Hi everyone, from all of us here in Haiti. I can't
even begin to explain this last week since arriving...
After our memorable airplane ride, we hit the ground running! You should be here when we are trying to get one-hundred kids in school, besides handling the normal activities and daily work, and you don't know what you are missing until you try to get four, forty-foot containers out of customs that have been going through the process for months, accumulating daily charges, and you have had to deal with a zillion offices for all that time! That was our first week back!
We needed the supplies in those containers so badly. Donations of supplies coming into the country have dwindled considerably and we have to purchase everything; toiletries, diapers etc. Just this week, we had to order 44 dozen diapers and they are gone in no time, as we have so many special needs children. Our depots have been empty and the only relief has been what the visiting teams bring in. In Haiti, it's like having to put our hands in an empty barrel daily, but the miracle is, when we do reach into that empty barrel, we always seem to pull out what we need for that day. It can't be explained, except by the supernatural hand of God!
Finally our containers were ready to be released, but the storage charges were astronomical, as the process, even with our franchise, had taken so long. You should try working through the process... they release it JUST BEFORE your nervous breakdown! We had absolutely no money at all to pay any of the fees, which came to several thousand dollars. There was a small team here and we all gathered together to pray, the barrel again empty and dry. Every day the charges were accumulating. The next morning I found out that a team member had called some business men telling them of our desperate need. We received word that they had pooled their resources and wired the money we needed that day.
In 24 hours the containers were paid for and began arriving at New Life... how we had waited for this day!
All the kids in the orphanage, little ones and big ones, even little Wisben, (who lost one leg in the earthquake and can hop faster than most people can run!), carried all the boxes with such great joy! We were all were so excited even to receive a few pieces of very outdated furniture for the guesthouse...it was new to us! There were packages of various supplies, clothes etc. It took us several hours to unload and the hot sun was really beating down, but it was Christmas for us in October! The next day the second container came. A forty-foot container filled with thousands of packets of food from a friend that coordinated with FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN...food full of dried chicken, rice, vegetables, and vitamins.
Food!! How can you ever put a price on the greatest need ever here after spending the entire week visiting hungry children in so many various orphanages, bringing them everything we could get our hands on? Thank God, last week, the visiting team had paid to purchase some food that we carried to as many orphanages as possible, but what about tomorrow?? Again, where is the barrel we reach into? This time it's a forty-foot container packed full of food...food for the many orphanages and the poor elderly, food to respond to the many calls coming from the mountains, the villages desperate for food where so much malnutrition exist.
We wasted no time in beginning the distribution, even having a boat come in to Port-Au-Prince from the interior coastal villages. We loaded a truck and took it to the wharf to meet them. When this boat returns, the pastors will climb literally hours down the mountains, packing these supplies on the backs of mules or carrying the boxes on their heads and shoulders, bringing food back to the hungry children. I wish everyone could experience the joy we feel when we receive these desperately needed items.
When you are constantly in touch with so many orphans, which we are, and see the needs of so many in these remote mountain villages, their cry for help never leaves your heart. That's why we can get so excited over a container or any supplies that come, or extra money given to purchase food or medicine. When we didn't have the money to release these containers, someone said that we might have to let them go back. I said I would rather stand begging on a street corner with a bucket in my hand to get the money, than let these containers go back when so many need it so badly! Of course, we don't stand on street corners with buckets, we just kneel and pray and reach into GOD's bucket and pull out His faithful supply again and again.
Wednesday the last containers will be unloaded and will meet the needs and answer the prayers of many.
Blessings,
Miriam, Staff & Children
Love has no border
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