Longer delayed than I would have liked by the astronomical summer airfares, and threatened by the vicious onslaught of three hurricanes in two weeks upon the oountry least able to deal with such catastophes, the trip was in fact "normal" (for Haiti). I expected to get off the plane with disaster all around me, but in fact Port-au-Prince appeared pretty much as usual. A visit to St. Dorothy's and St. Nicholas School at LaPlaine found water still standing in the courtyard, but no substantial damage — except to the roof of St. Nicholas School, which was to all intents and purposes destroeyd (as well as most of the contents). Please see the school's page for more information and updates.
The trip to Cyvadier/Jacmel was not difficult, but there was extensive damage to the mountain highway from the hurricanes: numerous landslides reduced the highway to a single lane, and one (astoundingly, only one) destroyed one lane of the highway for a short distance. One backhoe in the entire 40km of highway — everywhere else, crews of men with picks and shovels laboring to clear the slides. Return to "normal" will doubtless take months. Jacmel itself (Gustav made landfall only a few miles west of the city) I expected to find devastated — and was delighted to find that was not the case. At Cyvadier (a few miles further east from the center), there appeared at first glance to be little permanent damage — apart from the all but total destruction of nearly all gardens and crops (very serious in such an impoverished country). But it wasn't quite as good as it looked. I sat one afternoon on Christina's porch (her home, constructed of concrete, had weathered the storms quite well), enjoying a beautiful mountainside view. Sadly, she told me that two weeks before there had been eleven homes and two small churches visible on that mountainside. Now — nothing.
At St. Augustine's, Sunday services as usual were a joy. While much work had been accomplished on the school (desperately in need of more classrooms), it had unfortunately not been completed, for lack of funds for materials and labor.
Much of the trip was occupied with efforts to secure release of the container-load of food donated to the Mission by Feed My Starving Children. The container actually arrived in Haiti before my arrival — but its final release from Customs didn't come until long after my departure. For more information, click here.
Despite some enduring weather concerns (we had torrential rains and high winds every evening after my return to Port-au-Prince), the Lord blessed the remainder of the visit and the return trip, accomplished without difficulty or delay.
As always — remember these little ones, your brethren, in your prayers and generosity. The needs are so great, the resources so inadequate!