Wednesday, January 13, 2010

EarthQuake

January 12, evening time, a huge earthquake hit near Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
Many friends who follow this blog or who just care about Haiti and our midwife training program, are emailing and texting to see if we have any special needs or information on the situation.

Of course, good news- bad news.
Good news; Hinche, where our midwife training program is headquartered, is about 70 miles northeast of Port au Prince, in the mountains. Nadene heard today by email from Danise, our Haitian midwife- teacher "I'm ok, no problem in Hinche". Nadene also reported everyone at Heartline Ministries, (Beth & John McHoul, etc.) our Port-au-Prince hosts when we travel through,are shaken but safe. So there are some big sighs of relief.
Of concern is Shelly,B. our American CNM volunteer who was working in Hinche last week. She was planning to be in PaP around now, and we do not yet know how/where she is, last I knew. My son Stephen has a Quaker friend, Julian, who was in PaP with his sister; they escaped a crumbling building but both have some injuries from rubble. My heart goes out to the Haitians, and friends there trying to help. It makes me weep to know that before this event, they were barely scraping by in terms of health care, infrastructure, and functionality...now what?
I think of the ravine below Petionville, housing 70,ooo souls in tiny huts and shacks, and I am afraid to imagine what has occurred there. Clearly our country, and the international community is going to their aid, and I thank everyone for praying, very hard, for all the people in Haiti.

2 comments:

  1. Incredibly relieved to hear that nearly everyone you're close with has survived this tragedy... I had no idea of just how far Hinche was from Port au Prince.
    I'll be keeping everyone in my prayers in the upcoming days and months...

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  2. I am so very happy that you have some good news. I hope that you are able to find out about Shelly. This is so very sad and I hope your trip back in March brings much much much needed help and aid.

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