The past few days have been quite a whirlwind of activity for Cherlie Severe and myself, as we’ve tried to assess the situation in Haiti from our vantage point in south Florida. We had planned to fly back to Haiti on Tuesday and resume our normal clinic activities. But our plans, like those of the 9 million inhabitants of Haiti, went out the window when the earthquake struck on Tuesday afternoon, January 12th.
As I mentioned previously, we investigated several possibilities for doing some relief work in the Port-au-Prince area, since we are unable to return to Jeremie at this time. We have decided to volunteer with Relief International (www.ri.org), a large relief organization that’s based in California. They already have begun to assemble a team on the ground in Port-au-Prince and we will be joining this initial team tomorrow. The plan is to fly from Fort Lauderdale to Santo Domingo in the morning and travel to Port-au-Prince either in a US military plane or by land. We will join the other team members and begin to directly assist the injured. Further details are uncertain at this point, but it seems that our work there will involve Emergency Medicine skills, language fluency and tropical medicine expertise.
We welcome your prayers for the following:
- Safety in travel and in our activities. We may be sleeping “under the stars” for the first few nights there
- Wisdom and clear thinking in dealing with the difficult medical situations we will surely face
- Physical stamina as we work in a difficult environment (even more difficult than what we usually face in Haiti)
- The Lord’s peace in knowing that this is where he wants us right now, rather than with our “family” in Jérémie
- Clear guidance in terms of the duration of our service and when we can/should return to Jérémie
We do not know how well we will be able to communicate from Haiti, but we’ll try to send information from time to time. Thank you for your encouragement and support of our efforts in a country filled with great sorrow.