Charis Family,
I know that all of you have been seeing Haiti in the news with increased frequency lately, and many of you have messaged us asking about the situation in our villages. I apologize for not having communicated with all of you over the last few weeks, but the needs and difficulties amongst the Haitian people are currently all-consuming, in terms of our time and efforts, and we greatly appreciate all of your understanding and prayers concerning our family and the Haitian people.
Over the last 7 weeks Haiti has experienced three catastrophic events: 1) the Haitian President was assassinated in his home, 2) an earthquake more powerful than the one that devastated the country in 2010 struck the South of Haiti, and 3) most recently, a powerful tropical storm hit the island dropping over 10 inches of rain on our villages in the South. All of this tragedy occurring over such a short period of time is disheartening, and the usually strong and resilient Haitian people are beginning to show signs of frustration, desperation, and hopelessness. Allow me to now briefly address how each of these three events have affected our geographical areas of ministry.
Presidential Assassination
The Presidential assassination was a big blow to the nation as a whole, but didn’t create too many issues in our region. Due to countless unanswered questions, indisputable lies, and many facts that point to an inside job, the people are angry at their leaders, fearful that this loss of leadership will result in either anarchy or worse leadership, and upset at the national chaos that is ensuing in their country as the world watches in horror and unbelief. The Prime Minister has assumed interim leadership of the country until the national elections occur this fall. Haiti looks forward to the upcoming elections when newly elected leadership will take control of the country.
7.2 Earthquake
The earthquake hit Haiti at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday, August 14th. Its Richter magnitude was recorded at 7.2 which eclipsed the 7.1 of the 2010 earthquake that killed over 220,000 people. The epicenter of the quake was located in the Southwest area of Haiti. In the Southwest there are two large cities names Les Cayes, and Jeremie with a combined population of around 250,000 people. These cities are roughly 75-80 miles from our area and the tremors were felt throughout the country and were even reported to be felt in Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. On August 15th, 24 hours after the quake struck, there were 304 people reported dead. Now, 6 days later at the time of this writing, there are 2189 people dead and 12,268 injured in serious/critical condition. More will be added to the numbers of dead and injured as the people continue to search the rubble for bodies. 75,000 homes were destroyed affecting 135,000 families who are now homeless, and 94 of the area’s 255 schools were destroyed leaving many children without a school building. Additionally, churches, businesses, hospitals, and clinics were destroyed and/or damaged. The injured and sick are laying on makeshift cots outside in the scorching hot temperatures and medicine, especially pain medicine, is scarce. Our area was not hit with major damage, but many have family members in Jeremie or Les Cayes where the situation is awful.
Tropical Storm Grace
Just when the Haitians were trying to process and deal with the aftermath of the earthquake, the tropical storm struck dumping over 10 inches of rain on the Southern part of the island. This heavily impacted our area as the cumulative affect of the rain running down from the mountains transformed streets and walking paths into powerful, fast-moving rivers that swept everything away in their paths. Farmland and crops were washed away in minutes, livestock and animals were killed, homes were both destroyed and heavily damaged, and deaths of very young children and elderly have been reported. We have been fielding countless calls that break our hearts. Homelessness, inability to feed children due to loss of farms and animals which existed as a means to an income, homes full of deep mud and water with the resultant inability to lay down and sleep, sickness, etc. The stories we are hearing and the pictures and videos that we are being sent are too much for anyone to bear as we love all of these people and share in their suffering as we hear their cries.
Personally, Joy and I have such a difficult time processing these kinds of events. When tragedy hits and the result is overwhelming anguish and misery for our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ, our first thought is that we have to help everybody, but of course we can’t help everyone and that just kills us. So with prayer, prayer, and more prayer, we ask God to help us and show us who to help, where to help, and how to help.
We are humbly asking you all to join us in this prayerful inquiry. Please ask God if, and how, He wants you to help these people who are going through incredibly difficult times. In countless cases we are the only hope they have, and God has put us in this position, as His instruments, as an absolute honor—the honor involved in helping our brothers and sisters in Christ, the honor of serving the poor, the honor of putting our faith into action and allowing our words and thoughts to manifest as acts of kindness and selfless living, and the honor of living and making decisions like Christ would. A passage in Scripture that always challenges, shocks, and motivates me all at the same time is 1 John 3:16-19:
“By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in Him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him.”
This is God’s Word speaking directly to us at times such as this. We are the one’s in this passage who have the world’s goods, and we are currently seeing our ‘brother’ in need. Please, let’s not allow what we know about Haiti’s tribulations to pass through our mind and then go about our daily business. Let’s stop and consider what it would be like for us if tragedy struck and we were suddenly homeless, unable to feed our children, unable to take care of ourselves, and unable to lay our head down to sleep? We would want someone with the means to help us to do so.
We are Christians, and the poor and suffering in the global church are our responsibility and what an honor that is. This is God’s assignment to us, and God has put us together as a big team to specifically help Haiti—just like He puts other teams together to help other suffering people and nations in the world. I wouldn’t write in this desperate tone if the situation in Haiti didn’t require it. So please, pray and ask the Holy Spirit how He wants you to respond, and together we can give a currently hopeless people hope—hope that God loves and cares for His poorest sons and daughters through mobilizing and speaking to the wealthiest of His sons and daughters (you and me) to help.
Thank you so very much for the aid that many of you have already sent. Thank you for listening to the small voice of the Holy Spirit that presses you to help. Joy and I love you all very much, and at times like this when we are beyond overwhelmed and our hearts are daily breaking—it is knowing that all of you are in this with us that keeps us going. I strongly believe that we are a specialized team purposed to war against Satan in Haiti—and if we keep going I know for certain that Christ will win this war through the willingness of His servants (us) to daily rise and engage the enemy in battle! Have a blessed day and thank you for remembering your brothers and sisters in Christ in Haiti, and thank you for fighting on their behalf!
Your brother in Christ,
Malcolm