I asked Janeil if he would give an account of his thoughts and feelings while he is here so that perhaps you all could have a better understanding of the devastation that has happened here. So he talked….and I typed.

From Janeil:

We inspected the damage at Ansefoleur today. We have to take immediate action as the damage is worse than we thought. We basically are going to need a lot of rock, cement, and steel to fill in the entire hole in the back of the church. This hole threatens the church’s foundation, the only set of stairs that get you up to the 2nd story, and the sanctuary. This is also where they cooked for the school. No one can use the bathrooms there either because the toilets have already fallen out into the ocean. The water came from the bottom-side and erroded all the cement. We’re started a feeding program there and we’ve already provided 1500 meals with more to come.

The Market looked horrible – it seemed very empty. Some said there were no carrots, no cabbage or potatoes. I wanted to see for myself. What I found was  – yes and no. Where 10 beautiful carrots used to sell for 1.00 each……you now find 3 pitiful-looking ones for 5.00. Where a head of cabbage was as big as an American head of lettuce…….I saw cabbage that wasn’t even as big as a baseball. I saw potatoes that were the size of golf balls or eggs. It was truly sad to see what the market had become. It will only get worse as no one can afford the new prices that are 2 and 3 times the regular amount. Now I understand those that say there are no vegetables because those that we do find  – look sick.

For tomorrow we are headed out to the far west – the Bay, Beauchamp, and Sylines Myette, The roads are just now opening back up on the other side of the river. Today was the first day trucks could go across and that’s only because a tractor/road grater came through and cleared a path in the river.

The senator called me today and said they needed help at Jean Rebel. As we try to really live up to our name and our mission – God’s seal in the northwest – we see that we need to answer the call as far out as Jean Rebel and Mole St. Nicolas.

We need you to help us and we need those in the Cincinnati area to get on board with this pack-a-thon that’s going to be with Kids Against Hunger  – September 24th/25th/26th. That container leaves on the 29th of September and should get to us by October/November. We need you to come pack food as well as donate items.

We are looking in these next days to set up enough feeding stations for those that are most effected by the storms and provide 5000 meals a day – Monday through Friday. The food is too expensive to buy it here to continue to keep up at this pace. So we need you to contact your local Kids Against Hunger Stations. Kids Against Hunger are able to provide a nutritious meal that provides 70% of your daily needs for 25 cents a meal. I simply cannot do that here. There simply isn’t enough food available and the prices are too outrageous.

The only hope that we have had is a gift that was given to us from Feed My Starving Children. It had 285,000 meals in one large container. It came only a few days before the hurricanes hit. We are opening up our store houses – realizing that when this food came and the timing of it – God already knew the devastation that was awaiting here in the northwest. We continue to seek God’s blessing and ask that we might be His seal – His mouth piece in the northwest zone. We are the only mission in this zone that had this much food already sent by God to us for these tough times that lie ahead.

As we ration out this food we see that the best we can do at this pace of 5000 meals a day –  is two months. I’m hoping that after that 2 months we’ll have this Kids Against Hunger Food from Cincinnati . We need more to come as we continue to take the Gospel – even in these tough times – to the entire population of those that live in the northwest zone of Haiti.

Jody has posted below pictures of Ansefoleur and St. Louis damage. We’ll take more photos as we head out west tomorrow. Please keep the mission, the northwest zone, and Haiti in your prayers. Pray for God’s guidance and wisdom as we make some tough choices on who we can and can’t help.
Your Fellow Bond Servant,
Janeil