To God Be the Glory!

He has surely done great things today.

First things first. I know that everyone wants to know the story behind what happened with the food at the port in St. Marc. There is no way I can describe it all but I will do my best. Hopefully Jeremy is keeping up with his journal so when he gets back he can fill in the gaps.

This morning Alex, Jeremy and Dickens left Petionville and drove to downtown Port-au-Prince in order to speak with the proper authorites about getting the food off the boat. It gets very confusing after this, so hang on for a minute. They spoke to the official who was supposed to be able to help them. Jeremy was told that he needed a letter in order to get permission to get the food. He was told yesterday that he did not need a letter, just a note on the bottom of one of the forms they had to fill out. This guy said they needed a letter. So Jeremy whips out the little mini laptop that he took with him and typed a letter. Then he needed to print it, but they did not want to let him print it there in that office. They finally found someone who would let them print the letter, but the printer was really old and broken down, so Jeremy and Alex had to hold it together while it printed the letter. So, he gives the letter to the guy who then says, "It has to be in French".

Are you kidding me?

They are able to find someone who will translate it into French, type it, and they print it again (the two of them firmly holding the printer together while it prints, of course). Now they have to show the translated copy of the letter to a certain man who is not in his office. No one seems to know where he is. Apparently he is somewhere in Port-au-Prince doing something. But he is not in his office.

Somehow they are able to get one of the employees of the Ministry of the Interior to drive them around Port-au-Prince, searching for the people whose signatures they need. It turns out that this employee lost five of his family members in the earthquake and was determined to help get food to the hungry citizens of Haiti. Miraculously they get the signatures they need, the port is contacted, and the man at the port says that although the port will be closing at 6:00, he will wait for them if they cannot get there by then. It was 4:00 at this time, and the port is at least three hours away from downtown Port-au-Prince. You can probably imagine what happened next. Jeremy proceeds to operate the vehicle in a manner in which I am quite sure a vehicle should not be operated, at least in countries with traffic laws. Somehow he makes it to the port by 6:00 and is able to get the food off the boat! That is not the only amazing part of the whole thing. The Youth With a Mission (YWAM) compound where they slept the other night is in St. Marc, and the workers from there met them at the dock to help them unload the food. Also YWAM let them use their trucks to haul the food back to the compound because the other vehicles had been unable to make it to the port in time. AND, there was a man from England by the name of Roy who also had supplies on the same boat. He is a philanthropist who has been a part of humanitarian efforts in several countries and has dealt with customs all over the world. He said he has NEVER seen customs turn supplies around that quickly in any country, ever. Basically an impossible task was made possible. If that's not enough, listen to this. One of the things Jeremy wanted to do while in Haiti was to go to the city of Jacmel to try to get some food and assistance there because it was just as devastated by the earthquake as Port-au-Prince but has received NO aid yet. Since getting the food out of the port has taken up most of his time, he had decided to cancel that trip because he would have had to spend the night there, and there is just not enough time left to do that before they leave the island. One of the men who was with YWAM and helping them unload the food from the boat is actually going to Jacmel at the end of the week. And it just so happens that of the seven pallets of food that they unloaded, only about five of them would fit into the SUVs that are traveling back to Petionville tomorrow. So guess what...that man is going to take the remaining food to Jacmel on behalf of our team! It is amazing to see how God's plan unfolds.

Whew!

Ok, now for what is going on back in Petionville.


The medical clinic was operating again today and saw even more patients than yesterday. Yesterday they saw about two hundred people and today they saw about three hundred people.

They are treating ailments such as nutritional deficiencies, eye infections (due to the concrete dust that has covered everything since the earthquake), headaches, etc. A lot of people are finding it difficult to sleep, which is causing physical problems. I am not sure if the difficulty sleeping is fear of another earthquake, the fact that they are sleeping in the street, or perhaps the roosters that are crowing every night. Jeremy said that some of the houses are still standing, but the people are afraid to sleep in them. That must be very intense fear. I know I have never felt fear like that, and can only imagine what they went through when the earthquake happened.

The evangelizing team has been handing out Bibles, explaining the gospel and praying for any needs the locals have. At one point today Mark Faulkner spoke with two teenage boys for more than two hours. I cannot wait to hear what came of that conversation.

Some of the guys have spent a good portion of the day playing with the children in the neighborhood. The kids are very affectionate and they love all the attention they are getting from our team. They have also been playing with the soccer balls the team brought down. Isn't it great that something as simple as a game of keep away can be enough to take their minds off of the tragedy for a little while? I feel for these little ones most of all. Their little worlds have been rocked by massive destruction. They are witnessing things that no child should ever have to witness. Yet we know that our God is a big God and He can heal all wounds, whether physical or emotional. In one of the emails that Josh sent to his wife today, he spoke of watching a tiny little girl get ready to lay down for bed...on her sheet in the middle of the dirt street. These heart-wrenching stories are almost more than I can bear. My heart breaks for them, especially knowing that most of them do not know Christ and have no hope for their future. Josh also talked about how difficult it was to explain what Christ had done for him to someone who had never even heard of God! I am praying that God gives them the wisdom to say the right words at the right time so that a seed is planted, even if they never see the fruit from their efforts.



These are pictures of Brett Simmons, one of the Birmingham team members, with some of the kids in Petionville. He has been handing out bibles and sharing the gospel since he's been there. He is also a chef, so he will be doing his fair share of cooking tomorrow.

...we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thes 1:11-12