Food to go in individual bags

Chruch members working all night re-packaging

Loading the bus for the trip

Bethanie school bus in Port au Prince

Speaking to the crowd

Franchette overseeing food distribution

 Distributing food

 Patiently waiting

 Franchette at work

Reaching the hungry

Dated January 21, 2010

Yesterday, January 20, with a team of 20 people from our main church in Les Cayes, we left our compound at 4:00 a.m. and headed to Port-au-Prince. We arrived there at 9:00 a.m. We went with two vehicles, a big yellow school bus and a pickup truck with the goal of distributing aid. We were armed with shoes, clothes of all sizes – even for babies, bras for women, underwear for men and women, pads for women, lotion, shampoo, toothbrushes, laundry detergent, sheets, soap, spaghetti, beans, rice, bread, 5,000 water bags and 20 gallons of water. We even had basins!

To make this possible, we had asked our congregation to bring clothes in good condition. We were amazed at their generosity! They did not have any money to give but they brought LOTS and LOTS of clothes. They also dedicated their time to make packages for their fellow brothers and sisters from Port-au-Prince. From 2:00 p.m. and all through the night, they worked tirelessly to measure the food, put different sizes of clothes in the bags – until it was time for us to go.

Prior to us leaving, we had contacted several pastor friends of ours in different parts of Port-au-Prince, in hope to cover as many areas as possible. We had chosen churches as places of distribution because these churches are the pillars of the community. When we arrived, we divided our team in two. Ignace was with one group. Franchette was with another.

Our first stop was in Carrefour, the epicenter of the earthquake. We gave supplies to about 400 people. Then we went to Delmas 33. There, we met Pastor Luc St. Felix, and we gave him and the elders of the church enough food to feed 500 people.

We also went back to our Bethanie Church in La Plaine. And there, we distributed food to about 250 people. Our fourth stop was Bourdon at the Church of God Headquarters. There were a lot of people there. We were so surprised by the crowd. We started distributing and 1,600 people benefited but there were so many people that we just left the food to be distributed.

We used the assembly line technique to distribute the supplies and we did not expose them all at once. Then, we went back to Delmas 31, at the St. Louis de Gonzague School, which is a big locale. There were so many people – thousands and thousands! We requested the help of the local police, and that was the only camp that we had requested the help of the police, due to the size of the crowd. We gave food to about 800 people. People started to be unruly at one point, and we left the food with some leaders that we had identified.

Church of God of Prophecy on the Bicentenaire was another place that was filled with people. We estimated about 900 to be there. We did not stay to distribute but we gave the supplies to the committee of the church. We did the same thing for the Church Théophile of Martissant. We left supplies with the pastor and the committee of the church for about 600 people in their community.

Souray is a place where people sleep on the streets with nothing but sheets to cover themselves (even before the earthquake). We gave supplies to 150 people on the lower part of Souray and to 200 people on the upper side of Souray.

We worked nonstop and did not even take a break for lunch or dinner. It was hard to navigate at times in PAP because of the debris on the streets and obstacles but we were able to make all of our stops.

On our way back at 7:00 p.m., about an hour into our drive, around the city of Leogane, our school bus began to overheat. We would put water in the radiator, and it would not stay in. It would flow back out (refouler in French). We would put in more water, wait for it to cool and repeat that process over again. When we got to Ti-Goave, and noticed that the bus was overheating even more, we stopped. We took the women with us in the pickup and headed to Les Cayes. The men stayed with Jean-Marie (our driver) and the bus. We ended up getting into Les Cayes at 2:30 in the morning.

We brought back some injured people with us but their cases were not as severe.

We would like to share a particular story that struck us. On our way back to Les Cayes around Cote Plage (Carrefour), we were flagged by a woman on a motorcycle taxi. We asked her where she was going and she told us that she was trying to leave PAP to go to Léogane. In her hands was something wrapped. When she stepped on the bus, we realized that what she was holding were twin babies of a month and a half. They were just discharged from the hospital. She told us that we were angels sent from God. We gave her clothes for her baby and her family, some food and some money and dropped her off in Léogane.

We hope to be used by God to reach as many people as possible. We also have medical teams that will be coming up in the weeks to come from the States and hope to provide care to those refugees that are now in Les Cayes.

Thank you for keeping Haiti in your prayers and hearts.

Police helping with crowd control

People waiting for food

How long will I have to wait?

Bags of supplies

Bags of food and water

Bags of clothing

Being a blessing

Ignace and church members at work

Les Cayes church member at work