efforts seemed so small.
Thousands of people were wandering around amidst the rubble of Port au Prince. Most had this dazed look in their eyes, traumatized by the fear and devastation. I thought of words like catastrophic and epic but nothing seemed to quite capture or express what we saw. We were just left speechless.
I kept thinking, "this is their capital city' what if it had been Wash. D.C.? People were looking for food, water, shelter and I think some sense of reality again.
This little boy was with his mother.
Haiti Earthquake Photos
Courtesy New Life Haiti - A Living Waters Ministry
Visit: NewLifeHaiti.Com
