Relief supplies arrived at Williamson project thanks to Feed the Hungry and Stefan Radelich including water, food, and diesel fuel. All children and staff from Cazeau orphanage have been evacuated to Williamson and arrived late this afternoon. They drove out in a convoy with the women and children singing, and I got this e-mail from Stefan:
“After I called you today, our truck ‘happened’ (Divine providence) to wind up following Susie’s pickup with a bunch of praising ladies in the back and the last load of kids… we followed them into the Williamson site. What a great moment to see those kids there, all safe & sound. Let a few tears out & had to really hold back from losing composure. Dropped off the rice & beans (should be enough for 10-12 days for everyone if they keep watch on portion sizes — it’d be a shame to leave food cooked & unfinished in times like this). Dropped off 50 gallons of bottled water & 30 gallons of diesel to fire up the generator. Hope to connect with them tomorrow in Cite Soleil should Divine Providence lead again.”
Susie and Mde Chenet will appear on CNN Morning Show Wednesday January 20th. They are supposed to be on the first hour of the 2-hour program.
We actually got on our Skype with Susie and the US Team at Williamson this afternoon and talked for a while and she got to see how the doggies are doing! The US team in Haiti seems to be very exhausted, but in much better spirits.
The following is a brief summary of what Susie explained about the trip into Port-au-Prince to rescue the children at the orphanage. All of this is being documented and still photos and video interviews.
“We saw mass graves alongside a number of the roads with bulldozers filling the graves with bodies to overflowing. While we are accustomed to seeing small children naked in the streets, we saw many naked adults in the streets or sitting on the sides of the road who were either robbed or ran from their homes in the middle of the night to escape the catastrophe. The devastation is everywhere. The city looks like a war zone, neighborhood after neighborhood. The children and staff at the Cazeau orphanage were so overjoyed to see us that they started singing and praising God. When we got back in Williamson we were overjoyed that relief supplies were literally right behind the convoy of vehicles. The staff is all thrilled to know that they still have jobs, although most of the staff lost family members and have been burying loved ones all week. Although the children at Williamson have had bottled water, because the generators were not working they have not bathed for at least a week and they were filthy, dusty, covered with cuts, and scared to sleep inside the buildings. They have started playing again, we are getting them cleaned up, and they are smiling and going inside the buildings. We have chickens we are raising running around and roosters crowing in the background. The smell of cooking food is incredible when you are this hungry.”
Tuesday the US team is going to deliver some of the supplies that we have received to others who are in greater need. There is a planning session scheduled tomorrow with the US team and the Port-au-Prince team to decide on the next courses of action.
Of particular concern are the feeding programs in the north of the country (Paulette and Phaeton) where we feed a minimum of 1,300 people a day sometimes over 2,000 a day. We are in urgent need of someone to donate the cost of buying a 4WD diesel truck so that we can provide supplies to the north. We have arranged shipping from Miami if we can get the vehicle purchased in the next day or two. The vessel will leave the Port of Miami this coming Monday and we received news today that the government has opened the port in Saint Marc, which is a reasonable distance from Williamson with passable roads.
Mde Chenet sounded much more upbeat when we spoke to her today. Here is her story of her eyewitness report of the earthquake:
“I was going to deliver an invitation to the grand opening of the Williamson project to the owner of the Villa Creole, located at the top of the mountain above Port au Prince known as Petitonville. This is the location of the best hotels in Port-au-Prince, including the Hotel Montana and the El Rancho. I was thirsty, and when I arrived I gave the invitation to the owner of the Villa Creole and then decided to get lemonade. I sat at a table in the restaurant area, and for some reason I got up from the table and my phone rang, so I was walking away from the table when the earthquake first hit. Within an instant I turned around and the ceiling collapsed and a concrete slab fell on the table where I was just sitting moments before. At that point everyone in the restaurant jumped up and ran outside the covered restaurant area to the swimming pool area. The earthquake was shaking and moving everything, the swimming pool tilted up to a point where there was no water at one end of the pool. Trees started falling and everyone ran toward the parking lot and out the entrance of the Villa Creole. I looked up and saw the El Rancho hotel collapse right in front of me, so hard I felt a blast of wind. There is a panoramic view over Port au Prince from this location, and it was like slow motion as dust begun rising from the earthquake all over the city. It rose to the point where the sun was shining through it and turned the color to blood red. As I looked over the city through the dust, the red started to turn to ashen color. I was frantic and stopped a young man on a motor scooter and paid him to give me a ride. We had to maneuver around debris and as I came down from Petitonville I could see the frozen expressions on the faces of people trapped or killed in the rubble and debris that seemed to be everywhere I looked. Those images will never leave my mind.”
We urgently need cash donations. We need to buy one and ideally two heavy-duty trucks for delivery relief supplies to our feeding programs in Paulette and Phaeton. We can buy supplies locally. We cannot accept supplies yet. Donate online at www.haitichildren.org.
Above all, pray for the US team and the children, as well as the people of Haiti. What is impossible for man is possible with God. Our lives will never be the same.
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