Haiti, Day Four

*Saturday – (Feb. 6, 2010) This morning after a breakfast of Haitian coffee, Haitian peanut butter, and local bread, along with grapefruit rind jelly, we left for the return trip to Port-Au-Prince. Pastor Pierre led us to the House of Hope orphanage first where we visited with Sister Merilane and the children. I was able to record the orphans singing under the direction of Sister Merilane. We then left to meet Pastor Simon at a city called Cabaret. Upon arrival, Bro. Weaver and I ate lunch at a Haitian restaurant along with some of the other Haitians. We had goat with sauce, rice with bean soup, plantain and a bottled fruit drink. Pastor Simon wanted to show us some of the earthquake damage in the area of Port-Au-Prince so we spent some time driving around, surveying the damage, and taking pictures. The scope of the destruction was incredible. We went by the Palace and other national buildings. It was as if a giant hand had squashed and broken building after building. He took us to one six floor building near a large church that had many people inside of it. It had collapsed till it was no more than 20 feet tall approximately. The emotional toll on the people of Haiti is enormous! Many have lost family, friends, or acquaintances. Most in Port-Au-Prince are not sleeping in their houses because they are afraid that their dwelling will collapse because of damage or that another quake will bring it down. We viewed and photographed the ruins of the main Catholic church in the country of Haiti. There are many tent cities around the capital. Many of those tents are just blankets, or pieces of cloth on poles designed to shade them from the sun and give some privacy, etc. If the rain sets in many of these people will be flooded out of their tents. That is an imminent danger for thousands! One American doctor that I talked with said that Port-au-Prince looked like carpet bombing in Europe during World War II. No wonder the people are traumatized! We stopped back by the new Mais Gate’ property and took pictures of the 600 gallon water tank that the ICHA had purchased to provide water for the families living on the church property. It was set up with a piece of ¾ inch (approx.) PVC and a valve for opening up and shutting off the water flow. Pastor Simon is going to try to get the government to fill the tank on a daily basis. Later Saturday afternoon we arrived at Pastor Simon’s dwelling and visited with the orphans and Pastor Simon’s family. Bro. Mike Weaver entertained the children for quite a while doing funny things. There was one little orphan that was a Mike Weaver in the making. He and Bro. Weaver hit it off right away. We slept in the tent again on Saturday night. There was an ambitious rooster that roosted about 15 feet from where we were sleeping and he started sounding off about 2:30 a.m. He managed to keep it up the rest of the night on an intermittent basis. Mike Weaver threatened him with death, which would have been a blessing for us! Pastor Simon had been working during the night bagging up rice, beans, and oil to be distributed to some of our Haitian people. We had given a large offering from the ICHA to help him purchase food.