In Leogane

• We have not heard from anyone in Leogane and none of our contacts in the US have yet heard from people in Leogane

In Fondwa

• We have not heard from anyone in Leogane and none of our contacts in the US have yet heard from people in Leogane

In Tabar, home to FHM US employee Daniel Auguste

• No news

From Jacmel

Via Susan Rogers:
From a friend's sister-in-law, who is in Cyvadier: Am in small town of Cyvadier outside Jacmel. Our area relatively safe, our hotel partly demolished...last night pulled out mattresses slept in yard, we have food water. We are all okay here. Town of Jacmel in very bad shape at a time when all were sprucing up the town in prep for Carnival.

From FHM's Executive Director, Kathy Walmer

We are having tremendous difficulty getting information out of Haiti regarding Tuesday's events. We have been notified that contact has been made with Leon Dorleans and they are safe.

Unfortunately, as we go south toward the epicenter and nearer to our Leogane community we are unable to get through.

Please keep all of Haiti in your prayers, but selfishly we ask for prayers for our partners Leon and Jackie Dorlean’s, the community of Blanchard, the Blanchard staff, Dr. Merisier and his staff, Megan our US volunteer in Leogane, Jamalyn Williamson our Fondwa project coordinator and the team she took to Haiti on Monday, The Sisters of Fondwa, all the children in the Fondwa  school and orphanage. We have so many friends and family…please keep them in your prayers.

Feel free to give me a call or send me an email. We are happy to let you know what we know which unfortunately at this point is not much more than what you can watch on CNN. tel. 919-382-5500 or kathy.walmer@familyhm.org

Please pray for the people of Haiti,

Kathy

From PAP:

There surely has been an earthquake here, a major one. A lot of
damages all over PAP. That includes Blanchard, where a wall behind
the school library has crumbled down. There are some cracks at the
church building based on what i have been told.

Part of the wall of my house has also fallen but, thanks God, we are safe. The kids are fine. It is hard to get in touch Leon and other people by phone in order to find out how they are doing. Please pray for Haiti. I can feel the house shaking while writing this e-mail. It is scary...

Please pray for our people and country.

We'll stay in touch

Luc

FHM's lead partner in Haiti, Pastor Leon Dorleans, and his wife Jacky are safe in Port-au-Prince and had email access:

Hi Kathy,

We are alive so far. PTL. We learned that the ordeal is not yet over. It is very , very bad.  No one knows how many people died from it.

The Medical clinic at Blanchard suffered no damage so far. That's not true with the school. The church is fine. No one died inside of our buidings.

Cite Soleil compound suffered lots of damages. The medical clinic at Cite Soleil suffered the most.

Please keep us in your prayers.

Leon & Jacky

Another update from Bill Glass, Haiti Outreach Ministries:

Hello my friends,

I finally get connected.

The 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti very badly.  Lots of building are
collapsed; others are damaged beyond repair.  No body knows for sure  how many people died. The situation is not yet over.

I was at Blanchard  when the major event ( hit )  took place.  It was very scary to say the least. The damages done in some of the construction works are in most cases beyond repair.  I  also visited Cite Soleil after I've seen what's happened in Blanchard.

From what I saw at 5:00 (the quake started at 4:53 and lasted 2 minutes; although, from time to time ,even now as I'm typing it continues to reappear for few seconds on different occasions)  the Medical Clinic and the Church at Blanchard seemed to be OK , the school has major cracks in front of the building by Gladys's office and on the second floor by the library.  I saw several cracks around the foundation which looks like the earth is  split around the
foundation of the buildings . Thank God we encountered no deaths so fare in our compounds. Part of the wall in Blanchard suffered some damages but not major.

In Cite Soleil, we have lots of damages done to several of our buildings. The entire walls of the compound is collapsed, the back of the medical build is down. I saw water coming out of the ground due to several splits that were on the ground. The front of the church has some damages done to it but the building is functional. Other
buildings, such as the first school building we built has some damages done to it. The worst damages  I saw in Cite Soleil are the wall and the Medical building.

I didn't have time to visit neither Repatriate or Ibo Beach.  I plan to do that later on today when I think it's safe enough to drive. I heard that the quake might last until 6:00 a.m.  I doubt it seriously if the roads would be safe  enough to drive. I saw lots of debris as I was driving back home from Cite Soleil.  I couldn't drive my car all the way home. Traffic was unbelievable and definitely indescribable. I left my car  on the airport road and walked home. My wife was happy
to see me. Cell phones weren't working; she could get in touch with me to know how  I was.

Our house so far is safe except for few blocs that felt from a shade that I built when I had the generator. I couldn't get to my office because the bookshelves are all over and blocked the doors. I couldn't get inside the office.  My wife, Andremene, Nadege and I are all fine.
My mother- in  - law's house is beyond repair but everyone is safe.
Most people including my wife decided to spent the night sleeping on the street away from any danger from any houses or walls. Several millions of people are doing the same for that's what is recommended and made sense.

That's all I could share with you for the time being; expect to hear more from me later on today after I gathered more information.

Please keep Haiti and its people in your prayers.

In the service of the King of Kings.

Leon & Jacky

Jacqui Labrom is safe and has email access:

8:04 Wednesday, January 13

Hi there friends. Many of you have written and I am sure by now you've all heard the news.

First of all - I'm fine so don't worry about me.
Amazingly I actually have Internet and email access!! Didn't think we would as digicel, one of the biggest telephone providers was off air until this morning and even now all the circuits are busy busy.

I was sitting in Epi d'OR, a big bakery/cum cafe having a meeting when the earthquake hit. At first we all thought it was a big truck going by shaking the ground, but then soon realised it was an earthquake!!  Everyone took to their heels and fled the cafe, but I stayed inside, thinking that I would either fall to the ground, or be trampled on by the crowds. And for what seemed like about 3 minutes I clung to a table and survived it.  I lost my Business phone with everything going on.
My driver Felix, was outside so we left quickly to go home - around the Delmas 75 area. A new building being constructed across the way was in ruins and on the way home there were many other walls fallen down.  We couldn't go into Delmas 75 as it seemed there was some wall or something else which had fallen and they were saying that 6 people had died.

On our way home people were in a state of hysteria, probably due to the fact that they had possibly never seen an earthquake of this magnitude in their lifetimes. I heard on the radio that it measured 7.3 on the Richter scale.

A popular church had completely collapsed - having folded in on itself and other houses and walls were down.  People were wailing and crying and didn't know what to do. They said that although there had not been a service there were some people inside the church praying or having a meeting and they were sure that if they hadn't already died they were seriously injured.

This morning the local hospital, Hopital Espoir had people laying around in the front of it, people who were injured.

My household all slept outside on a spare piece of ground as throughout the nite there were more and more tremors - only slight, but some enough to send me running out of my house in case of any danger. The tremors continued right up until around 3.am but thank God they stopped after that. Needless to say I didn't sleep - the kids did though.I think that was almost the most frightening bit, cos although we had survived the big one, no-one knew if there was another big one coming along. Most people seemed to have stayed out in the open so that they wouldn't get caught inside.  there are reports in my local area of people's houses having collapsed with them inside and nothing could be done to help them. 


I have no idea what Minustah are doing in the situation - although one of their main offices is in an old hotel 7 floors tall, so I can imagine there must have been panic there for them to get out.  I can't get thru to any of my mates in Minustah to find out and have been trying to ring other friends to see if they're ok but no lines available. Several helicopters went overhead last nite.

There was a Tweet message from Richard at the Oloffson who said that the Hotel Christophe - which is one of the main head offices of Miinustah - an old hotel which is 7 floors high, and the Montana !!! were flattened!! I can't believe it until I hear it reported for sure, but a friend just rang me and I repeated that to her and she said normally she can see the Montana from her  terrace but she can't see it. I hope it is not true - a disaster and I am anxious about one of my good friends, Ann Barnes who works for Minustah in the Christopher building. I can't get hold of her on the phone, but that may mean nothing as impossible to phone out!! She was on the first floor so I hope to God she made it out alright.
The radio was reporting that the Palace, several Ministries like the Ministry of Finance, Justice and Culture had all suffered damage to their offices.  Plus schools had collapsed with children inside, but thank God it happened around 5pm - first of all in the daylight, but also when most children had already finished school.
I was waiting for Metropole radio but they've just gone off the air - possibly because they've run out of electricity.

There is no electricity of course as all the wooden electricity poles were down. This is going to take a long time to get sorted.  WE saw gas pumps which had been wrecked.

This is as much as I know at the moment from my perspective in my area.

I couldn't get in touch with Felix my driver all nite of course but got his son this morning and he said that their house had collapsed - I hope and pray it's not too bad, but have no idea really. Plus his Mother, Felix's wife had a fractured foot from the incident.
But I'm fine and still positive.

I read on MSN that 3 million were affected - so the Red Cross says, but don't know how they can come up with a figure like that. I heard that Aux Cayes in the S. West and Jacmel in the S. East and Cap Haitian werel badly affected. Haven't heard anything about poor Gonaives and I pray that God missed them out!! I'm waiting for the radio to give more information but of course they are reliant on people in local areas phoning in and that's going to be difficult. I don't know where the epicentre was.
I'm fine and certainly in a better state than many many people here.

I'll keep you in touch with anything new that comes up.

Pray for Haiti once again hit by a terrible tragedy!!

Best regards

Jacqui

 

Church News via Presbyterian Church USA

A message to all members of PCUSA Haiti Mission Network (13 January, early)

Dear Friends in Christ: We have devastating news to share with you from Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake yesterday. According to reports I have received here in Les Cayes, the damage in Port au Prince and areas around it is terrible. There is no Cathedral. The entire Holy Trinity complex is gone. The convent for the Sisters of St. Margaret is gone. The Bishop's house is gone. College St. Pierre is gone. The apartment for College St. Pierre is still standing. Bishop no longer has a house in which to live. In Trouin, four people were killed during a service. In Grand Colline, the church is gone. In St. Etienne, the church is gone. In Les Cayes, BTI is OK, but some people were injured trying to get out of the buildings during the quake. The rectory in Les Cayes is in very bad condition The Rev. Kesner Ajax Executive Director, Bishop Tharp Institute (BTI) 8 Rue du Quai, Cayes Tel. Office: 011-509-2286-4676 011-509-2286-4677 Mobile: 011-509-3445-3346 011-509-3724-8376 Mailing address: 100 Airport Ave Venice Fl. 34285 Or Partnership Program Coordinator Episcopal Diocese of Haiti C/o Lynx Air P.O. Box 407139 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33340

A message to all members of PCUSA Haiti Mission Network (13 January, 4:40 pm)

Statement regarding PC(USA) mission personnel and partners in Haiti Our concern for our brothers and sisters in Haiti continues to grow as we hear news accounts and receive information from our partner church, the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti. We have learned that four people were killed while worshiping in an Episcopal congregation in Trouin. Several major Diocesan buildings in Port-au-Prince were destroyed, including theHoly Trinity Cathedral, the bishop’s home, the Sisters of St. Margaret convent and College St. Pierre. The earthquake also destroyed church buildings in Grand Colline and St. Etienne. We anticipate additional reports of casualties. Sharyn Babe, the PC(USA) mission worker closest to the earthquake’s epicenter, and her husband, Rodney, have communicated that Sharyn is hospitalized in Port-au-Prince. We are waiting for additional information from Rodney about her condition. Mark Hare, the other PC(USA) mission worker in Haiti, and his wife, Jenny, live in Papay, a town about 100 miles from the epicenter. The Hares have told Presbyterian World Mission that Papay did not receive major damage and that they are safe. —Issued by the World Mission Security Team on January 13, 2010

News from Matthew 25

"We are all OK physically at the house, including Domond and family and Vivienne Haitian. Have not heard from Ricardo. We were home when it hit. The house stood up well, does not appear to be any serious structural damage.downstairs, but upstairs is pretty bad, unusable as a matter of fact.

Matt 25 cooked up 4 big pots of soup for the people coming for treatment, and served as a triage and treatment center. We were able to climb over the fallen bookcases and shelves and retrieve a lot of meds and supplies we had in our depot

Sr Mary, Vivian and our 6 guests performed superbly in treating many injured. Eventually, 3 Haitian doctors showed up, I think when they heard we had supplies.

Worked till about two in the morning. We were also one of the few houses to have power with our inverters and batteries, so we set up 3 o4 4 lights on the soccer field to help with the treatment.

The hospitals are either badly damaged or destroyed, and have stopped taking patients as they are overwhelmed.

Pray for our sisters and brothers.
Pat, Viv, Sr. Mary"

News on St. Joseph's Home from Hearts with Haiti

The St. Joseph house in Port au Prince has been devastated. The five floors beneath the chapel collapsed. Most of the kids were outside and all survived and are accounted for.

Bill Nathan, the director, was in the chapel on the sixth floor at the time of the earthquake. He jumped down to a neighboring roof and worked his way to the ground. He is injured but stable, and is at the small clinic next door.

There were guests traveling to Jacmel and they made it safely. As far as we know, the kids at Trinity are safe. Wings of Hope has structural damage but all the kids are safe and are living in the new kitchen.

A recent update from Rene Dietrich sent at 12:36 pm, Wednesday:

Major earthquake in Haiti. Limited email and electricity. None of either at Wings. I am borrowing a computer at the Baptist Mission, blessings to them. I will post updates on Facebook as I can and hopefully those will also be posted on the Hearts With Haiti, Broken Wings and Haitian Timoun websites.

St. Joseph's is destroyed.Wings has major structural damage. All the Wings and SJ kids are now in the front building at Wings. Bill and TiPatrick were both seriously injured. We're trying to get them into a hospital but all are full. No status on them yet. Limited word from Jacmel is that Trinity House and the TH kids are okay.

But the road between PAP and Jacmel is not passible. Please keep the SJF and all of Haiti in your prayers. This is a major disaster. The Caribbean market is totally destroyed, as is the Palace and the National Cathedral. The images are UNBELIEVABLE! Lots of death and destruction.


Peace and Love, Renee

Message from Stan Wiebe via email sent at 1:37 pm, Wednesday:

Just wanted to let you know that we are all safe.  An amazing experience.  We are heading to Gves.  The airport is closed so am assuming the group is not coming.  Job, Fequens & Fonsner are alive from what we were told.  Most/many bldgs flattened.  We were at Sam's - ran for our lives out of the bldg.  All slept on the grass outside.