Haiti . . . the beginning days

We have now been in Haiti 6 days. This has been the longest six days in my life. Not from doing much physical work, but from all the emotional stuff we have gone through.

We made it from Columbus to Miami on Sunday.

Monday morning God kept putting the right people in our paths and we made it on our flight form Miami to Santa Domingo on stand-by. We flew to the DR, was picked up by a taxi driver/pastor, drove all over town, went back to the airport and picked up Shawn, drove to our guest house and slept for 4 very short hours.

Tuesday we woke up at 4 am, drove 5 hours to the border, swung by the hospital that has over 500 Haitian patients, lots of American doctors and only 3 translators! IT was very heart breaking to be there, there were no beds, so people were just laying everywhere! There were not enough nurses to change bandages, the patient charts were a piece of notebook paper taped on the wall above there heads. Roro found a young man that he knew so we stayed around for about an 1 to take care of him. We also met some other people. One lady had a head injury and her fingers were very infected. She had a 1 month old baby girl who broke her arm during the quake. We met another mom who had a broken him and leg who just had her baby girl 5 days before! Sarah asked to hold the 5 day old baby and the mom said ‘only if you promise to take her with you’. That broke our hearts! I was ready to take that baby in a heart beat! How loving and unselfish is that mothers love for her baby! It totally reminded me of God’s love for us - that He sent his very own son down to die just for me!

As much as we wanted to stay and knew we were needed, we had to move on. We drove straight through the border - no one stopped us and no one asked to see our passports! So, I guess we ‘snuck’ in the country cause our passports aren’t stamped for Haiti! We had to wait at the border for over 2 hours for our ride. He has 2 flat tires and no cell service. We drove into PAP and just got a glimpse of the destruction of buildings and walls.

Once we got to PAP, Shawn wanted to go and get his son. Nandy’s orphanage was completely gone! But all the boys were safe!

Tuesday night we felt like it was safe to sleep inside of Roro’s house. We ate a peanut butter sandwich and drank a coke and then was in bed by 7pm!

I woke up at about 5:30 am. I was just laying there dozing in and out and listening to the noise of life happening outside my window. At 6 am, I felt the bed shaking, opened my eyes and the whole room was swaying form side to side. I yelled for Sarah to get out and we both ran for the door! Those first couple of steps were hard cause the room was still moving. By the time we got to he door the shaking had stopped but we did not! We ran for our lives down the stairs and outside. My dad met us at the stairway and ran with us, but he kept asking what was wrong. He thought there was a thief inside trying to get us and that is why we were screaming. Yup, my dad slept through a 6.1 earthquake. It ‘shook’ us up really bad. Everyone in the house made it outside and nobody was hurt. After we calmed down, we went back inside only long enough to dress and pack our stuff up. We were no longer sleeping inside again!
The rest of the day was spent waiting on Shawn and my dad. They went inside the embassy with Nandy and Martin. Both of them had adoption papers and we wanted to get them out of here and into the States. Sarah and I waited outside with Roro and at about 1pm, a friend of Roro’s meet up with us. His name is Phillip and he lost his wife and 2 kids in the earthquake. He still has 2 sons left. Toskanny, a very sweet and mature 9 year old and Rachid, an extremely scared and clingy 2 year old. Phillip wants to get out of the country and he wants his sons out of here too. Sarah and I tried taking the boys into the embassy to adopt them as our own, but we couldn’t. So then we tried getting them in as a family, but the 2 yr old needed to get his injuries checked out by a Dr. first.

Shawn got his papers to take Nandy home with him and he wanted to go NOW! So we dropped him off by the airport and him and Nandy walked to the airport. Sarah and I drove around with Phillip and his boys and found the medical ship Comfort. We had a Dr. Look at Rachid who said he was fine. We had Phillip take us back to our new sleeping place - Roro’s cousin house. We were going to sleep in a drive way away from the house and walls. We were SO tired and very hungry. We told the Dr. (Roro’s cousin) and so she went and fixed us something small for dinner. Sardines in a red sauce eaten on bread. It took all that I had to eat half of it. I was able to sneak the rest of it to the dogs. Roro and dad finally came back at about 7:30pm. Sarah and I weren’t super worried but I did feel a lot better once they were back with us. Being out after dark is just not a smart thing to be doing right now.

We saw more of PAP that day. Houses flattened, walls broken, people living on the streets - literally under makeshift tents from sheets. Very draining of our hearts. :0( The language was slowly starting to make more sense to me. I could understand a lot of what was being said, but still very choppy in speaking it myself. Sarah was the opposite - she could speak but didn’t understand much.