Report from a missionary near Jeremie

Hi everyone.
Hope you don't mind that I update you every night for awhile.  We appreciate all of your prayers and your support for us here and the people in Marfranc and in Haiti.

We know that your prayers are lifting up our brothers and sister's here that still have no word of their loved ones.  Our phones are still out and not working and there is no way for people to get to Port to check on their families even if they wanted to.  We have no boats coming to Jeremie and we hear that the road to Cayes across the mountains is ruined in several places and no vehicles can pass.  This means that families can not get to Port to find out where their families are.  This is very, very hard on everyone.  A few have heard of deaths in their families and loved ones in Port.  I heard today that about 65% of the families in this area have children or families in Port.  Many of the people who work in Jeremie (the men especially) have families (wives and kids) in Port and work here because they have found jobs.

   We drove into Jeremie today to see if we could find 200 sacks of cement to start working on rebuilding the houses that have had walls collapse and that have holes in their walls. Steve was able to get an order for those sacks and it will be delivered tomorrow.  We will take some of it up to Pastor Plaisir's house and he will start distributing it to people at their homes.  We have to do this in a quiet, orderly manner or he will be inundated with everyone wanting cement.  He has a list of those he has visited and talked to and he will find them and give out the cement.  He says there are about 6 homes that he knows of that have a desperate need for the cement.  They have multiply walls inside and outside of their houses...that have nothing there at all. Some people will receive just a couple of sacks because they have cracks or partial walls out and do not need that much.  But many will need several sacks or more to complete their walls.  We will take pictures so that you can see what is going on.  They will probably be posted on our NLH website.  Later I can do a newsletter with more pictures and information.

   When we were in Jeremie, everyone said that the boats that bring "everything" to Jeremie would not be coming.  They  normally come twice a week, totally loaded with people and provisions.  We were told to buy things while we could, because no one knows when things will come in again.  I bought 3 sacks of rice, 1 for us and 2 for the women's feeding program that we run.  Also bought oil, spaghetti and some sugar for us.  We were also told to remember that propane comes on the boat, so to stock up.  We only have 4 small tanks and those won't last us more than probably 3 weeks.  And 2 of them are currently being used and are partly empty.  SO....if we can't get any more propane....we may not have a stove or refrigerator for very long.  We can cook on charcoal outside, but no oven....and if we don't have a refrigerator...well! ha!  Life will be interesting.  With the road to Cayes not passable, we may not get any gasoline or diesel fuel....Steve bought 60 gal. of diesel, but we don't think there is any gasoline....so we can run the big generator at least part of the day and at night...until we run out.  Candles??????

We will keep you all posted as to what happens here.