Some GOOD News

Today I got a little good news from Petit Goave. One of the teachers there with whom I have corresponded over the past year wrote that his family is safe; and Joseph, the headmaster of Carrenage School is safe, but his brother was killed. Pastor Maude Hyppolite, the pastor responsible for both the school at Carrenage and the little church at Olivier, is also safe. The mission house is damaged, but I don't know how badly.

We had planned to stay in a new mission house this year, one just completed. I had heard wonderful things about it, and they had given us a very attractive plan for taking care of our team. Those plans are gone, for that house is "flattened." I've never seen the house, but I feel sadder than I can say because the Christian community had worked hard to build it, making it a comfortable place for short-term missionaries to stay. They were so proud of their contribution to our work, and now it is gone.

Both Pastor Montreuil Milord, my Haitian friend in South Florida, and Jean Marnochy, my teacher friend, told me that rice is so expensive Haitians cannot afford to buy it. A 50 pound bag of rice that once cost $250 Haitian dollars now costs $400 or more, which equates to over three times what we are paying for rice to fill the container.

Our church has sent money to South Florida to Pastor Milord, whose friend ships containers all over the world. They are filling a container as I write, and it will go this week to either Port St. Mark or Port au Prince. Pastor Milord will meet the container and supervise the distribution of the food to the people in Petit Goave, Carrenage, and Olivier. Men from the churches and possibly some of the teachers will help them with the distribution. He'll take pictures of the distribution, and I'll post them as soon as they arrive.

Homosassa United Methodist Church and Hernando United Methodist Church have prepared several hundred Health Kits to send to Haiti. They will not go in the first container, since food is the most critical need right now. The first container is full of food. We will take the Health Kits to Miami to be shipped in the second container.

Our church members have been extremely generous, and we have more money to send for a second container just as soon as we are assured that Montreuil was able to get the food to the people who need it in our little commumities.

I continue to thank you for your prayers for the people. The horror of the quake may now only a terrible memory, but the desperate need continues.