Jean-Benoît, one of our preachers, told us what happened on January 12th.  “I was sitting in a taptap (a local transportation) with my wife Mona.  Suddenly, the taptap starting jumping in the air and falling back to the ground like a wild horse.  At first I thought a vehicle had hit us.  But someone sitting with us yelled:  »earthquake! »  When all the shaking stopped, everyone got off.    Mona and I walked for an hour and a half to get back home.  The road was covered with fragments of everything that had collapsed and the air was filled with thick darkness.  While we were moving through this apocalyptic scene, we could see houses collapsing, heads and torn arms being strewn over the street.  It was horrible!”

The medical teams are working around the clock to take care of the sick and wounded. There are three million inhabitants in Port-au-Prince.  It is estimated that 200,000 have disappeared which is one person out of fifteen.

Today, local banks and many stores have re-opened their doors, which allowed us to buy food.  At this point, we are feeding our leaders and their families, as well as the kids and we offer medical help to the needy.  Please pray for our security.  The most urgent need is to help rebuild destroyed or cracked houses, so that the families can go back to living indoors before rainy season that should be starting at the beginning of March.

Sunday we held two meetings on the street because the wall behind our pulpit has been shaken up by the earthquake.  Our youth is tearing it down so we can rebuild it.  242 people attended our youth meeting and 177 came to the kids’ service. On Friday, 750 children and youth came to our service.

Many who are sponsoring a child through Child Care Plus have been asking if their child is still alive.  Three factors are hindering us from determining who is alive and who isn’t.  First of all, many families have fled to the countryside, secondly some are living in the camps for the disaster stricken, and finally so many houses are distroyed or their walls are cracked.  Our leaders will start visiting the people of our church to do a survey. They want to find out who is alive, who is injured, whose homes collapsed and whose homes need repairs.  Please be patient with us.

We are serving meals daily.  We also have to rebuild two walls that are surrounding our yard as well as a wall at the new church building that all fell during the earthquake.

We are shaken up emotionally, but we are doing well.  Now is the time to rebuild.

Michel and Louise

P.S. Some of the pictures have a copyright on it.  You may not use them for commercial purpose without contacting the author.