Tyler Returns from Haiti
As you know on January 12, 2010, at about 5:00 pm, Haiti was ravished by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake. On hearing of the quake our hearts instantly sank. Throughout the evening we would read tweets from missionary friends detailing the devastation; by morning the entire world would learn that Haiti was in ruins.
Our first course of action was to confirm the status of the ministries we source and to try and make contact with the families we serve. We were relieved to learn the ministries were mostly well and had immediately begun helping the Haitian people who had suffered harm. By Saturday, we would learn that Magnalie’s birth mom and siblings were well, and on Sunday Matthew called to say he and his family were well. We asked Matthew to start looking for all our families and we also let him know that Tyler would be there soon.On January 20th, Tyler and a Haitian friend of ours, Yves were in Haiti to look for all of our families and a few other people that we had been requested to find. Right away they found many of our families and in the days to come all. Sadly, we learned that Job and his wife Yvette had lost their four year old son, Rodlin. We also learned that Villan, the daughter of Jean and Venise was in a hospital in the DR with a head injury. She is expected to do well.
Tyler was also able to establish that all of our families except for Mimose had lost their homes. He was also able to give each family $100.00 to keep them for a couple of weeks. We will now begin the planning phase, to help our families rebuild their lives. Our priorities are food, shelter, and medical. For now we will give them money to buy food. As soon as CAM is able to function as usual we will go back to having food delivered to them. Housing is going to be complicated though we are working on ideas now. For medical needs we will rely on ministries we source and will continue to source them.
Tyler’s trip could not have happened if not for the generosity of many, many people. Let me tell you from the start, our church, HighPointe was in contact with us rolling out the carpet of giving. They immediately arranged for Tyler and Yves to have a flight into Haiti through MFI. We just couldn’t have done this on our own. They also paid all Tyler and Yves expenses. We cannot even tell you the support we have felt from our church family. They have just been generous beyond our wildest imaginations. Thank you, High Pointe Church. Then there are those individuals who made sure we had cash in hand to give to our families, $1,500.00 just for this trip and thousands more to continue our efforts. And that’s not all, our friends Clint Goddard and Ken Johansson who also have a ministry in Haiti, Coastal Haiti Missions delivered to Tyler 25 solar flashlights that are actually strong enough to light up a room. These were a super big hit and everyone wanted one. Thank you just isn’t enough.
Tyler and I are hopeful that this will be a turning point for Haiti; from the ruins a new Haiti will emerge. Please pray for Haiti and her people, and for all the brave people who stayed in Haiti to help the Haitian people.